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

BIG MONEY

Remember two years ago, when the Federal Bureau of Prisons issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in response to the 20 inmates out of 150,000 plus who had big money in their commissary accounts? Of course you do, because you’ve read all 1,701 of the LISA Foundation’s posts.

But for those who came in late, in January 2023, the BOP responded to a Washington Post series that revealed that a few high-profile BOP inmates – serial gymnast molester Larry Nasser and sex predator R. Kelly – had very large inmate trust account sums while not paying restitution to victims. The Post reported that “20 inmate accounts [held] more than $100,000 each for a total exceeding $3 million,” but not necessarily that most or all of those people were shirking court-ordered payment obligations.

So 0.013% – that’s thirteen one-thousandths of a percent – of federal inmates had whopping inmate account balances, but not all of them necessarily owed any obligations for which the BOP could take their money. No matter. The BOP responded to this shocking situation by proposing an amendment to its rules that would require the Inmate Financial Responsibility Program to take 75% of anything inmates received from outside sources (such as family and friends) and to apply that seized money toward restitution, fines, child support, tax and other obligations.

Last week, the BOP showed a little Christmas spirit (or maybe common sense), issuing a Supplemental NPRM asking for comment on a softer standard. The agency now proposes a rule that would take none of your outside money if your commissary account is under $250.00; 25% if your account balance is $250.00 but under $1,000.00; 35% for accounts from $1,000.00 but under $2,500.00; 55% from $2,500.00 but under $5,000.00; and 100% of outside money when your balance is over $5,000.00.

Of course, an inmate may refuse to participate in the IFRP program, but doing so today denies an inmate anything more than about $5.00 a month pay for work, a severely limited commissary list from which to buy food and consumer goods, no RDAP “year off” credit, and no halfway house or home confinement (among other restrictions).

The Supplemental NPRM proposes adding to that list no FSA credit, meaning that an inmate would be stripped of the ability to take up to a year off his or her sentence and to get substantial amounts of halfway house or home confinement time.

The current limitations are listed in 28 CFR § 545.11.

The public may comment on the proposed rule by letter or electronic comments by February 18, 2025, through the regulations.gov website or by mail to:

Legislative & Correctional Issues Branch, Office of General Counsel, BOP, 320 1st Street NW, Washington, DC 20534.

Federal Register, Inmate Financial Responsibility Program: Procedures (December 17, 2024)

Forbes, New Rules on Federal Inmate Financial Responsibility Program (December 21, 2024)

– Thomas L. Root