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THE EASTER BUNNY’S WORKING FOR THE BOP

I still get asked several times a week about the persistent rumor that the Bureau of Prisons or Joe Biden or Congress or someone is going to give every inmate a time cut because incarceration during COVID was so miserable.

The “someone” is probably the Easter Bunny. I hear that the BOP would be asking the EB to deliver the time cut to every inmate in a nice basket with green plastic grass, jelly beans and a big chocolate rabbit.  Except the BOP cannot…

Because there ain’t no Easter Bunny. And there ain’t no COVID time cut, either. Such a cut has never been proposed, never been debated, and is never happening.

Harder to believe than the part about the Easter Bunny is the part about the BOP having any compassion for inmates… and that includes inmates who have been sexually assaulted by the BOP’s own employees. The New York Times reported last Wednesday that the BOP has rejected the first inmate request that it recommend compassionate release because she had been sexually abused by male employees at FCI Dublin. The reason is sobering.

Last fall, Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco pressed BOP officials to encourage inmates who have been assaulted by prison employees and might qualify for compassionate release program to apply. Monaco told FAMM that she had ordered the new BOP Director Colette S. Peters, to “review whether BOP’s policy regarding compassionate release should be modified to accommodate female prisoners who had been assaulted by federal employees,” according to the Times.

Ms. Peters has said she has begun to consider requests from inmates who have been abused and are not deemed to be threats to the community if they are granted their release.

In late January, the BOP general counsel denied an application filed by a middle-aged woman who claimed her experience made her eligible for compassionate release. She is among a number of women who have detailed pervasive misconduct during their incarceration. This case – “the first of its kind to make its way through the system — is seen by prisoners’ rights groups as a key test of the department’s commitment to use so-called compassionate release protocols for victims of abuse,” the Times said.

The Times quoted the BOP general counsel as acknowledging that the inmate’s “assertions of being groped and forced to disrobe by male staff members were ‘extremely concerning,’ but described her documentation of those claims as insufficient.”

The Times said that BOP officials familiar with the case have privately said they do not dispute her allegations and think the inmate’s release would not pose a public safety threat.

The BOP characterized the rejection as “temporary.” The Times said the rejection “reflect[s] a broader struggle by the Justice Department to free inmates abused in federal custody, when appropriate.” 

No doubt the Easter Bunny will be bringing the inmate her approval with the jelly beans.  Except that there is no Easter Bunny. 

New York Times, Justice Dept. Struggles to Carry Out Early Release Program for Abused Inmates (February 22, 2023)

– Thomas L. Root