We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.
ZOOM, BOP, POW!
Federal Bureau of Prisons Director Michael Carvajal testified last week before the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies. The nearly two-hour session, conducted over Zoom for COVID reasons, got ugly fast.
The headline grabber was Carvajal’s disclosure that all 37,000-plus of BOP employees have been offered the COVID vaccine, but only 49% have taken it. Congressman Ed Case (D-Hawaii) said with some incredulity, “Something is wrong when half of the officers that can take it, don’t… it is a public health matter… We’ve got to get the guards vaccine. It risks health safety and welfare of those prisoners.”
Congressman Mike Garcia (R-California) asked Carvajal to compare the BOP’s management of COVID to private prisons housing federal inmates, looking at inmate deaths for each. “It’s hard to compare them because our numbers are so different,” Carvajal responded rather evasively. The information, of course, is easily obtained from the BOP’s own website, and it isn’t even embarrassing to the BOP. The prison systems’ experience is about the same, with 12.5 deaths per 10,000 inmates in private prisons, 14.9 deaths in the BOP.
Congresswoman Brenda Lawrence (D-Michigan) braced Carvajal about conditions at FCI Danbury camp, where, she said, female inmates were denied soap, medical supplies, and feminine hygiene products, while be temporarily housed in the visiting room of the men’s prison. The director denied knowing anything about that, but told Lawrence that reports of harsh pandemic conditions were “often mischaracterized or exaggerated.” He said hygiene and medical supplies were ample, dismissing Lawrence’s report: “I don’t believe that to the level that people didn’t have them.”
But the real fireworks came from two Congressmen. Steve Palazzo (R-Mississippi) complained that his office was inundated by complaints from families of elderly, non-violent inmates eligible for CARES Act release, but the BOP delayed home confinement placement. This accusation will not come as much of a shock to many inmate families. Carvajal responded that the BOP had done a wonderful job placing inmates on home confinement.
But when Congressman David Trone (D-Maryland) began questioning, the kid gloves came off. He reminded Carvajal of a meeting he had with the Director over a year before, at the end of which Carvajal promised to get Trone information he had requested. When nothing was forthcoming after a few weeks, Trone wrote to the BOP on March 31, 2020, repeating his request. Nothing happened. So the Congressman wrote again on April 17, 2020. Again he received nothing. He then sent his staff to meet with the BOP on April 23, 2020, again asking for the information.
Being stonewalled by the BOP because you’re simply unimportant? Wow. No inmate or family member has ever experienced that. Trone implied that the BOP’s dismissive treatment of his request had something to do with his not being on the Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies at the time. He was just one of a thundering herd of 435 members of the House. Now, he’s in a position to mess with BOP appropriations.
Oops.
Trone told Carvajal he had just sent the letter again, asking for information the BOP had first promised him over a year ago. The Congressman said pointedly, “I recommend to the Biden Administration that you and your staff are incompetent and be fired. So my question for you is, can I get a ‘yes ‘to answering all of our questions?”
A chastened Carvajal promised the information.
“That would be just great,” Trone shot back, “one year later.”
Trone also went after the BOP on First Step Act recidivism programming. Carvajal said 51,000 inmates were currently taking such programming, and 21,000 have completed it. But Trone cited the December 2020 Independent Review Commission report that bluntly predicted that the BOP will fall woefully short in meeting the January 2022 programming deadline, even while institutions are returning First Step programming money that they say they can’t use. Trone asked what additional resources the BOP needed to meet the deadline.
Carvajal said he’d have to get back to Trone on that. After all, Mr. Director, who could have supposed that Congress might be interested in the implementation of First Step, the biggest criminal justice bill in almost 30 years? Carvajal’s assurance that he would provide the Subcommittee with information he should have on hand but did not led Chairman Mike Cartwright (D-Pennsylvania) to close the session with what anyone would read as an admonition to Carvajal: “We’re going to take your promises at face value.”
That, of course, begs the question: What is the face value of a BOP promise to provide Congress with information? This would probably not be a good time to ask Congressman Trone that question.
House Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies, COVID Outbreaks and Management Challenges: Evaluating the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Pandemic Response and the Way Forward (March 18, 2021)
Govt Executive, Less Than Half of Federal Bureau of Prisons Staff Have Accepted COVID Vaccines From the Agency (March 18, 2021)
– Thomas L. Root