We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

BOP STAFFING, PRISON CONDITIONS TAKE IT ON THE CHIN

Last week was a bad one, publicity-wise, for the Federal Bureau of Prisons. First, The New York Times reported that a shortage of correctional officers has grown chronic under President Trump, leading to an increase in assaults on staff and contraband. Then, a New York City magazine ran a hard-hitting story on the deplorable conditions at MCC New York.

The Times said correctional officer vacancies has ballooned to over 2,100 (about 12% of the CO workforce). As a result, the paper said, “the practice of drawing upon other workers has become routine — many prisons have been operating in a perpetual state of staffing turmoil, leaving some workers feeling ill-equipped and unsafe on the job.”

In Obama’s last two years, the BOP hired 2,644 new Cos in 2016. Last year, the number dropped to 372, with the BOP eliminating about 5,000 unfilled jobs, including about 1,500 CO positions.

Cuts are occurring even though Congress increased the BOP budget for salaries and expenses by $106 million this year, and lawmakers have called for hiring more COs. As of March, there were 15,927 officers in federal prisons.

A BOP press officer said the cuts “will not have a negative impact on public safety or on our ability to maintain a safe environment for staff and inmates.” But assaults on prison staff have risen more than 8% last year over the previous year.

Meanwhile, The Gothamist (a magazine published by public radio station WNYC) last week savaged conditions at MCC New York. The article described “a rat-infested, high-rise hell just yards from the federal courts… That could be exactly the way jailers and prosecutors want it. Pre-trial detention, which often lasts years, can become not only unsafe, but coercive; as a result, individuals are pressured to provide information to prosecutors or accept plea deals in their desperation to be released, say former prisoners.” 

“You want to plead guilty and get out of this dump to a prison,” one former inmate told the magazine. “The feds have a 98% conviction rate for a reason,”, another former prisoner said. “They mentally break you… There are certain things that go on in these places that the government covers so the public would never know.”

The New York Times, Safety Concerns Grow as Inmates Are Guarded by Teachers and Secretaries (June 17, 2018)

The Gothamist, Prisoners Endure A Nightmare ‘Gulag’ In Lower Manhattan, Hidden In Plain Sight (June 19, 2018)

– Thomas L. Root