Tag Archives: BOP

BOP Union Sues For Its Place At The Table – Update for November 21, 2025

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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.

EMPLOYEES UNION SUES BOP TO REVERSE CANCELLATION

A lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut challenges the BOP’s termination last September of collective bargaining rights with Council of Prison Locals 33, which represents over 85% of all BOP employees.

The lawsuit asks the court to reverse the termination of collective bargaining.

The decision to terminate collective bargaining came after President Trump signed an executive order to end collective bargaining for agencies whose primary functions involve intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative or national security work.

The lawsuit argues the executive order did not require the BOP to cancel collective bargaining, and was “arbitrary and capricious,” retaliation against union speech and advocacy.  The BOP claimed the union as “an obstacle to progress instead of a partner in it” when announcing the decision to terminate the CBA.

WHBF-TV, Federal lawsuit challenges termination of collective bargaining by U.S. Bureau of Prisons (November 14, 2025)

~ Thomas L. Root

Front-End Loader – Update for October 28, 2025

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BOP ANNOUNCES IT WILL FRONT-LOAD FSA TIME CREDITS

The government shutdown is entering Day 28 with no end in sight. But not everything at the Bureau of Prisons has ground to a halt. Last week, the agency announced a technical change in how it calculates the end of a prisoner’s sentence that could have a major, beneficial effect on inmates.

The date of a prisoner’s release is significant to the BOP for everything from placement in an appropriate facility to eligibility for programs to the date a prisoner goes to a halfway house or home confinement under 18 USC § 3624(c) (the Second Chance Act). The BOP has always calculated what it calls the “statutory” sentence by assuming that the prisoner will earn every day of good-conduct time (54 days a year) possible under 18 USC § 3624(b).

Of course, prisoners do not always earn every day of good time. They lose it for rule infractions (something that may be epidemic with the number of cellphones in the system, where being caught with one is a high-severity prohibited act).

The fact that inmates may lose good-conduct time during their sentences has never deterred the BOP from its practice of assuming that a prisoner will earn 100% of possible good time. Nothing wrong with that: it’s a rational policy that makes release planning possible. But until now, the BOP has steadfastly refused to make the same reasonable assumption that a prisoner will earn all of the First Step Act credits (FTCs) available to him.

Last week, BOP bowed to common sense, announcing that it will now anchor its inmate management decisions to a new metric called the FSA Conditional Placement Date (FCPD), essentially front-loading FTCs in the same way it front-loads good conduct time.

Up to now, the BOP has only used a Projected Placement Date that reflected the credits earned up to the date of the PPD’s calculation, while not assuming that the prisoner would earn any FTCs after that date. The new FCPD date will assume that an inmate will continue earning FTCs every month, just like good conduct time, and will thus represent the projected point when an inmate — based on earned time credits — should be eligible for placement in halfway house or home confinement, or released. The BOP will now direct staff to use the FCPD date as the foundation for decisions about security/custody classification and facility placement.

“It’s a small technical change on paper but a major cultural shift in practice,” Walter Pavlo wrote last week in Forbes. “By using this date to guide decisions, the Bureau is effectively saying that the earned time credits aren’t just theoretical—they are the organizing principle for how and when people move through the system.”

Use of FCPDs should lead to faster inmate placement at lower custody levels and placement in programs such as the residential drug abuse program.  Pavlo said that one BOP insider estimated that over 1,500 people would be eligible to move from low-security facilities, which are near capacity, to minimum-security camps that have ample space. Additionally, reliance on FCPDs will alleviate last-minute transfers to halfway house or home confinement, which cause delays in paperwork and inmate housing arrangements. As Pavlo put it, “By focusing on the Conditional Placement Date months in advance, everyone gains time to prepare.

The FCPD change should ensure that FTCs have real meaning, connecting prisoner success to the date on an inmate’s worksheet for prerelease planning. “This change reflects our continued commitment to managing the inmate population in a way that is both fair and consistent with the law,” said Rick Stover, Special Assistant to the Director. “By using Conditional Placement Dates, we are improving operational efficiency, supporting our staff, and honoring the intent of the First Step Act.”

Rabbi Moshe Margaretten, President of the prison-reform advocate Tzedek Association, called the development a “truly monumental” moment for prison reform. “This reform will change thousands of lives—allowing men and women who have worked hard to better themselves to move into lower-security settings and reconnect with their families much earlier.” 

BOP, A Win for Staff and Prison Reform (October 21, 2025)

Forbes, Bureau Of Prisons Makes Changes To First Step Act Calc (October 21, 2025)

Belaaz, Major Bureau of Prisons Reform After Years of Advocacy by Tzedek, ‘Monumental Step’ (October 21, 2025)

 

~ Thomas L. Root

‘All Work And No Pay’ For BOP Employees – October 23, 2025

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‘WELCOME TO OUR WORLD,’ BOP EMPLOYEES COULD GREET COURT WORKERS

A Columbia, South Carolina, newspaper spotlighted the state of Federal Bureau of Prisons employees since the shutdown, and the picture was not a pretty one: “As essential workers, employees at federal prisons are still required to show up every day. But with funding frozen due to the government shutdown, employees are facing an uncertain future. With no immediate end in sight for the shutdown, the paycheck they received last week might be the last one they see for a while. ‘Morale is very low,’ said Talmadge Coleman, who recently retired from FCI Edgefield and is president of the Local 0510 at the prison. Staff were ‘very disgruntled’ at the situation…”

The State reported that “many staff members were already living paycheck to paycheck” and last week got only a partial salary check covering time through September 30th. “With the shutdown, that will leave many of these employees who guard federal prisoners unable to pay their mortgages, make car payments or even afford groceries or the gas to get to work. Many staff members are single moms, people looking after their parents and juggling medical bills and the rising cost of living, Coleman said. ‘Creditors don’t want to hear it,’ Coleman said.”

One correctional officer told a Texas TV station that BOP employees are “looking at, ‘OK, I can make it through this month. But if it hits November 1st and we’re not getting paid…’”

President Trump has directed through executive orders that the BOP and other agencies no longer honor the collective bargaining agreements between the agencies and about a half million workers. “The agency doesn’t recognize us anymore, so that’s one less thing that we can help with,” said Brandy Moore White, president of Council of Prison Locals 33, a union that represents federal prison employees. “It’s just disaster upon disaster.”

During the 2019 shutdown, the BOP gave employees a letter that they could show to creditors explaining the situation. This time, the agency has provided no such letter.

The BOP issued an automated response to a media request asking for comment on the shutdown: “Due to the lapse in appropriations, the Office of Public Affairs is not available to respond.”

The State, Federal prisons in SC were already struggling. Then the government shut down (October 14, 2025)

KXXV-TV, Federal prison officers working without pay as shutdown reaches day 6 (October 16, 2025)

 

~ Thomas L. Root

GAO Finds BOP Employee Misconduct Process Flawed – Update for October 7, 2025

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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.

‘JUSTICE DELAYED’: BOP MISCONDUCT RESOLUTION SYSTEM FLAWED, GAO SAYS


The Government Accountability Office, a congressional agency, issued a report last week criticizing the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ backlog of over 12,000 unresolved employee misconduct complaints.

The BOP received 15,000 employee misconduct allegations last year alone, with beefs ranging from unexcused absences to inmate abuse. The most frequent allegations involved charges of unprofessional conduct or failure to follow policies. Other common allegations claimed employees were absent without leave or failing to follow a supervisor’s instructions. These kinds of accusations have increased during the last 10 years.

Criminal misconduct made up about 14% of allegations lodged in the last decade, allegations of physical and sexual abuse such as those at FCI Dublin, which have resulted in seven convictions so far. But, as of last February, the BOP had more than 12,000 employee misconduct cases awaiting investigation or discipline.

The GAO report noted that the BOP had hired more investigators and taken other steps to reduce the number of open cases. However, the Report found, the BOP “continues to miss its own goals for reducing the backlog of cases and doesn’t have a plan for meeting those goals.”

Bureau officials told GAO that the longer a misconduct case drags on, the more difficult it is to hold employees accountable. As time passes, the employee who is the subject of the complaint “may not remember the details of the incident when investigators question them. Or the employee might leave the bureau before being disciplined.” About 37% of the 12,153 cases open as of February 2025, had been unresolved for three years or longer.

The Report also found that while the BOP collects data on employee misconduct and compares the information from year to year, it doesn’t track misconduct trends across longer periods. “This means the Bureau is missing opportunities to identify trends and address them,” the GAO said.  Also, while the BOP trains employees to prevent misconduct, it doesn’t use their feedback to evaluate the training’s effectiveness.

The BOP was once again on the GAO’s High Risk List for 2025 because of crumbling facilities and threats to prison safety posed by understaffing (which, last week’s Report notes, “can exacerbate employee misconduct. To ensure that incarcerated people are treated humanely and keep its facilities secure, the bureau needs to address these issues and improve its approach to holding employees accountable.”

The Wall Street Journal last week argued that the BOP’s decertification of the 30,000-member employees’ union will help with misconduct allegations. The Journal said, “One of the strongest arguments against prison-guard unions is their role in shielding abusive officers from discipline. In some cases, the unions have ‘frustrated and undermined accountability,’ David Fathi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union National Prison Project, has said.”

After the FCI Dublin sexual abuse scandal, both prisoners and staff said union interference delayed corrective action. Seven of eight corrections officers charged with sex abuse crimes pled guilty or were convicted by juries, according to news reports. At the trial of the eighth officer, the local union president testified that the union abhorred “dirty officers” but claimed the defendant – Darnell “Dirty Dick” Smith, who was charged with 15 sex crimes against women inmates – was accused in retaliation by prison managers for speaking up about their alleged misconduct.

At USP Thomson in 2022, union resistance thwarted a new warden’s plan to fire violent officers. In January 2023, the union called for the warden to be canned for failing “to address the rampant sexual assault and misconduct of employees by inmates.” Some correctional officers tried to persuade inmates to assault the warden.

One BOP inmate told The Marshall Project earlier this year: “On a day-to-day basis, the union is a threat to the well-being of most inmates. It’s what guarantees that the officer who beats you will get away with it.”

Writing in Forbes last week, Walter Pavlo said, “Employee misconduct in federal prisons has consequences that ripple far beyond the individuals directly involved. For incarcerated people, misconduct can lead to harm, abuse, and violations of their basic rights. For staff, it can create a work environment where trust erodes and morale declines. The BOP has consistently ranked last in employee satisfaction, and the recent demise of their union has, for the moment, been troubling for many frontline staff. For the institution as a whole, unresolved allegations undermine legitimacy and weaken public confidence in the system. Legal and financial risks also rise, as cases of abuse or negligence can result in costly lawsuits and federal scrutiny.”

GAO, Bureau of Prisons: Strategic Approach Needed to Prevent and Address Employee Misconduct (GAO-25-107339, September 29, 2025)

Wall Street Journal, Trump Fires the Prison-Guard Union (October 4, 2025)

Forbes, Study Critical Of Bureau Of Prisons Investigating Misconduct (October 1, 2025)

GAO, High-Risk Series: Heightened Attention Could Save Billions More and Improve Government Efficiency and Effectiveness (GAO-25-107743, February 25, 2025)

KTVU-TV, Former FCI Dublin officer charged with sex abuse provides witness list (September 10, 2025)

~ Thomas L. Root

Bureau of Prisons Says ‘Union, No’ – Update for September 30, 2025

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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 CANCELS UNION CONTRACT FOR 30,000 EMPLOYEES

The Federal Bureau of Prisons last Thursday canceled its collective bargaining agreement with Council of Prison Locals 33, the national union representing more than 30,000 of its 34,900 workers. Cancellation of the contract, which would have expired in 2029, makes BOP employees “the latest group to be targeted by the Trump administration’s effort to assert more control over the government work force,” according to the New York Times.

BOP Director William K. Marshall III told employees that the union “has a proud history of advocating for its members, and I want to acknowledge the positive contributions it has made over the years… But when a union becomes an obstacle to progress instead of a partner in it, it’s time for change. And today, thanks to President Donald J. Trump and Attorney General Pamela Bondi, we’re making that change. Today, I’m announcing the termination of our contract with CPL-33 effective immediately.”

Marshall said that workers would not be fired, suspended or demoted without cause or due process, and that their pay and benefits were guaranteed by law to stay in place. Nevertheless, he told Brandy Moore White, the union’s president, that employees no longer have a right to union representation during meetings with management, investigative interviews or other proceedings. Earlier this year, the BOP prohibited the deduction of union dues from employee paychecks, causing union membership to plummet.

Moore White said, “Don’t be fooled, this is not about efficiency or accountability — this is about silencing our voice… “The vast majority of our members are Republicans and voted for this president. I literally cannot explain to you how many messages I’ve gotten from them saying this is such a slap in the face. This man vowed to protect law enforcement, and this is what we get in return. They just feel so blindsided and so frustrated with how this is going.”

She said the union plans to take legal action and seek a Congressional remedy.

Although Trump’s Executive Order issued last spring to cancel government union contracts made use of a narrow legal provision that lets a president suspend collective bargaining for national security, Marshall’s  announcement made no mention of any national security concerns. Instead, he just said the agency was ending the agreement because it believed collective bargaining was a “roadblock” to progress.

John Zumkehr, president of AFGE Local 4070 at FCI Thomson, argued the cancellation increases what he said is an already high risk of suicide among BOP employees. “When you strip away the protections we’ve fought for, you endanger the well-being of every officer and undermine the entire system,” Zumkehr said. “Instead of standing behind us, the Bureau is tearing down the few safeguards we have left.”

Writing in Forbes, Walter Pavlo noted that the BOP “has often been criticized by advocate groups as not being responsive to implementing laws, such as the First Step Act and Second Chance Act. Both of these pieces of legislation were slow to be implemented with some blaming the union for the lack of progress.”

He quoted Rabbi Moshe Margaretten, president of the Tzedek Association, a group instrumental in the creation and passing of the First Step Act, “As someone who has spent years working closely with the Bureau of Prisons on reform, I can say without hesitation that the union has been one of the greatest obstacles to real progress. For too long, every new policy, no matter how commonsense or beneficial to staff and inmates alike, had to be dragged through an approval process where the default answer was ‘no’… This is a watershed moment — an opportunity to finally build a Bureau of Prisons that works better for the men and women who serve in it and for the country as a whole.”

New York Times, Federal Bureau of Prisons Ends Union Protections for Workers (September 26, 2025)

BOP, Director’s Message (September 25, 2025)

AFGE CPL-33, Bureau of Prisons Union Condemns Administration’s Attack on Workers’ Collective Bargaining Rights (September 25, 2025)

Federal News Network, Federal Bureau of Prisons terminates collective bargaining agreement with AFGE (September 26, 2025)

Associated Press, Federal Bureau of Prisons moves to end union protections for its workers (September 25, 2025)

Forbes, Bureau of Prisons Cancels Collective Bargaining Agreement With Union (September 26, 2025)

~ Thomas L. Root

Correctional Officer Mental Health Forgotten Issue, New Video Says – Update for September 19, 2025

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PRISON DOESN’T JUST DRIVE INMATES CRAZY

A 21-minute documentary, “Behind the Wall,” released last week on YouTube, spotlights a critical issue in America’s jails and prisons that is much less discussed than inmate mental health: the toll of trauma on correctional officers.

Behind the Wall explores the human cost for those tasked with maintaining order in a system that can be dehumanizing for anyone who touches it.

Through the voices of correctional officers, the film reveals how the work impacts their physical and mental health, their families, and their communities — and calls for wellness programs dedicated to supporting corrections staff.

Corrections 1 said the film “continues a body of documentary work recognized globally for bringing attention to the realities of prisons and the urgent need for systemic change.”

I found the video sobering and insightful, not the whiny woe-is-us plaint I usually hear from Bureau of Prisons union reps. The 21 minutes I devoted to watching the program were well spent.

I had an inmate reader scoff at my report on this earlier in my newsletter. He expressed complete uninterest, even disdain, in any discussion on the mental well-being of correctional officers.  Obviously,  COs are human beings. If prisoners want to be treated decently, they have to be equally interested in seeing that those around them – including COs – are treated decently.

Beyond that, there’s some real inmate self-interest here. COs who are mentally stressed, unable to control depression or rage, or slipping into substance abuse are less likely to have professional and courteous interactions with their wards.  From gratuitous violence to simple refusal to help get a sick prisoner to medical services, COs suffering from personal crises are unlikely to be of much help to inmates suffering their own.

Corrections1, ‘Behind the Wall’ documentary highlights toll of prison work on correctional officers (September 9, 2025)

YouTube, Behind the Wall

~ Thomas L. Root

Shocking News – BOP Healthcare ‘Unacceptable’ – Update for September 15, 2025

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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 that is completely unsurprising and unremarkable. Last week, in a perfect example of this genre, the Dept. of Justice Office of Inspector General reported that yet another Bureau of Prisons facility was providing grossly substandard healthcare to inmates.

On Wednesday, the OIG issued a report on its unannounced inspection of FDC SeaTac, the detention center located about a thousand yards south of SeaTac Airport between Seattle and Tacoma, Washington. The inspection was conducted under the OIG’s authority granted in the Federal Prison Oversight Act, which requires regular independent reviews of BOP facilities.

The inspection, which occurred last December, found only three out of the FDC’s nine nursing positions and one of two pharmacist positions were filled. “At the time of our inspection,” the Report said, “10 of 20 Health Services Department positions were vacant, including the Clinical Director position (which had been vacant for at least 18 months). Moreover, based on the BOP’s own staffing projection tool, the institution appears to require a doubling in the size of its Health Services Department—from an authorized level of 20 positions to 40 positions—to meet its healthcare needs.”

The report was the sixth issued by the OIG on unannounced inspections of BOP facilities, all of which were unstinting in their criticism of BOP healthcare. A report that yet another BOP facility was not meeting inmate medical needs was

Even the FDC SeaTac Health Services Department leadership called health services staffing a crisis. The short staffing meant that Health Services “had to prioritize the provision of emergency care to inmates and we identified extensive delays in care for both routine and serious health concerns. For example, we identified concerns with FDC SeaTac’s ability to provide medical care to inmates who submit medical care requests. We selected a sample of 29 medical requests that appeared to be among the most serious, including for respiratory distress and severe pain, and found that 62 percent (18 of 29) were never addressed by a healthcare provider. We also determined that FDC SeaTac was unable to provide timely outside medical appointments for inmates with conditions that could not be addressed at the institution.”

As of November 2024, SeaTac had a backlog of 480 blood draw orders more than 30 days past due, again due to staffing shortages. The Report said, “Health Services Department employees told us that without blood test results they could not appropriately monitor the health of inmates with chronic conditions, such as diabetes, or diagnose new illnesses. For example, more than half of diabetic inmates whose records we reviewed had not received necessary diabetic testing within recommended time frames.”

OIG staff also identified unsafe practices unrelated to staffing. Crushed pills were stored loosely in plastic bags. Exam tables were filthy. Hazardous medical waste bins overflowed. Expired medications were still in use and lab specimens were left unrefrigerated. Insects crawled through clinical areas, and staff food was stored alongside medical supplies.

Writing in Forbes, Walter Pavlo said, “The inspection paints a picture not just of underfunding but of dangerously neglected standards of care.”

Sen Patty Murray (D-WA) called the conditions at the detention center unacceptable. “Individuals in federal detention should not be forced to risk their lives because they can’t get urgent medical issues addressed,” she said in a prepared statement. “I’m reaching out to the Bureau of Prisons about this report—much more needs to be done to make sure people in federal custody can get the health care they need.”

Meanwhile, last Friday, DOJ announced more than 50 new measures aimed at reducing suicides among prisoners in federal custody. The announcement follows recommendations from a department-wide working group tasked with developing strategies to address suicide in prison and jail.

While federal facilities record a lower suicide rate compared to state prisons and local jails, officials said, DOJ must work to prevent every possible death. The new framework, outlined in the Report on Actions to Reduce the Risk of Suicide by Adults in Federal Custody and Advance a Culture of Safety, sets five objectives: expanding information sharing, improving access to mental health care, fostering healthier facility environments, reducing opportunities for self-harm, and forming policy through data-driven research.

Spokesman-Review, Federal inspection finds an inmate healthcare ‘crisis’ at SeaTac detention center amid health worker shortage (September 10, 2025)

DOJ Inspector General, Inspection of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Federal Detention Center SeaTac (September 10, 2025)

Federal Prison Oversight Act, Pub.L. 118-71, 138 Stat. 1492 (July 25, 2024).

Shore News Network, Justice Department launches sweeping reforms to curb suicides in federal custody (September 12, 2025)

Forbes, Troubling Findings At FDC SeaTac: A 2025 OIG Inspection Report (September 10, 2025)

~ Thomas L. Root

Sizzling Hot, Drugs and Sex at the BOP – Update for August 19, 2025

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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.

Summer is ending with back-to-school, football, and cooler days upon us. In commemoration of a short summer, I am condensing a surprising amount of news from last week into ‘shorts’.

BOP ‘SHORTS’

Hot Fun in the Summertime:  Forty House Democrats signed a letter from Rep Alma Adams (D-NC) last week to Bureau of Prisons Director William K. Marshall III expressing concern over the effects of extreme heat on BOP prisoners.

The letter asked 13 detailed questions about air conditioning in BOP facilities, including about prisons without AC or with broken systems, how many heat-related health incidents (illnesses, strokes, and deaths) have occurred since 2022, and any mitigation strategies used where prisoners and staff are in excessive heat.

The letter seeks a response by September 10, 2025.

Letter to William K. Marshall III (August 11, 2025)

BOP Unions Continue ‘Drug Poisoning’ Drumbeat:  It’s been a year since BOP employee Marc Fischer died after coming in contact with purported legal mail to a USP Atwater inmate that was soaked in a liquid “spice” mixture.  The death sparked a flurry of hand-wringing over BOP employees in danger that was not even quelled by autopsy results showing Mr. Fischer died of a heart attack, not exposure to any drugs.

The facts have not detained BOP staff unions, who last week issued a press release asking, “Does another staff member have to die before the Federal Bureau of Prisons finally takes the crisis of drugs entering prisons through the mail seriously? It’s now been a year since Marc Fischer—a longtime mailroom supervisor at U.S. Penitentiary Atwater and former Coast Guard member—lost his life after being exposed to contaminated mail, just before his planned retirement. Since then, nothing has changed. Dangerous substances continue to pour into federal prisons weekly, and staff are left to fight this epidemic with outdated technology and little support from the Bureau.”

The press release asserted that in recent incidents, “17 officers at Thomson were hospitalized after exposure to dangerous substances in the mailroom and required Narcan to survive. Days earlier, ten staff members at FCC Victorville suffered exposures over a four-day stretch.”

The BOP was a bit more circumspect: “We can confirm that several employees at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Thomson have begun feeling unwell following a possible exposure to an unknown substance. Some employees were transported to a local hospital by emergency medical services (EMS).”

In a separate report, WDTV reported that 5 FCI Hazelton employees were taken to the hospital last Wednesday morning, according to the BOP, after being exposed to drugs. The report said, “Any time fentanyl or carfentanil is found, the officers are being sent to the hospital as a precaution…”

WTTV, Federal Prison Staff Still at Risk as Drugs Continue Flooding Through the Mail (August 13, 2025)

WDTV, Multiple FCI Hazelton employees exposed to carfentanil for 4th time this week (August 11, 2025)

Dublin Scandal Nets More Guilty Pleas:  Former BOP correctional officers Jeffrey Wilson and Lawrence Gacad have pled to sexually abusing female inmates at FCI Dublin, formerly a low-security female prison.

Wilson and Gacad were charged last June and entered pleas on August 4. They are the eighth and ninth BOP staffers to have either pled guilty or been convicted involving sexual abuse of Dublin inmates.  The BOP has already agreed to a $116 million payout to abused women.

Dept of Justice, Two More FCI Dublin Correctional Officers Plead Guilty To Sexually Abusing Female Inmates (August 7, 2025)

~ Thomas L. Root

Will First Step Task Force Make A Difference? – Update for August 1, 2025

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FIRST STEP TASK FORCE FINDING ITS FOOTING

Rick Stover, Senior Deputy Assistant Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Designation and Sentence Computation Center (DSCC), says that the BOP’s new First Step Act task force has begun evaluating prisoners now in halfway houses who could be transferred to home confinement if they were to receive the full benefit of “stacking” recommended Second Chance Act placement atop FSA time credits.

Writing in Forbes, Walter Pavlo said the task force – with over 30 DSCC analysts assigned – noted that while the SCA limits home confinement to the final 6 months (or 10%) of a sentence, “the end of the sentence is a moving target for some inmates because they continue to earn FSA credits each month even when they are at the halfway house. The Task Force is manually calculating these dates for inmates in halfway houses, because the BOP’s own computer program currently does not calculate these dates once inmates are released [to] halfway houses.” Mr. Stover said the task force is ensuring that such calculations will occur with the recent application updates.

Once that is done, Mr. Stover told Mr. Pavlo, the Task Force will focus on those currently in prison. Mr. Stover said, “As we… move inmates from the halfway houses to home confinement, we expect this to create a sizable number of open beds in many of our halfway houses across the country. This allows us to then revisit the placement dates for inmates currently in our institutions and increase the number of inmates that we can place in the community, and in many instances, allow inmates to get out of prison quicker to begin their transition to go home.”

Mr. Stover is optimistic, Mr. Pavlo reports. “While the Bureau has made marked improvements in our time credit calculation applications since the onset of the FSA statute, more improvements are needed. We have changes forthcoming that will simplify the data for both staff and inmates.”

The BOP effort to push prisoners out to halfway house and home confinement as early as possible is laudable, especially because some prison consultants think that the BOP has discretion to deny inmates their entitlement to FSA credits. I reported a month ago on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia’s dismissal of Crowe v. BOP. Former BOP Unit Management Section Chief Susan Giddings (now a private prison consultant), writing for herself and prison consultant Bruce Cameron last week, lauded the dismissal. She said that the Crowe court’s denial of class status

was particularly gratifying for the authors because they have consistently argued that 1) there is nothing in the FSA that eliminated or modified the Bureau’s designation authority, including halfway house and home confinement designations, and 2) the idea that the FSA required the Bureau to transfer an individual solely based their eligibility date regardless of any other compelling issues undermined the requirements of the Second Chance Act (SCA). The SCA required the Bureau to ensure that incarcerated individuals were provided with the same individualized consideration when making prerelease designation decisions as they were when making institution designation decisions. The decision-making process for prerelease placement (i.e., halfway house and home confinement) includes the inmate’s unit team making a prerelease placement recommendation based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to individual release needs, institutional conduct, the current offense, history of success or failure in prior community placement, and criminal history. The completed designation request is then sent to residential reentry staff, who then consider all the information provided by the institution, as well as the community program resources and any community safety issues when making the designation decision.

I disagree with Dr. Giddings and Mr. Cameron that Crowe went as far as they argues it does and that the decision is a good thing. Walt Pavlo may agree with me. He implicitly suggests that keeping inmates in BOP prisons when they are legally eligible for less restrictive incarceration may be due to a BOP mindset as much as anything. Earlier this week, Mr. Pavlo described the problem as being that

the BOP has lacked leadership to lead it into the modern era of incarceration. It is an Agency that prospered during the days of locking up drug offenders that saw the federal prison population top over 220,000 in 2013. Then as buildings became old and decrepit, it failed to keep up and now BOP employees sit in the same rotting, molded facilities that house the inmates they watch.

Dr. Giddings and Mr. Cameron seem confident that BOP decisionmakers will do the right thing by the inmates they oversee, and that they both need and will responsibly use the authority to withhold FSA placement based on SCA factors that they argue that the law provides. Their view is shared by a number of commentators and many US Attorneys’ offices, and is worth noting.

At the same time, Mr. Pavlo’s blunt suggestion that Bureau employees are locked in old thinking is a notion shared by its own cohort of observers.  New BOP Director Marshall so far has made some promising moves, including the Task Force. Now, the Task Force has to perform.

Forbes, Bureau of Prisons Task Force Taking Shape, Challenges Remain (July  23, 2025)

Giddings, Crowe, et al. v Federal Bureau of Prisons, et al: Common Sense for the Win! (July 25, 2025)

LISA, Class Action FSA Credit Lawsuit Against the BOP Case Dismissed (June 16, 2025)

Forbes, Bureau Of Prisons Could Fix First Step Act, If It Had The Will (July 29, 2025)

~ Thomas L. Root

And Now a Word From Our Sponsor – Update for July 28, 2025

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NEWSLETTERS HANGING BY A THREAD

I’ve been writing the LISA Newsletter for nine years and seven months now. Whether I will make it to 10 years is anyone’s guess.

Back in the day, the Federal Bureau of Prisons provided inmates with the weekly BNA Criminal Law Reporter, first in print in the facility law libraries and later on inmate computers. Bloomberg acquired BNA in 2011, and the CLR ceased publication seven years later. As I recall (and my memory may be faulty, as my wife will attest), the BOP dropped CLR in about 2015 or 2016 when Bloomberg jacked up the subscription fee).

Any number of legal newsletters from law firms, paralegal services, and advocacy organizations have popped up in the last decade, chiefly because inmate email made distribution inexpensive and quick. LISA’s was one of them. None of us had the staff and resources of Bloomberg BNA, but then no one was charging for the service, either. The newsletters filled a void.

I sent the first LISA weekly newsletter out on November 29, 2015, to 13 subscribers. That was about 502 newsletters ago. My subscriber count went up quickly, leveling off somewhere beyond 10,000 prisoners and another 500 people outside of prison.

The BOP Corrlinks system helped a lot. It was clunky, the kind of thing you would expect to find on a Commodore 64 running Windows 3.1 (circa 1992), but it allowed the formation of groups of up to 1,000 people per group.

Until the end of last September, I could distribute 12,000 newsletters on Sunday night in about 15 minutes, sending to 12 groups of 1,000 subscribers each. But then progress…

At that time, the BOP dramatically changed its Corrlinks program to only permit 10 prisoners in each group. The only way to send the newsletter was with an outside service that could dedicate computers to the task, automatically logging on and sending to group after group after group. Even with 2024 computing power, we could only send about 2,000 newsletters a day, and some were missed as the Corrlinks system would lock out accounts for hours if it detected that too many emails had been sent in a given period.

It was messy but survivable.

Then, two weeks ago, the BOP changed the Corrlinks system again. Now, no email may be sent to more than one inmate recipient at a time. This means that we would have to send over 10,000 emails each week in order to deliver the newsletter to everyone who wants it. Our delivery people at Contxts (gocontxt.com) – a great group who had been providing computer delivery services to LISA and other legal newsletters without charge while they perfected their inmate messaging system – had been delivering about 2,000 newsletters a day until last week. Under the new system, we were lucky to get more than 400 a day sent out without being locked, and even that effort required substantial computer resources.

Last Thursday night, Contxts reluctantly informed us that newsletter delivery was soaking up a lot of resources for a frustratingly small throughput of newsletters. return. The company could no longer provide the newsletter distribution service.

For now, I will continue to write the newsletter. I post it online every Sunday night and email it to about 500 people outside of the BOP system. If you want your people to forward you the email, have them send a request to newsletter@lisa-legalinfo.com or cut and paste right from the LISA website at www.lisa-legalinfo.com.

We are working on finding a way to deliver the newsletter again. Printing and mailing the newsletter costs well over $1.50 per mailing, and that does not include the cost of labor. Email delivery is essential to the future of the newsletter.

~ Thomas L. Root