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DURBIN TO GRILL BOP DIRECTOR AT THURSDAY JUDICIARY HEARING
When Colette Peters was sworn in last month as BOP director, her honeymoon with Sen Richard Durbin (D-IL), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, lasted all of three days.
Durbin’s dislike of prior Director Michael Carvajal was well known, and publicly, the Senator was elated at Peters’ appointment. But when Durbin learned the BOP had given Carvajal a 30-day consulting contract to assist the new director with the transition, he was much less enthused.
At the time, Durbin threatened to hold another oversight hearing on the BOP. He is about to make good on that threat.
The Judiciary Committee will conduct a BOP oversight hearing today. Peters is the primary witness, but other witnesses include Shane Fausey, President of the Council of Prison Locals national union; John Wetzel, a prison consultant and former head of the Pennsylvania Dept. of Corrections; and Cecilia Cardenas of Davenport, Iowa.
It is not clear who Ms. Cardenas is, but a person of that name and from that area was released by the BOP last January.
Fausey is probably on the witness list because of his outspoken criticism of BOP staffing levels. Fausey told a reporter last week that much of the BOP staffing decline is due to declining morale as general environmental conditions are declining. He said BOP staff is “exhausted” as mandatory overtime has “skyrocketed” at high-security institutions across the country.
Last week, BOP employees at FCI Raybrook in upstate New York posted a sign along a highway there saying the federal prison is “dangerously understaffed” and asks the community if it feels safe.
I expect that a major topic of discussion will be the Federal Prison Oversight Act, introduced yesterday by Sens Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Mike Braun (R-IN), and Durbin. The Federal Prison Oversight Act, according to a Durbin press release, will require the Dept of Justice’s Inspector General to
conduct comprehensive, risk-based inspections of the [BOP’s] 122 facilities to identify problems that affect incarcerated people and staff and to provide recommendations to address them. It will require the IG to assign each facility a risk score, with higher-risk facilities required to be inspected more often. Under the bill, the IG must also report its findings and recommendations to Congress and the public, and the BOP must respond to all inspection reports within 60 days with a corrective action plan.
The bill will also establish an Ombudsman within DOJ to investigate issues that adversely affect the health, safety, welfare, or rights of incarcerated people or staff, and who would report dangerous findings directly to the Attorney General and Congress. The Ombudsman would also be tasked with creating a secure hotline and online form to be made available for family members, friends, and representatives of incarcerated people to submit complaints and inquiries regarding issues within BOP.
No doubt Peters will be asked pointed questions about sexual assault of female prisoners. Last week, she issued a statement saying she was “firm in my commitment to work with the BOP team, Department of Justice (DOJ) leadership, the Office of Inspector General (OIG), Congress, and others as I begin to assess and address issues and concerns pertaining to the BOP and the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Dublin.”
The former warden and four other FCI Dublin employees face criminal charges for sexually assaulting female inmates.
Peters may as well be asked about the sexual assault scandal at FMC Carswell, the only medical center for women in the BOP system. The Ft Worth Star-Telegram last week reported that a former federal Bureau of Prisons staff member who pleaded guilty to raping two women at a prison in Fort Worth was sentenced to 18 months in prison — half the time one of his victims is serving for drug possession.
Luis Curiel pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual abuse of a ward while he was a lieutenant at Carswell. He was sentenced to concurrent 18 months for each charge. According to court documents, Curiel admitted to meeting three women at separate times near a staff elevator and forcing them into sexual acts.
If the Committee runs short of topics for Director Peters, it may inquire about an Oklahoma City TV report last week that a widow is still seeking answers about her husband’s death at FTC Oklahoma City.
Nearly two weeks after Jonathan Patterson Days died suddenly at the FTC, his wife told reporters says she still doesn’t know what happened to him and the facility hasn’t returned his body.
Abbie Alvarado-Patterson said she asked the chaplain, “when do I get his body back? He said, ‘you want his body back?’” She said the BOP chaplain couldn’t give her any additional information about what happened, including a timeline for returning the body
Associated Press, Senate to hold hearing on crisis-plagued federal prisons (August 5, 2022)
Senate Judiciary Committee, Hearing Notice (September 29, 2022)
Associated Press, Senators push new oversight to combat federal prison crises (September 28, 2022)
Press Release, Durbin, Ossoff, Braun Introduce Bipartisan Bill To Overhaul Federal Prison Oversight (September 28, 2022)
News Nation, Experts warn prison staff shortage put lives at risk (September 23, 2022)
KTVU-TV, Prison director vows to ‘change the culture’ at FCI Dublin (September 23, 2022)
Ft Worth Star-Telegram, Fort Worth prison officer gets lighter sentence for assault than victim’s drug sentence (September 20, 2022)
KFOR-TV, ‘This man was loved’: Wife demands answers after husband dies in federal custody (September 21, 2022)
– Thomas L. Root
The Federal Prison Oversight Act (no bill number yet) is sponsored by Senators Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Mike Braun (R-IN), and Richard Durbin (D-IL), in the Senate and Representatives Lucy McBath (D-GA) and Kelly Armstrong (R-ND) in the House. The same legislators sponsored the same legislation when it was introduced last fall, but the measures died at the end of the 117th Congress.
FOPA would require DOJ to create a prisons ombudsman to field complaints about prison conditions and compel the Department’s Inspector General to evaluate risks and abuses at all 122 BOP facilities. Under the bill, the DOJ Inspector General would conduct risk-based inspections of all federal prison facilities, provide recommendations to address deficiencies and assign each facility a risk score. Higher-risk facilities would then receive more frequent inspections.
