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TRICK-OR-TREAT – PART 2 (IN WHICH BOP DIRECTOR IS HOPING FOR ‘CHOCOLATE HEARTS’ INSTEAD OF A THUG HUG)

What we kids used to call “Halloweening” (I know, it’s not really a verb, but a lot of non-verb words are being used as verbs these days) continues today.

BOP Director Colette Peters sat for her first national media interview last week, telling Associated Press reporters Michael Balsamo and Michael Sisak – who have covered BOP crises, scandals and miscues in detail for the past three years – that skeptics who denounce her approach to running a prison system “hug a thug” are simply wrong.

Peters didn’t mind that, but she offers a different term: “chocolate hearts.” Her ideal BOP employee, she said, is as interested in preparing inmates for returning to society after their sentences as they are in keeping order while those inmates are still locked within the prison walls. She said she wants to reorient the agency’s hiring practices to find candidates who want to “change hearts and minds” and end systemic abuse and corruption. She told the AP she would not rule out closing problematic prisons, though there are no current plans to do so.

Chocolate hearts or the ‘Thug Squeeze’, Peters nevertheless is still dealing with problems she inherited when she took the director’s job last August, and those problems are many.

Trick: Ruben Montanez-Mirabal (Montanez), a nurse at FDC Miami, was indicted last week on charges of bribery, smuggling contraband into prison and possession with intent to distribute K2.

According to the indictment, Montanez posted Instagram photos of him in a Lamborghini, a Rolls Royce and a McLaren. When one person wrote back to Montanez about how much he was paying for these cars Montanez responded, “Absolutely nothing. It’s all about having the right contact.” The cars were owned by the inmate at FDC Miami who was cooperating with authorities.

Treat: Peters won praise from Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) for her decision to join him in inspecting USP Atlanta last Wednesday.

“I want to be really clear, I’m not here to tell you the problems are solved,” Ossoff told reporters. “We saw encouraging signs of improved management and I heard a firm commitment from the new leadership to continue improving this facility and safeguarding public safety in the community.”

The BOP emptied USP Atlanta of prisoners a year ago amid reports of rampant staff corruption, decrepit facilities and drug use and contraband possession among inmates. “We saw encouraging signs of improved management and I heard a firm commitment from the new leadership to continue improving this facility and safeguarding public safety in the community,” Ossoff said. However, he warned, “I’m a long way from being prepared to declare that the problem has been solved.”

Trick: While Peters was getting lauded by Sen Ossoff, she was taking it on the chin in Fort Worth. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, which has been covering staff abuse and miserable conditions experienced by the female inmates and conditions at FMC Carswell, the BOP women’s medical center in Fort Worth, asked Peters for an interview on September 7. A BOP spokesman declined on her behalf, saying Peters’ “schedule is very full her first few months, but we can re-visit this request in the future.”

To determine when Peters may be available, the Star-Telegram requested her appointment calendar through a Freedom of Information Act request. Last week, the newspaper reported that the BOP told it the FOIA request would take a while because it “must be searched for and collected from a field office.” One month later,” the Star-Telegram said, it “had not received Peters’ calendar.”

On October 11, the Star-Telegram again requested to speak with Peters regarding abuse at FMC Carswell. A BOP spokesperson once again said “the director’s schedule does not permit an interview at this time.”

Treat: The FCI Dublin sex abuse scandal is working its way toward resolution. Last Thursday, a former BOP corrections officer accused of sexually abusing inmates there pleaded guilty.

Enrique Chavez entered a plea to one count of abusive sexual contact with a prisoner. Chavez was a food service foreman there two years ago when he locked the door to the pantry and fondled an inmate.

Chavez was the fifth Dublin employee to be charged with sexual abuse of inmates since June 2021. Others include the prison’s former warden and a chaplain. He is the third to have pleaded guilty.

Trick: Auto-calc, the new BOP computer app created to automatically calculate inmates’ earned-time credits” suffered a technical glitch as it was launched earlier this month (only 60 days late).

Instead of recognizing inmates’ ETC credits, NBC News reported Friday, “some said the opposite occurred, which suddenly shifted their release dates to a later time than they had anticipated. In extreme cases, some prisoners already released to halfway homes were erroneously told that the new calculations indicated they were deficient in the necessary credits and they would have to return to prison.”

Director Peters told NBC News on Thursday that prisoners’ time credit calculations are now accurately reflected and it was “unfortunate we had some IT glitches as it rolled out.”

“When you move from a human calculation to an automation, you always hope that the error rate drops, and so that’s our hope as well going forward,” she said.

AP, US Bureau of Prisons chief pledges hiring reforms amid staffing crisis (October 25, 2022)

Forbes, Federal Prison FDC Miami Nurse Indicted On Contraband Charges (October 24, 2022)

WSB-TV, Atlanta’s federal penitentiary being inspected after inmates could come and go through holes (October 26, 2022)

Ft Worth Star-Telegram, Bureau of Prisons continues to evade questions about sexual abuse at Fort Worth prison (October  27, 2022)

Corrections1, Federal prison worker pleads guilty to inmate sex abuse (October 28, 2022)

NBC News, Tech glitch botches federal prisons’ rollout of update to Trump-era First Step Act (October 28, 2022)

– Thomas L. Root