Tag Archives: BOP

You Leave When I Say You Can Leave – Update for March 12, 2019

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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.

WHO SAID YOU COULD GO HOME?

Winning immediate release doesn’t necessarily get you anywhere. That was Darren Golson’s experience a week or so ago.

noleave190312His judge granted Darren’s retroactive Fair Sentencing Act motion and ordered his release on Feb. 25. But when he showed the halfway house the judge’s order, it called some unnamed Bureau of Prisons employee, who ordered them to refuse to let Darren leave.

Darren whipped up a quick emergency motion, essentially asking his judge to figuratively plant his size 12 in the halfway house’s butt. The irate judge got on the phone, asking the halfway house who there would accept service of the “show cause” order the court was fixing to issue.

The answer was that no one wanted to see such an order. The halfway house hustled Darren out the door at 3:57 pm on the 27th, only two days late.

Motion, US v Golson, Case No. 2:01-cr-47 (E.D.Va. Feb. 27, 2019)
Order, US v Golson, Case No. 2:01-cr-47 (E.D.Va. Feb. 28, 2019)

– Thomas L. Root

Shutdown Grinds on Federal Prisons – Update for January 18, 2019

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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.

FEDERAL PRISON CONDITIONS NOT GOOD FOR STAFF OR INMATES AS SHUTDOWN CONTINUES

shutdown190118The partial government shutdown, about to enter its fifth week, has led to the furloughing of up to half of the BOP’s 36,000-person staff, including many who provide therapeutic programs and other services considered not to be “essential.” The agency is asking its remaining employees to keep working unpaid, focusing on maintaining security even if that’s not usually their primary job.

“It’s an absolute disaster,” said the president of the union chapter in Victorville, California, home to one of the nation’s largest concentrations of federal prison guards. “I have staff that are resorting to getting second employment – like Uber driving.”

Union officials reached by The Washington Post reported last week that the number of employees who are not showing up for work has at least doubled since the shutdown began. As a result, those showing up are routinely working double shifts, correctional officers and other prison staff members say. “There has been a rise in people calling in sick and taking leave during the shutdown,” said Richard Heldreth, president of the corrections officer union at Hazelton prison in West Virginia. “The staff who are showing up are dealing with this violence, long hours and extra overtime with the uncertainly of when we will be compensated.”

The BOP said only that the lack of funds from Congress means that only those employees whose duties involve “the safety of human life or the protection of property” are permitted to work.

The shutdown is having other consequences as well, including canceled visiting hours and empty commissary shelves. Also, applications of terminally-ill inmates awaiting “compassionate release” are going unread.

A more urgent problem, said Robert Hood, former warden of the ADMAX Florence, is the possibility of mental-health staff being furloughed. “Most BOP facilities will run without the myriad of programs normally offered” to address the needs of dangerous or mentally ill prisoners, Hood said.

emptyprison190118The U.S. courts are equally affected. Federal courts are funded only through next week. Beyond that, there is a likelihood of serious delays for many cases, but even experts and government officials are uncertain exactly how a prolonged shutdown might play out. The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AOUSC) now says that federal courts can continue paid operations using “court fee balances and other ‘no-year’ funds” until Jan. 25.

If the court system runs out of reserves, according to AOUSC, the Anti-Deficiency Act kicks in. Involved parties can expect delays in discovery, briefing and other communications from the DOJ and other federal agencies.

Civil litigation, generally, will be the first casualty of the shutdown. Criminal cases will be prioritized, as they are matters of public safety, according to the Administrative Office. Every court will be affected, though it remains uncertain to what extent. Judges remain responsible for managing their cases, even during the shutdown, and will generally address stays, delays and important date changes on a case-by-case or district-by-district basis.

The Marshall Project, What the Government Shutdown Looks Like Inside Federal Prisons (Jan. 7)

Washington Post, Tensions rise in federal prisons during shutdown as weary guards go without pay and work double shifts (Jan. 10)

Law360, What Attorneys Need to Know About the Shutdown (Jan. 10)

Administrative Office of U.S. Courts, Judiciary to continue funded operations until Jan. 25 (Jan. 16)

– Thomas L. Root

BOP Guards Union Scams Media – Update for January 17, 2019

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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.

THAT REALLY SUMPTUOUS CHRISTMAS STEAK BOP PRISONERS ENJOYED WAS FAKE NEWS…

Last week, we reported how NBC had run a story that inmates were eating shrimp and steak while making fun of the Federal Bureau of Prisons staff who were forced to serve the inmates without pay.

prisonfood190118It turns out that the story was not only fake (which our readers already knew), but it was successfully planted in the gullible national media by the correctional officers’ union.

Reason.com reported last week that in order to express their unhappiness with the federal shutdown, representatives of federal prison employee unions decided to act as though any tiny morsel of mercy granted to inmates is an insult to BOP employees:

While the holiday meals sound nice, the food prisoners receive every other day of the year is generally awful and frequently doesn’t contain enough nutrients to meet inmates’ dietary needs. But in order to make themselves look like the victims in this government shutdown, union officials shopped around a story to multiple media outlets about criminals being treated like kings while prison guards have to freelance as Uber drivers.

Lawandcrime.com reported that the “story appears to be largely based on information straight from the American Federation of Government Employees – the largest national correctional officers union. The story does not contain a firsthand quote from one single prisoner… [but] does provide ample opportunities for the president of the national prison workers union and the union chief at a federal prison in Florida to kvetch and moan about their employees being forced to feed inmates holiday meals.”

Reason.com reported that “many outlets ran with this tale in exactly the form union reps likely preferred. Over at USA Today, Kevin Johnson described these meals as a “display of culinary largesse.” Cleve Wootson, Jr., at The Washington Post called it an example of the “hypocritical” or “ironic” moments of the federal shutdown.

prisonfoodA190118NBC’s reporting included guards and union representatives describing it as “despicable” that inmates received a holiday meal. NBC described the letters and complaints it cited as having been mysteriously “obtained,” despite the fact that a Florida BOP union leader was quoted in all of these stories, suggesting that the union “shopped” the story to reporters like a normal PR pitch.

The union leader provided the media outlets with the contents of two inmate emails talking about the meal, which Reason said had been obtained from BOP staff who had screened the emails. the emails were “obtained” by prison staff who screened the emails.

Prison staff are on record complaining that inmates are still getting paid for their prison work. Reason notes that “inmates typically make pennies per hour. And unlike [COs], these inmates cannot find better working conditions elsewhere.”

Reason.com., Prison Guards Orchestrate Media Campaign to Complain About Inmates Getting Edible Food for Christmas (Jan. 7)

Lawandcrime.com, Viral Story About Prisoners’ Holiday Meals During Shutdown Reeks of Propaganda (Jan. 7)

– Thomas L. Root

BOP Officers Union Fakes Out NBC, Washington Post, With Inmate Luxury Story – Update for January 10, 2019

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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.

UNPAID BOP WORKERS CLAIM THAT INMATES HAVE IT SWEET TURNS OUT TO BE “FAKE NEWS”

NBC News reported last Sunday that the partial government shutdown that continues without an end in sight has “created a delicious irony at federal prisons — inmates dining on lavish holiday meals in front of disgruntled staffers forced to work without pay.”

prisonfood190110Several BOP food service employees complained to NBC News that the Christmas and New Year’s Day meals inmates traditionally receive “aggravate[ed] staffers who were already fretting about bills to pay and children to feed.: The report cited steak and shrimp served Jan. 1 at FCI Pekin, Cornish hen and Boston creme pie at MDC Brooklyn, and “heaping plates of chicken wings” served at an unidentified federal prison in Minnesota.

“You’re giving a gift to somebody who committed a crime, but yet you won’t pay the people who are supervising them?” NBC quoted a food service foreman at FMC Rochester complaining. “It’s frustrating and maddening.” In addition to working without pay, many of the prison staffers, including correctional officers, were ordered to cut vacations short or face a loss in wages and possible administrative punishment, including suspensions.

fakenews190110Well, it turns out that the “several BOP food service employees” who complained were part of a well-orchestrated union campaign, one the news outlets swallowed hook, line and sinker. Reason.com reported on Monday that in order “to make themselves look like the victims in this government shutdown, union officials shopped around a story to multiple media outlets about criminals being treated like kings while prison guards have to freelance as Uber drivers.” Reason said

It’s a bit amazing (and disappointing) how many outlets ran with this tale in exactly the form union reps likely preferred. Over at USA Today, Kevin Johnson described these meals as a “display of culinary largesse.” Cleve Wootson, Jr., at The Washington Post called it an example of the “hypocritical” or “ironic” moments of the federal shutdown. NBC called it a “delicious irony” that unpaid staffers had to feed “fancy” food to the inmates. Characterizing this series of parallel-but-unrelated events as a role reversal suggests that we should be treating prisoners poorly. The reporters can take solace in knowing that, generally, we do.

Adding to the staffers’ bitter feelings, NBC News said, “the working inmates were still drawing government paychecks for their prison jobs, which include painting buildings, cooking meals and mowing lawns.”

NBC News, Hard to digest: Inmates eat holiday steak during shutdown while prison workers go unpaid (Jan. 6)

Reason.com, Prison Guards Orchestrate Media Campaign To Complain About Inmates Getting Edible Food for Christmas (Jan. 7)

– Thomas L. Root

BOP’s Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week – Update for November 29, 2018

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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 WALKS INTO BAD PRESS BUZZSAW

baddayA181130BOP Acting Director Hugh J. Hurwitz probably felt more like the dinner than the diner by the time Thanksgiving rolled around a week ago, after the beating his agency took in the media in the preceding days.

First, the New York Times published a long story detailing the sexual harassment suffered by female BOP staff. “For women who work in federal prisons, where they are vastly outnumbered by male colleagues and male inmates,” the Times wrote, “concealing every trace of their femininity is both necessary and, ultimately, futile… Some inmates… stare… grope, threaten and expose themselves. But what is worse, according to testimony, court documents, and interviews with female prison workers, male colleagues can and do encourage such behavior, undermining the authority of female officers and jeopardizing their safety. Other male employees join in the harassment themselves.”

The Times found that women who reported harassment “face retaliation, professional sabotage and even termination,” while the careers of many male BOP harassers and those who protect them flourish. The Times named names.

But The Gray Lady wasn’t done with the BOP. Two days later, the paper ran a detailed piece questioning how Whitey Bulger ended up at Hazleton general population, where he was promptly murdered. The Times reported, “Several prison workers questioned why so many people at Coleman and in the Texas office would have approved a transfer of Mr. Bulger to Hazelton, a facility that houses some inmates tied to organized crime and that has a reputation for being dangerous for snitches. The workers also questioned why staff members at Hazelton would have approved placing Mr. Bulger in the prison’s general population. Mr. Bulger was the third inmate to be killed at Hazelton this year.”

The paper quoted one unnamed worker who said, “That was a monumental failure and a death sentence for Whitey.”

The Times said the BOP issued a statement saying that Bulger’s transfer to Hazelton was made in accordance with its policy, including a review of whether inmates there were known to be a threat to him.

mental181130Meanwhile, The Marshall Project suggested that the BOP’s 2014 policy that promised better care and oversight for inmates with mental-health issues was a fraud. “Data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request shows that instead of expanding treatment, the bureau has lowered the number of inmates designated for higher care levels by more than 35 percent.” TMP says prison staff are determining that prisoners—some with long histories of psychiatric problems—don’t require any routine care at all. As of last February, the BOP classified just 3% of inmates as having a mental illness serious enough to require regular treatment. By comparison, more than 30% of California state prisoners receive care for a “serious mental disorder.” In New York, its 21%, and In Texas, it’s about 20%.

TMP says that when BOP changed its rules, “officials did not add the resources needed to implement them, creating an incentive for employees to downgrade inmates to lower care levels.”

The New York Times, Hazing, Humiliation, Terror: Working While Female in Federal Prison (Nov. 17, 2018)

The New York Times, The Whitey Bulger Murder Mystery: Two Assailants and a Prison Full of Suspects (Nov. 19, 2018)

The Marshall Project, Treatment Denied: The Mental Health Crisis in Federal Prisons (Nov. 20, 2018)

– Thomas L. Root

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#themtoo: BOP Not Doing Right By Female Inmates, DOJ Says – Update for September 26, 2018

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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.

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A LITTLE BIT OF NOTHING FOR THE LADIES

womenprison170821Sure, they’re all inmates. But only the most callous observer would suggest that forcing female inmates to undergo strip searches in front of male Bureau of Prisons personnel is all right, because, after all, “if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime…” and all that claptrap. It turns out that a critical shortage of BOP correctional officers is having a disparate effect on the 10,567 female inmates held in the system, the Dept. of Justice Inspector General reported last Thursday. “The lack of sufficient staff is most noticeable at larger female institutions,” the OIG Report said.

As of September 2016,  female inmates represented 7% of the BOP sentenced inmate population of 146,084. The OIG review was sparked in part by Congress and public interest groups raising concerns with DOJ about deficiencies in BOP’s current management of female inmates.

magicrabbit180927Although BOP policy requires that female prisoners can only be searched by female correctional officers, the BOP is unable to ensure a female officer is available at each post where such searches are required, the report says. The report also concluded that 90% of the female inmate population would benefit from trauma treatment, but staffing shortages make it nearly impossible to provide eligible inmates with the care they need, according to the report.

In a response attached to the report, Hugh Hurwitz, acting BOP director, said he agrees with the IG’s recommendations and vowed to improve both staffing and training.  How he is going to pull that off in light of the BOP’s budget reductions ought to be a neat trick.

Washington Times, Staffing shortages blocking female inmates from critical services (Sept. 18, 2018)

Dept. of Justice Office of Inspector General, Review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Management of Its Female Inmate Population (Sept. 17, 2018)

– Thomas L. Root

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We’ve Got the Shorts – Update for September 7, 2018

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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. Today, a couple of short takes from last week’s federal criminal news…

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AND YET THEY LOCK UP THE INMATES…

Frank Lara, BOP’s Assistant Director for Correctional Programs until his resignation earlier this year, is now working at director of operations of private prison-owner The GEO Group. The company is one of the largest private prison contractors housing federal inmates, having received $147 million in BOP awards during fiscal 2017.

conflictmix180907In a January 24, 2018, memo entitled “Increasing Population Levels in Private Contract Facilities,” Lara directed wardens to identify inmates for transfer to private facilities, saying it would “alleviate the overcrowding at Bureau of Prisons’ institutions and maximize the effectiveness of private contracts.” The memo mentioned only one facility by name, Rivers Correctional Institution in Winton, N.C., which is owned and operated by the GEO Group.

Government Executive magazine reported that The GEO Group did not respond to several emails, and when asked about the hiring over the phone, a company official hung up.

A correctional officers’ union local leader called Lara’s move “the biggest damn conflict of interest that I’ve ever seen.”

Government Executive, Federal Official Boosted Use of Private Prisons; Now He Has a Top Job at One (Aug. 29, 2018)

– Thomas L. Root

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STUDY UNCOUPLES SENTENCE LENGTH FROM RECIDIVISM

recividists160314A Dept. of Justice-funded study published last month found that the average length of a federal sentence could be reduced by 7.5 months with a small impact on recidivism. The authors concluded from the data that “length‐of‐stay effects do not vary by criminal history, offense seriousness, sex, race, and education level.”

The study concluded that reducing the average length of stay for the federal prison population by 7.5 months could save the BOP 33,203 beds once the inmate population reaches steady state.

Criminology & Public Policy, Relationship Between Prison Length of Stay and Recidivism: A Study Using Regression Discontinuity and Instrumental Variables with Multiple Break Points (Aug. 8, 2018)

– Thomas L. Root

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BOP Staffing,MCC New York Conditions, Draw Media Scrutiny – Update for June 27, 2018

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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.

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BOP STAFFING, PRISON CONDITIONS TAKE IT ON THE CHIN

Last week was a bad one, publicity-wise, for the Federal Bureau of Prisons. First, The New York Times reported that a shortage of correctional officers has grown chronic under President Trump, leading to an increase in assaults on staff and contraband. Then, a New York City magazine ran a hard-hitting story on the deplorable conditions at MCC New York.

punchinface180423The Times said correctional officer vacancies has ballooned to over 2,100 (about 12% of the CO workforce). As a result, the paper said, “the practice of drawing upon other workers has become routine — many prisons have been operating in a perpetual state of staffing turmoil, leaving some workers feeling ill-equipped and unsafe on the job.”

In Obama’s last two years, the BOP hired 2,644 new Cos in 2016. Last year, the number dropped to 372, with the BOP eliminating about 5,000 unfilled jobs, including about 1,500 CO positions.

Cuts are occurring even though Congress increased the BOP budget for salaries and expenses by $106 million this year, and lawmakers have called for hiring more COs. As of March, there were 15,927 officers in federal prisons.

A BOP press officer said the cuts “will not have a negative impact on public safety or on our ability to maintain a safe environment for staff and inmates.” But assaults on prison staff have risen more than 8% last year over the previous year.

dungeon180627Meanwhile, The Gothamist (a magazine published by public radio station WNYC) last week savaged conditions at MCC New York. The article described “a rat-infested, high-rise hell just yards from the federal courts… That could be exactly the way jailers and prosecutors want it. Pre-trial detention, which often lasts years, can become not only unsafe, but coercive; as a result, individuals are pressured to provide information to prosecutors or accept plea deals in their desperation to be released, say former prisoners.” 

“You want to plead guilty and get out of this dump to a prison,” one former inmate told the magazine. “The feds have a 98% conviction rate for a reason,”, another former prisoner said. “They mentally break you… There are certain things that go on in these places that the government covers so the public would never know.”

The New York Times, Safety Concerns Grow as Inmates Are Guarded by Teachers and Secretaries (June 17, 2018)

The Gothamist, Prisoners Endure A Nightmare ‘Gulag’ In Lower Manhattan, Hidden In Plain Sight (June 19, 2018)

– Thomas L. Root

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Like a Mouse Between Two Cats, BOP Director Just Got Tired of It – Update for May 30, 2018

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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. 

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BOP DIRECTOR QUIT BECAUSE OF SESSIONS AND KUSHNER

As we reported last week, BOP director Mark Inch quietly resigned, ironically packing up his office a week ago last Friday even as President Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was praising Inch’s leadership during a White House conference on prison reform. At the time, no one knew why he quit.

CatChasingMouse180530Now we do. The New York Times reported late last Thursday that Inch, a retired Army major general who had been appointed to oversee the Bureau just nine months ago, felt marginalized by Kushner’s prison reform planning, according to three unnamed sources the Times said had with knowledge of the situation. But even more than his ire at Kushner, Inch – a consummate bureaucrat – was frustrated with his boss, Attorney General Sessions, and believed he was in caught in the crossfire of a turf war between Kushner and Sessions, like Ben Franklin’s proverbial “mouse between two cats.”

Sessions had frozen Inch out of budget, staffing, and policy decisions, the Times reported, refusing even to approve his choice for deputy prisons director, the Times reports. For months Inch pleaded with Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein to install Sara M. Revell, North Central Region director, as his top deputy. Rosenstein repeatedly told Inch that Sessions had not yet approved the appointment. Inch reportedly resented Sessions’ habit of communicating with him through junior DOJ lawyers.

Inch also told Rosenstein he was tired of the Trump administration flouting “departmental norms,” and he was frustrated by Sessions trying to thwart Kushner’s reforms. This hardly meant that Inch was a fan of the FIRST STEP Act, however: the Times said Inch objected to the Kushner-backed requirement that inmates be placed in prisons within 500 miles of their homes. He also believed the FIRST STEP earned-credits program for more halfway house was impractical, in part because of a lack of available beds in halfway houses.

inch180530Mostly, it seems Inch was offended that he was largely excluded from discussion of prison reform bill. Even that shutout appears to have been engineered by Sessions. Two senior White House officials said Kushner made a point of inviting Inch to prison reform meetings, but Sessions often sent other officials in his place.

The Times said Inch – whose career was spent in the Army criminal justice and prison system – struggled to publicly explain the BOP’s response to sexual harassment, halfway house and staffing problems. Watching Inch testify before Congress was like getting a tooth pulled without novocaine. The director practiced James H. Boren’s bureaucrat’s creed: “When in doubt, mumble; when in trouble, delegate; when in charge, ponder.”

The New York Times, Turf War Between Kushner and Sessions Drove Federal Prisons Director to Quit (May 24, 2018)

– Thomas L. Root

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BOP Director Does the Seagull Thing – Update for May 21, 2018

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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. 

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BOP DIRECTOR SUDDENLY QUITS – MARKY, WE HARDLY KNEW YE…

Last Friday, at about the same time Trump advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner was praising Bureau of Prisons Director Mark Inch’s accomplishments at a White House prison reform summit, Inch was signing his resignation letter. What no one knows is why.

Inch180521Inch, who as Commanding General of the Army’s Criminal Investigation and Corrections Commands, was the Army’s top cop. Inch served as an MP for 35 years, being promoted into flag ranks without ever serving in a combat unit. At Congressional hearings, he impressed us as little more than a Power Point Ranger (a derisive Army term for an officer who is more at home delivering Power Point briefings to fellow bureaucrat officers than schlepping his TA-50 and an M4 with a command of soldiers). Inch, whose uniform – bereft of any device suggesting he’d gotten within hearing distance of combat or, for that matter, had any appreciable warfighting training at all –  even drew scorn from members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last April for his lack of information and evasive answers to the committee members’ questions. And these people are politicians who steep in bullshit every day.

seagullmission180521To be sure, General Inch seems to have pulled off a classic seagull mission – fly in, crap all over everything, fly out again. Halfway house  time was slashed during his watch. In the Second Chance Act, Congress increased the amount of halfway house the BOP could authorize for an inmate from six to 12 months. Now, with eight months of Inch’s leadership, the BOP has people who served 15 years plus lucky to get 90 days to transition from prison to self-reliance and employment. Last summer, Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III picked Inch to clean up the BOP, but if anything, controversy surrounding the agency only increased since that time. While there has been strong media implication the BOP’s hard times caused Inch’s resignation, there is no direct evidence that this is so.

The New York Times reported that “it was not immediately clear why Mr. Inch, a retired Army major general who had joined the bureau in September, resigned.” USA Today called him “director of the embattled federal Bureau of Prisons.” The Washington Times referred to him as “the embattled director” of the BOP.

The Times noted the BOP “has been the target of a probe by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. For the past year, the bureau has been dogged by sexual harassment staffing shortages. An April USA Today article alleged the bureau had used hundreds of staffers to fill guard posts because of shortages and overtime rules.”

Hugh Hurwitz, former BOP assistant director for reentry programs, will step in as acting director. Hurwitz is pretty much a BOP lifer, having started his career as a law clerk in the Bureau’s office of the general counsel in 1988. 

New York Times, Director of Bureau of Prisons Steps Down (May 18, 2018)

USA Today, Federal prisons chief Mark Inch abruptly resigns from job he took over in September (May 18, 2018)

– Thomas L. Root

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