Tag Archives: BOP

Billions for a Presidential Whim – Update for April 17, 2026

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

MONEY AND WASTE – THE BOP LAST WEEK

The Trump Administration’s Fiscal Year 2027 budget wish list proposes a $1.7 billion increase to the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ current $8.1 billion budget, building on the $5 billion extra funding for prison repair and staffing the BOP got in last summer’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Tucked into the $1.7 billion is $152 million allocated for the first year of costs to rebuild Alcatraz as a high-security federal prison facility, consistent with President Trump’s fixation of the symbolism of Alcatraz for a “tough on crime” administration. Last summer, the BOP trumpeted, “Alcatraz will stand as a beacon of American resolve, where the most dangerous offenders face accountability. For the public, it’s a promise fulfilled—a stronger, safer America. And for President Trump, it’s a project that will make our nation proud.”

We’re always proud to spend billions on a new supermax when we have a perfectly serviceable one in the high plains of Colorado.

The BOP could use some of its money more judiciously, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) told the Internet newsroom NOTUS last week. Booker complained that the BOP frequently transfers inmates to halfway houses long past when they are eligible, wasting millions of dollars in interest payments to nonprofits. “And while BOP said it’s making progress on addressing the delays,” NOTUS reports, Booker “said it’s not happening fast enough.”

“At best, this is an infrastructure and process failure; at worst, a blatant disregard for the law and public safety,” Booker, one of the co-sponsors of the First Step Act, said in a statement to NOTUS.

Homeland Security Today, Trump FY2027 Budget Proposes Record Homeland Security Boost, $1.5T Defense Spending Surge (April 5, 2026)

Filter, White House Budget: No Funds for Housing, Some for Reopening Alcatraz (April 9, 2026)

NOTUS, Bureau of Prisons Wastes Millions Holding Inmates It Could Transfer to Halfway Houses (April 7, 2027)

~ Thomas L. Root

Bad Boys, Island Living, and Money – Update for April 9, 2026

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

BOP IN THE NEWS

True Crime:  Sandra Barnes, Deputy Assistant Inspector General for the Office of Inspector General’s Investigations Division, said the office receives about 17,000 complaints a year and that roughly 80% of them concern the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP).

On Transparency Talk, Barnes described how the Investigations Division is organized into nine regions and two specialty offices, and said roughly 95% of cases open as criminal inquiries. “We’re running two investigations for every case that we have,” she said, meaning the OIG pursues both criminal allegations and parallel administrative-misconduct reviews.

Barnes said common criminal allegations include introduction of contraband, bribery, excessive use of force and staff sexual abuse.

Citizens Portal, Deputy Assistant Inspector General Sandra Barnes outlines OIG probes into BOP staff corruption and contraband (April 1, 2026)

Trump Asks Congress for Alcatraz Money:  President Trump is asking for $152 million from Congress to return Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay from a tourist attraction back into an enlarged and rebuilt maximum-security prison “to house America’s most ruthless and violent offenders.”

The New York Times said, “The plan faces immense political and practical roadblocks. It has generated enormous pushback in San Francisco, where tourism is one of the biggest industries and Alcatraz is at the top of many visitors’ itineraries.” The BOP already has a much more modern maximum-security facility in Florence, Colorado.

The island facility has not housed inmates since 1962.

The New York Times, Trump Seeks $152 Million to Begin to Turn Alcatraz Back Into a Prison (April 3, 2026)

On the Subject of Money…:  BOP Director William K. Marshall III admitted to Walter Pavlo last week that despite all of last summer’s optimism, the FY 2026 BOP budget was a disappointment. “We were very, very excited… we thought finally we’re going to be able to address some of these needs,” Pavlo reported that Marshall said. “And then we get the final bill, and it’s $8.1 billion. Significantly less than the $8.7 billion we believed was in the One Big Beautiful Bill.”

The BBB gave the BOP a one-time shot of an extra $5 billion – $3 billion for staffing and training, and $2 billion for infrastructure. Marshall said of the money for improvements, “We will use all of that, but we cannot rely on it for ongoing operations.” Leadership must now decide whether to stabilize current gaps or invest in long-term change.

Marshall told Pavlo the BOP is creating a dedicated office to oversee First Step Act implementation. “Our goal is to have 15 dedicated employees that exclusively work on FSA every day,” Pavlo reported that Marshall said. “For the first time ever, the BOP received $409 million as part of our budget for FSA Rick Stover said, “We scrutinized our FSA spending plan line-by-line. In doing so, we found funds that were not directly related to FSA implementation. That money was reallocated to other areas that directly impacted FSA. We did the same thing for the FSA-allocated positions. If we could not justify a direct connection to the position improving FSA implementation, we abolished it.’

Forbes, BOP Director Marshall Plots New Direction for the Bureau of Prisons (April 2, 2026)

~ Thomas L. Root

First They Treat You Bad… Then They Lie – Update for April 7, 2026

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

NOTE TO GOVERNMENT LAWYER – DON’T TAKE THE BOP’S WORD FOR ANYTHING

You may remember the awful case of Frederick Bardell, the Federal Bureau of Prisons inmate whose colon cancer was ignored by the BOP until it was too late, and then, when the court ordered compassionate release, dumped him on the sidewalk in front of DFW Airport, expecting the wheelchair-bound man to board and change planes to get home.

Mr. Bardell made it only through the kindness of strangers. When his parents met at the Jacksonville airport, they took him straight to the hospital. Mr. Bardell died there a week later.

Senior US District Judge Roy Dalton was furious, holding the FCI Seagoville warden in contempt and asking the Dept of Justice Inspector General to look into it. The IG issued a Report a few months ago concluding that the BOP’s delayed scheduling of urgent medical appointments led to Mr. Bardell’s “death by treatable cancer.” Contributing to the debacle, the IG found, was the “DOJ’s reliance on the BOP’s representations without further Inquiry.”

The BOP’s inferior healthcare has reared up to bite another inmate, but unfortunately for the Bureau, the inmate had been sentenced by Judge Dalton. Justina Holland sought compassionate release for an untreated medical problem, with the Government predictably denying that there was any emergency. The Court told the BOP he would grant Justina’s compassionate release if the agency didn’t get her to a breast surgeon within a month. The BOP sent her to the wrong specialist, and when an appointment with the right one was made, so much time had elapsed that she wouldn’t get in until May. When the Judge ordered the government to produce Justina’s complete medical file (including an urgent referral to a specialist from the first week in January), he got Epstein-file treatment: a lot of pages, but the critical pages, the smoking guns – such as the doctor’s urgent referral – were missing.

Last week, Judge Dalton granted Justina’s compassionate release motion. He did not mince words:

The failure to provide inmates with urgent medical care is now a well-documented problem with the BOP. See OIG Report at 50–51. Three months ago, with lumps in both breasts and bleeding from the nipples, Ms. Holland received an urgent referral for a doctor’s appointment to check for cancer. She still has not seen a doctor. The BOP’s repeated failures—to timely provide Ms. Holland with an appointment, to get her to the right doctor, even to collect her complete medical records—self-evidently show that Ms. Holland has an extraordinary and compelling medical circumstance qualifying her for compassionate release.

The Judge blasted BOP healthcare: “Nothing seems to move the nation’s federal prison system operators to improve their response to the urgent medical needs of the federal prison population,” he wrote. “Court orders go unread or ignored. OIG reports are dismissed, recommendations unheeded. Sanctions brook no change. Outside medical referrals are like Solzhenitsyn’s sick bay in the Soviet Gulag: a coveted but nearly inaccessible refuge for which only prisoners near death qualify for admission.”

He was equally blunt about the BOP’s reputation for truthfulness: Department of DOJ attorneys must be mindful in dealing with the BOP to ensure they comply with their duty of candor to the Court. A client who repeatedly fails to comply with court orders and OIG recommendations falls into the ‘trust but verify’ category of governmental agencies. There can be no presumption of regularity. The BOP will emerge unscathed, while the Government’s lawyer—and most importantly, the inmate—will carry the scars of its misfeasance.”

The BOP’s habits of misrepresenting inmate healthcare is hardly new.  But the agency should probably avoid trying its prevarications and half-truths on the same judge more than once.  This attempt did not end well for the agency (but Justina was granted compassionate release, and is presumably getting timely healthcare once again).

So there’s one winner here…

Order (Doc 207), United States v. Holland, Case No. 6:20-cr-86 (MD Fla, March 31, 2026)

NOTUS, A Federal Judge Compared the U.S. Prison System to a ‘Soviet Gulag’ Over Inmate Health Concerns (April 3, 2026)

~ Thomas L. Root

Shocking News! BOP Grievance Procedure Doesn’t Work – Update for March 31, 2026

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

DOG BITES MAN

In journalism, a “dog bites man” story is one about something that is so obvious as to not be newsworthy. Dogs bite people all the time. What would be newsworthy would be a story about a man biting a dog.

Last week, the Prison Policy Initiative published the classic canine-chomping-guy report, a revealing study that will shock no one familiar with the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

PPI studied nearly 66,000 BOP inmate administrative remedy complaints (the so-called BP-9 and its appellate brothers, the BP-10 and BP-11) filed over a 10-year period ending in January 2024. The PPI limited its study to complaints addressing medical care. The results were as sobering as they were unsurprising.

Over the period, 32% of all medical complaints filed by inmates were rejected as “improperly filed” (not enough copies, filed late or raising two issues instead of one).  Another 51% of the complaints had been closed on appeal for similar “administrative reasons.” A scant 14% of all medical grievances made it past administrative procedural hurdles, only to be denied on the merits.

Only 940 cases of the 65,712 complaints PPI studied – 1.4% of the total – were granted relief.

Your odds of buying a winning “scratch-off” are ten times greater.

Complaints about mental health and dental care were the highest percentage of cases denied relief: 78% of dental and 83% of mental health grievances were tossed out for administrative reasons. Complaints about other forced medical treatment and forced psychotropic medication had zero cases that even cleared the procedural hurdles.

PPI said, “In theory, grievance procedures are an important tool for incarcerated people to pursue fair treatment and defend themselves in a system designed to disempower them. This power is particularly important in the context of medical care, where needs are widespread and urgent, and where failure to meet them can lead to injury, illness, and death. In practice, however, the grievance system is a black hole, a time-waster, and a deterrent to complaining at all. It’s a long and winding maze of rules and technicalities that must be cleared before an incarcerated person can get their complaint to a setting that might actually force a change: the courts.”

Prison Policy Initiative, In federal prisons, the grievance system is designed to reject nearly all complaints about medical care (March 24, 2026)

~ Thomas L. Root

‘Random Compassion’ Wasting A Resource, Former DOJ Official Says – Update for March 27, 2026

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

COMPASSIONATE RELEASE NEEDS SERIOUS STUDY

Jonathan Wroblewski, a former ex officio member of the US Sentencing Commission, director of Harvard Law School’s Semester in Washington Program, and longtime federal prosecutor and defense attorney, wrote in a Substack column last week that the disparities and under-utilization of compassionate release require comprehensive review by the Sentencing Commission.

Professor Mark Osler wrote a few months ago that President Trump’s use of the pardon power is like a driver who uses a “classic Jag to knock down an old house by slamming it into a wall again and again and again as a crowd gathers, aghast. It is a terrible use of a beautiful machine.”

Wroblewski suggests that compassionate release has similarly always been a beautiful machine, even as it was practiced for more than 30 years following the enactment of the Sentencing Reform Act. Its misuse prior to the First Step Act lay in the Bureau of Prisons’ chary use of the authority. Now, the misuse lies in its inconsistent implementation even as it has morphed into something much more than just a means to send dying prisoners’ home. Wroblewski writes that now, compassionate release serves a broader function,

with the Sentencing Commission authorizing sentence reductions for those suffering from a serious physical or medical condition or a serious functional or cognitive impairment, or experiencing deteriorating physical or mental health because of the aging process. Sentence reductions are authorized for the old, for those with acute challenging circumstances, victims of abuse, and those serving an unusually long sentence that would today be different on account of a change in the law. There’s even a catch-all provision for other circumstances that are “similar in gravity” to those articulated in the Guidelines. Interestingly, there’s nothing about penitence or contrition.

But compassionate release is used seldomly and inconsistently. The BOP is holding than 10,000 people aged 61 or older. The National Council on Aging reports that almost all adults in the United States age 65 or older have at least one chronic medical condition, 40% are obese, and significant numbers have COPD, diabetes, or cancer. Of course, many studies report that older adults in prison are significantly more likely to experience serious medical conditions or disabilities, with cognitive impairments, for example, being twice as prevalent compared to their peers living in community settings. There are undoubtedly many hundreds, if not thousands of federal prisoners who are, as described in the Commission’s policy statement on compassionate release, “suffering from a serious physical or medical condition, a serious functional or cognitive impairment, or experiencing deteriorating physical or mental health because of the aging process that substantially diminishes the ability of the defendant to provide self-care . . .

About one person dies in BOP custody each day. The BOP admit that deaths are due to “cancer,” “pulmonary,” “cardiac,” “blunt trauma,” “hanging,” and “drug overdose.” There almost certainly are dozens — or hundreds — of BOP prisoners “suffering from a terminal illness,” Wroblewski wrote, such as “metastatic solid-tumor cancer, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), end-stage organ disease, and advanced dementia,” as described by the Commission in its compassionate release policy.

Data show that the longer someone is in BOP custody, the more likely it is that they will be granted compassionate release. The primary reason given by judges for granting compassionate release is rehabilitation, although the Sentencing Commission reports that “[i]n all cases where the court gave rehabilitation as a reason for the granted motion, the court also gave one or more other reasons.”

Subject to a Supreme Court decision in a pending case, thousands of BOP prisoners with long sentences will also be subject to the “changes in law” provision of compassionate release, although the precise number is impossible to calculate. Many will experience changes in family circumstances during their years of incarceration.

Wroblewski wrote that from the data, “I would expect a couple of thousand compassionate release motions would meet the Commission standards each year (an educated guess, really).” Yet Sentencing Commission data for FY 2024 show only about 2,700 inmates filed for compassionate release and of those, only 391 of the motions were granted:

But when you look just a little deeper, the data are quite troubling. They show tremendous disparities in the application of compassionate release, strongly suggesting that compassionate release is not being implemented with the certainty and fairness in meeting the purposes of sentencing required by the Sentencing Reform Act. The disparities evident from the Commission data ought to be studied further by the Commission to determine whether they are indeed unwarranted and whether further adjustments need to be made to compassionate release policy.

Wroblewski noted substantial disparities in compassionate release grants. While the Middle and Southern Districts of Florida processed 11% of the total motions filed nationwide, they only had 4% of the total number of defendants sentenced nationwide that year. Eight districts that sentenced 4.5% all defendants reported zero compassionate release motions filed. These districts collectively sentenced 2,818 defendants in FY 2024 or about 4.5% of the total.

The rate at which motions are granted varies dramatically across the country as well. “Among the districts that reported more than 20 motions filed in FY 2025,” Wroblewski wrote, “the grant rate varied from zero to 56%. In the District of Maryland, for example, judges granted 31 pct of the 95 compassionate release motions filed there, while judges in the Northern District of Ohio granted just 2.5% of the 80 motions filed, and judges in the Eastern District of Wisconsin granted zero motions of the 35 filed there.”

Although the longer a prisoner has been locked up, the greater the chance a compassionate release motion will be granted, the number of motions filed by long-serving prisoners is relatively few. And while the BOP must be asked to bring the compassionate release motion before the prisoner files it himself or herself, the BOP moved for compassionate release only 19 times during the year (out of over 2,700 filed).

Wroblewski argued, “Given the number of elderly, the number of deaths in the Bureau of Prisons, the number of long sentences being served, it seems virtually impossible that the Bureau of Prisons is applying the compassionate release statute consistently as the Commission intended.”

Substack, What’s Really Going on with Compassionate Release? (March 19, 2026)

~ Thomas L. Root

Contraband and Lousy Food – Update for February 27, 2026

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A REMARKABLE ADMISSION… AND A WARNING

BOP Director William K. Marshall took to video last week to describe with uncommon candor the BOP’s losing battle with contraband in its facilities.

In a 5-minute video posted on the BOP website, Marshall said BOP staff is confronting a steady stream of drugs, weapons and drone drops, some of which is being introduced by corrupt BOP employees.

In the last 10 months, BOP staff have used Narcan in more than 500 apparent overdose incidents. Drugs found in facilities include fentanyl, methamphetamine, marijuana, liquid-soaked papers, Suboxone strips, amphetamines, mushrooms and vapes. In the same time period, Marshall noted, the BOP has intercepted 228 drone drops, seized nearly 17,000 cell phones, confiscated 4,300 weapons, recovered nearly 50 lbs. of methamphetamine, and stopped 231 visitors with contraband.

Notably, Marshall disclosed that the BOP has conducted contraband investigations involving 260 staff members. He recounted one case in Texas where a staff member was caught smuggling tobacco into a facility. 

It is both evidence of the severity of the problem and of Marshall’s willingness to recognize reality that he acknowledged that some of the contraband problem is staff-driven. (But then, in the past 10 months, Marshall has proven himself to be a very different director. He is the director who looked at a plate of expired dining hall food being served to an inmate during a facility visit last summer and asked a warden, “Would you eat that? If the answer is ‘no,’ then don’t serve it. Period. That’s` not just about food safety, that’s about human decency”).

As for the contraband problem, Marshall said, “These numbers represent real threats stopped by real people. But for every attempt we catch, others are still trying.” And he had a warning: “We are prosecuting anyone, whether a visitor, a staff member, or an inmate who attempts to introduce contraband into our facilities. This unified approach sends a clear message – criminal activity in or around federal prisons will not be tolerated, and those responsible will be held accountable.”

William Marshall, Growing Threat of Contraband in the Bureau of Prisons (February 17, 2026)

 

Forbes, “Would You Eat That? A Leadership Question at the Bureau of Prisons (February 11, 2026) 

~ Thomas L. Root

Who Wants to Be A Prison Guard? – Update for February 25, 2026

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BOP SHORT STAFFING WAS A HOT TOPIC LAST WEEK

In a finding that rivals Newton’s conclusion that gravity makes apples fall to the ground, a Congressional Research Service report last week determined that non-competitive pay and difficult working conditions are main causes of longstanding understaffing at the Bureau of Prisons, a problem that has persisted despite paying recruitment and retention incentives, using shortcut “direct hire” authority, and promising student loan repayments for employees.

The BOP had always run vacancy rates in the 10-12% range, but that jumped to the 17-18% range over 2018-2021, and then again to the 22-25% range after the pandemic. Over the six years ending in 2002, overtime costs more than doubled to $275 million even while the number of correctional officers fell 22% from about 19,000 to about 15,600.

“There are questions about whether pay for federal COs is competitive with other federal law enforcement agencies and the private sector,” the report said. “Candidates for CO positions who have college degrees might also consider seeking entry-level law enforcement officer positions for which they qualify with other federal agencies, which might pay more.”

The differences have grown greater recently, CRS said, as agencies – including CBP and ICE – have offered larger incentives while the BOP has “paused offering new recruitment incentives and have ended some retention incentives due to budgetary constraints.”

Last Friday, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee demanded details on BOP plans to address these “major and long-time staffing shortages,” Federal News Network reported.

In a letter sent to BOP Director William K. Marshall III from top Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee warned that workforce issues have reached a “crisis point,” leading to operational challenges and unsafe conditions in the federal prison system.

“By far, the most significant challenge to BOP’s ability to fulfill its public safety mission is its pervasive shortage of critical staff — particularly of correctional officers, healthcare professionals and mental health specialists,” the letter stated.

While the BOP inmate population fell slightly last year, “it still exceeds BOP’s capacity,” the letter asserted. “Moreover, any population reduction likely is offset by the influx of thousands of immigrant detainees BOP agreed to accept. Despite the obvious need to retain its workforce, in March 2025, BOP cut pay to frontline officers by as much as 25% [and] institute[ed] a hiring freeze in May 2025.”

Although the BOP received $3 billion in additional funding in last summer’s One Big Beautiful Bill, “it appears that BOP only recently posted open correctional officer positions to the public. Further, reporting revealed that the Bureau has lost more than 1,400 staff members as a result of heavy recruitment for positions that come with generous salaries and signing bonuses from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). One BOP official told ProPublica, “We’re broken and we’re being poached by ICE.”

The letter asks the BOP to report the efforts it has undertaken to attract and recruit qualified candidates and retain current employees. The Democrats are especially interested in the number of BOP COs lost to higher-paying ICE jobs.

Unsurprisingly, BOP employee unions last week endorsed H.R. 7033, the bipartisan Federal Correctional Officer Paycheck Protection Act of 2026 introduced last month. The bill aims to boost BOP staff recruitment and retention by raising pay for BOP employees working in custodial settings with direct inmate contact by up to 35%.

Sam Metcalf, president of AFGE Local 0701, told Corrections1 last week that higher pay is needed to reduce the heavy use of augmentation — a practice in which non-custody staff are reassigned to cover correctional officer posts. 

FEDWeek, Report Lays Out Causes, Effects of Bureau Understaffing (February 19, 2026)

Federal News Network, House Democrats Press Bureau of Prisons leadership on staffing ‘crisis’ (February 20, 2026)

Letter from Jamie Raskin to William K. Marshall III, February 20, 2026

HR 7033, Federal Correctional Officer Paycheck Protection Act of 2026

Corrections1, Union backs bill proposing 35 pct base pay increase for federal correctional officers (February 20, 2026)

~ Thomas L. Root 

Pardon and Punishment – Update for February 19, 2026

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JUSTICE, TRUMP ADMINISTRATION STYLE

Pardons for the Right People:    President Trump last Thursday pardoned five former professional football players — including Super Bowl champions, a Hall of Famer and a Heisman Trophy winner — for crimes ranging from perjury to drug trafficking.

footThe pardons of ex-NFL players Joe Klecko, Nate Newton, Jamal Lewis, Travis Henry and the late Billy Cannon were announced by White House pardon czar Alice Marie Johnson.

“As football reminds us, excellence is built on grit, grace, and the courage to rise again. So is our nation,” Johnson wrote on the social media site X, as she thanked Trump for his “continued commitment to second chances.”

Of course, for the thousands of people serving sentences for drug and violent crimes who do not happen to have been NFL players, the action – which excuses prior criminal conduct because of the athletic prowess of the recipient – only underscores the fact that the price of admission to Trump clemency continues to be fame, fortune, or political affinity with the President.

Nevertheless, writing in his Sentencing Law and Policy blog, Ohio State law professor Doug Berman was a little puzzled by the announcement: “Ever the showman and the sports fan, I am a bit surprised that Prez Trump did not announce these pardons himself, and I am even more surprised that he did not seek to get attention by issuing these pardons in the week leading up to the Super Bowl rather than during the week after when the spotlight has turned away from football.”

Punishment for the Wrong People:      One of Trump’s first executive actions a year ago was to order that 37 death row inmates whose sentences President Biden had previously been commuted to life imprisonment without chance for release be “imprisoned in conditions consistent with the monstrosity of their crimes and the threats they pose.”

US District Judge Timothy J. Kelly issued a preliminary injunction against a plan to transfer the 37 to ADX Florence.  The judge noted that BOP policy allows assignment to the supermax in only two circumstances: when ”placement in other correctional facilities creates a risk to institutional security and good order or poses a risk to the safety of staff, inmates, others, or to public safety” or when an inmate’s status is such that he “may not be safely housed in the general population of another institution.”

The judge said public statements by Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi had guaranteed that the men would be transferred to the supermax facility because Trump wanted it, regardless of the BOP designation standards.

“It is likely that the [administrative review ]process provided to Plaintiffs was an empty exercise to approve an outcome that was decided before it even began,” Judge Kelly wrote.  He said Bondi and other officials “made it clear” to BOP that the inmates “had to be sent to ADX Florence to punish them, no matter what result the originally BOP process might have yielded.”

Forgiveness for Favorites:   The Dept of Justice last week moved to dismiss criminal contempt of Congress charges against Trump acolyte Steve Bannon, who served four months in the BOP for the conviction.

Although Bannon has done his time, his petition for certiorari is pending before the Supreme Court. The case relates to Bannon’s refusal to testify before the congressional committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. He was convicted in 2022 of two counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to appear for a deposition and declining to produce documents requested by the committee.

The DOJ wrote in its motion to dismiss the case, that “[t]he government has determined in its prosecutorial discretion that dismissal of this criminal case is in the interests of justice.”

The New York Times, Trump Pardons Klecko, Jamal Lewis and Other Former N.F.L. Players (February 12, 2026)

Politico, Judge halts transfer of former federal death inmates to ‘supermax’ prison (February 11, 2026)

Memorandum Opinion, Taylor v. Trump, Case No 25-cv-3742 (DDC, February 11, 2026)

Associated Press, Trump pardons five former NFL players for crimes ranging from perjury to drug trafficking (February 13, 2026)

Brief for the United States, Bannon v United States, Case No. 25-453 (Supreme Court, filed February 9, 2026).

~ Thomas L. Root

Shocking News from GAO! BOP Has Messed Up FSA Placement! Who’d Have Guessed? – Update for February 17, 2026

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

GAO PAINTS PICTURE OF DEADBEAT BOP’S CHAOTIC HALFWAY HOUSE MANAGEMENT

The Government Accountability Office painted a bleak picture of the Bureau of Prisons’ halfway house placement program, a chaos of mismanagement that deprives inmates of First Step Act credits they have earned and halfway house operators of payments they are owed.

The 7-year-old First Step Act encourages federal prisoners to complete programs proven to reduce recidivism by promising them earned time credits that can shorten sentences and extend their time in prerelease custody in Residential Reentry Centers or RRCs (which we know as halfway houses) and on home confinement. Writing in Forbes last week, Walter Pavlo said, “Lawmakers understood what correctional professionals have long known. The last months of a sentence should focus on reconnecting people to jobs, housing, and families, not warehousing them in prison.”

Reality, however, is muted. The GAO reports that not only has the BOP not consistently moved eligible inmates into halfway houses on time, but often, the BOP does not even know how many people are eligible for and entitled to placement.

The Report said that “BOP officials said they do not know because the dates individuals are eligible to transfer are not readily available… GAO found that BOP did not apply all the earned time toward placement in RRCs and home confinement for 21,190 of 29,934 individuals reviewed, for reasons such as insufficient RRC capacity and court orders. However, the full scale of this issue is unknown due to the lack of readily available data on eligibility dates.”

The problem has been due in part to limited capacity in BOP-contracted halfway house and home confinement spaces, BOP officials told GAO. However, the Report stated, “BOP does not know the full extent of this shortage because it has not comprehensively assessed its capacity and related budgetary needs. Without these assessments, BOP cannot ensure it has enough space for incarcerated individuals to transfer on time. BOP could also miss opportunities to increase revenues and decrease costs to the federal government.”

As of September 30, 2024, the BOP was using 91% of its contracted halfway house beds and 121% of its contracted home confinement space. A full 38% of halfway houses were at or above 95% capacity, and 62% were at or above the 95% capacity for halfway house slots. In fairness to the BOP, since William K. Marshall III assumed the Director’s slot, the agency has prioritized home confinement through the alternative Federal Location Monitoring program, managed by the US Probation Office instead of halfway house staff.

GAO also found that the BOP has been a deadbeat on a scale that would get a defendant on supervised release sent back to prison. From 2022 through March 2025, the Bureau “made roughly 65,000 late payments to contractors, including to RRCs,” according to the Report. “As a result, the agency paid $12.5 million in interest penalties as part of $2.8 billion in payments to contractors. In addition, GAO found that BOP paid RRCs late about 70% of the time, from fiscal years 2023 through 2024.”

It should be unsurprising that halfway houses would be less than enthusiastic about working with the BOP to expand their businesses: the Report said that as a result of late payments, halfway houses “face hardships due to the late payments — needing private loans to pay staff. One halfway house representative said late payments have made some halfway houses reluctant to bid for new BOP contracts, which can further complicate BOP’s plans to expand capacity.”

Pavlo wrote, “The BOP understands that it has a problem and after years of not addressing it now realize that the solution is going to take time.” A BOP spokesman said, “[T]he Bureau has actively posted Requests for Information… in more than 20 locations nationwide to expand RRC and home confinement services… With respect to home confinement, the Bureau is transferring individuals as quickly as possible once they reach their Home Confinement Eligibility Date and meet all statutory and public safety criteria. We are committed to ensuring individuals are not held longer than necessary when they are appropriate for home confinement placement.”

Government Accountability Office, Bureau of Prisons: Actions Needed Better Achieve Financial and Other Benefits of Moving Individuals to Halfway Houses on Time (February 11, 2026)

Forbes, GAO Critical of Bureau of Prisons Use of Halfway Houses (February 12, 2026)

~ Thomas L. Root

Where the Boys Aren’t – Update for February 6, 2026

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JUDGE BLOCKS BOP ON EXPOSING TWO WOMEN TO TRANS FEMALES

The Bureau of Prisons last week agreed to a permanent injunction keeping biological male inmates who identify as female separated from two female inmates at FMC Carswell, the BOP’s medical center for women in Ft. Worth, Texas.

Two named female plaintiffs sued the BOP last year, seeking an order that they would not have to “interact in private spaces with the male inmates housed at FMC Carswell. Those inmates include at least four sex offenders, a murderer, and a violent armed bank robber whose goal was to overthrow the United States government on behalf of the ‘Aryan Republican Army’,” according to the website Legal Insurrection.

The Order requires that as long as the two named plaintiffs are housed at  Carswell, the BOP is “permanently enjoined from permitting any male inmate to enter or remain in any privacy area (including showers, restrooms, changing areas, and dormitory spaces) to which either Plaintiff has access, such that Plaintiffs are not exposed to male inmates while showering, toileting, dressing or sleeping.”

Stipulated Order of Permanent Injunction (ECF 137), Fleming v. United States, Case No 4:25-cv-157 (NDTX, February 2, 2026)

Legal Insurrection, Texas Judge Issues Permanent Injunction in Case Keeping Males Away From Incarcerated Women (February 2, 2026)

~ Thomas L. Root