Tag Archives: Coleman

Getting Closer to Home? – Update for June 27, 2023

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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.

FOUR BOP FACILITIES HAVE ‘MISSIONS’ CHANGED

The Bureau of Prisons is changing the “mission” – that is, converting the populations – of four prison facilities to move the agency closer to the First Step Act’s ideal of housing prisoners within 500 road miles of their homes.

home190109FCI Oxford (Wisconsin), FCI Estill (South Carolina) and FCI Memphis (Tennessee) will convert from male medium-security to male low-security facilities. FCI Estill Satellite Camp will flip from male minimum-security to female minimum-security.

BOP Director Colette Peters told staff in an internal memorandum, “In support of the First Step Act, the BOP has identified locations to undergo mission changes to better afford an opportunity for individuals in our custody to be housed within 500 miles of their release residence.”

The First Step Act provided that the BOP should “place the prisoner in a facility as close as practicable to the prisoner’s primary residence, and to the extent practicable, in a facility within 500 driving miles of that residence.” That directive, codified at 18 USC § 3621(b),  has more holes than a Swiss cheese factory.

The provision says that the 500-mile placement is “subject to bed availability, the prisoner’s security designation, the prisoner’s programmatic needs, the prisoner’s mental and medical health needs, any request made by the prisoner related to faith-based needs, recommendations of the sentencing court, and other security concerns…”

Any BOP employee who can’t find an exception in that statutory mush that justifies keeping a New Yorker, for instance, at FCI West Coast just isn’t very motivated.

One of President Biden’s first acts in office was to order that private prisons’ contracts not be renewed. “The unintended consequences of a move that had popular support with the public,” Walter Pavlo wrote last week in Forbes, “was that it pushed those prisoners in private prisons into BOP low-security prisons across the country… Prisoners were displaced all over the country and some incoming prisoners had to serve their time far from home where bed space was available. The reclassification of these prisons to low security, have the intended purpose of getting more people closer to home.”

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Meanwhile, some BOP staffer’s unions are protesting Director Peters and the BOP’s chronic understaffing problems. A union protest last week near FCI Coleman, ironically enough, was broken up by local law enforcement, but not before the union took issue with the fact that the Director “won’t call inmates ‘inmates,’” said Union Advocate Jose Rojas. “She calls them ‘neighbors.’”

Union members invited onlookers to spin a roulette-style wheel prop that “represented the chance that prison staffers take every day when they have ‘neighbors’ such as the 8,000 inmates at the prison. Those ‘neighbors’ include serial child molester Larry Nassar notorious for years of abusing girl gymnasts, a Somali pirate and many of the nation’s most-hardened criminals,” The Villages-News reported.

“They don’t realize how dangerous it is. We might start seeing some ugly stuff,” Rojas said.

BOP, Mission Change for FCI Oxford Announced (June 21, 2023)

BOP, Three Locations to Undergo Mission Changes (June 13, 2023)

Forbes, Bureau of Prisons Changes in Works to Comply With First Step Act (June 23, 2023)

The Villages News, Picket permit revoked as prison guards try to issue warning in The Villages (June 22, 2023)

– Thomas L. Root

BOP’s PREA Compliance Questioned… Maybe for Good Reason – Update for October 14, 2021

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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.

SENATOR RUBIO DEMANDS MORE BOP SEXUAL ASSAULT INVESTIGATION

No sexual abuse problems here…

sexualassault211014The warden of FCI Dublin, a Bureau of Prisons female facility, has been charged with sexually abusing inmates in a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California late last month. According to a statement from the U.S. Attorney, Ray J. Garcia asked two female inmates to strip naked for him, groped one of the inmates, and took and saved pictures of a naked inmate being held in a cell.

The Warden, who – ironically enough, was in charge of training BOP personnel on compliance with the Prison Rape Elimination Act – is also accused of trying to stop a victim from reporting the sexual abuse by telling her “that he was ‘close friends’ with the individual responsible for investigating allegations of misconduct by inmates and that he could not be fired.”

He was wrong. Warden Ray was placed on administrative leave in July, and arrested on September 29. He is currently released on bond, something that would be very unlikely to have happened were he merely Peter Pervert living in his mom’s basement.

PREAAudit211014I bring this up to note the effectiveness of the Prison Rape Elimination Act. The last PREA Audit for FCI Dublin to be posted online is dated 2017. The inspector conducting the audit found that “[t]he inmates interviewed acknowledged that they received information about the facility’s Zero Tolerance policy against sexual abuse/sexual harassment immediately upon their arrival to the facility, that staff were respectful, and that they felt safe at the facility.”

Right. I’m sure they feel completely secure. Like, say the inmate known in Warden Ray’s Complaint as “Victim 1.” Here’s a tidbit from the complaint, as recounted by FBI Special Agent Kathleen Barkley:

Victim 1 reported that a fourth incident occurred when the “PREA people” were visiting. I understand Victim 1’s reference to “PREA people,” to be a reference to PREA staff who visited FCI Dublin to assess FCI’s Dublin’s compliance with PREA and to make recommendations regarding their policies and procedures.11 During this incident, and while the PREA staff members were on site, GARCIA told Victim 1 he needed to touch her, took her into one of the changing stalls designed for PREA compliant searches, grabbed her breasts, and briefly grabbed her vagina.

Rather graphic, but it illustrates the high regard in which the BOP staff hold PREA Audits. To be fair, Ray Garcia appears to be an aberration, but then, he’s not the first BOP staffer at Dublin to sexually abuse female inmates. Just ask Ross Klinger, a former BOP correctional officer at Dublin. That is, if his lawyer will let him say anything in advance of his trial…

The foregoing puts an exclamation mark on the letter Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) sent to BOP Director Michael Carjaval last week, demanding that the BOP conduct further investigations into allegations of sexual assault at the women’s facility – since closed – at FCI Coleman.

PREA211014Rubio wants to know why female inmates were not interviewed as part of the most recent Prison Rape Elimination Act audit, conducted just two days after all female prisoners were moved to other prisons. That’s right. All of the female inmates were packed out on buses to other facilities two days before the audit, which – among other things – was intended to address the climate of sexual abuse that had permeated the Coleman women’s facility.

“This is deeply concerning,” Rubio said, “because it was female inmates who made the allegations of sexual abuse. Female inmates were housed at the facility during the time period from 2018 to 2021 covered by the PREA audit. The allegations made by inmates at FCI Coleman raise serious questions as to the facility’s compliance with PREA and the conduct of its officers.”

Latin Times, Federal Prison Warden In California Charged With Sexually Abusing Inmate (October 1, 2021)

Complaint, United States v. Garcia, Case No. 4:21-mj-71517 (filed September 24, 2021)

Press release, Rubio: Bureau of Prisons Must Continue to Investigate Allegations of Sexual Assault at FCI Coleman (Ocober 8, 2021)

– Thomas L. Root

The Ugly Gets Uglier in Coleman Sex Assault Suit – Update for September 24, 2020

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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.

FLORIDA NEWSPAPER REPORTS COLEMAN GUARDS WHO SEXUALLY ABUSED FEMALE INMATES WERE NOT PROSECUTED

Hey, all you male predators: Want a job where you can freely sexually assault women? And retire with fat benefits (and a nonprosecution agreement)? Have we got an opportunity for you at the BOP!

inconceivable170817In a story published last week, The Tampa Bay Times reported that the government admitted in a court filing that six of eight COs named in a civil suit by 15 current and former female inmates at Coleman engaged in sexual misconduct, but were not prosecuted, but rather allowed to resign or retire. Some are still getting federal retirement benefits.

The suit contends the Coleman prison was a “sanctuary” for abusers. In some cases, the women allege, the abuse lasted for years. The women, who range in age from 26 to 59, were threatened if they didn’t comply, the suit maintains.

Tampa Bay Times, No consequences after Florida officers admit to sexually abusing inmates, lawsuit says (September 17, 2020)

– Thomas L. Root

Six Months Later, BOP Making No Progress on COVID-19 – Update for September 13, 2020

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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.

COVID-19 GRINDS ON

You’d think, reading enough BOP blandishments about its “Action Plan” to address the COVID-19 pandemic that today, six months after the pandemic began, we’d be doing better. Instead, thehe number of inmates sick with the virus climbed above 2,000 for the fourth time (May 5, June 3, June 7 and July 6), standing last night at 2,033, up 4% from last week’s 1,947. The number of sick staff has fallen 2%, from 643 to 631. The number of facilities with outbreaks has increased by two, from 112 to 114, representing 93% of all institutions (an all-time high).

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The BOP has done enough COVID-19 tests as of last night to test 36% of the BOP inmate population, if the BOP were testing each inmate once (which it is definitely not doing). Twenty-five percent of all tests are positive for COVID.

The Sentencing Resources Counsel for the Federal Defenders organization last week issued a blistering review of the BOP’s COVID-19 response, quoting Joe Rojas, a BOP employee and regional vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees Council of Prison Locals. “They’re making the virus explode.” The report identifies 19 BOP inmates “who died in BOP custody after filing —and in some cases, even after being granted—requests for release” and note that “at least four individuals — Adrian Slarzano, Gerald Porter, Robert Hague-Rogers, and Marie Neba — have died of COVID-19 after either testing negative or after BOP erroneously pronounced them ‘recovered’.” It noted the Washington Post’s description of prison response to COVID-19 as exemplifying “a culture of cruelty and disregard for the well-being of incarcerated people,” and described FMC Carswell, a women’s medical facility, as a “house of horror.”

plague200406The report observes that because of the First Step Act of 2018, inmates may file their own motions for compassionate release, but it complains that the 30-day mandatory exhaustion period before filing, “coupled with DOJ’s routine opposition, prevents vulnerable defendants from obtaining critical relief.” Significantly, the Report notes that “based on a survey of defense attorneys representing clients across the country, we are not aware of a single BOP-initiated motion for compassionate release based on heightened risk of severe illness from COVID-19 infection.”

Things are unlikely to improve in the coming months. The Institute for Health Metrics and Education (part of the University of Washington), predicts that the daily US death rate, “because of seasonality and declining vigilance of the public, will reach nearly 3,000 a day in December. Cumulative deaths expected by January 1 are 410,000.” Current deaths stand at 197,000. this is 225,000 more deaths from now until the end of the year.

To make matters worse, prisons are bracing for simultaneous outbreaks of the flu and COVID-19 as the weather turns colder. “The flu regularly spreads through prisons and jails in the US for some of the same reasons that COVID-19 does,” the Verge reported last week. “The facilities pack vulnerable people in close quarters, with limited access to soap or other ways to protect themselves against an infectious disease. Handling a single outbreak is already a struggle in these places, which often don’t do enough to protect the health of the people living in them. Now, they may have to handle two.”

plagueB200406Flu shots are offered to all BOP staff and older and health-compromised inmates, “but those guidelines don’t mean most inmates in the US get flu shots; outbreaks regularly happen in prisons where most inmates aren’t vaccinated.”

In the continuing and deadly game of COVID-19 whack-a-mole, the BOP is battling major outbreaks (over 100 cases) at FDC San Diego, Big Spring, USP Leavenworth, Coleman, Petersburg Low and Victorville. Other significant infections are going on at FTC Oklahoma, Waseca, FCI Miami, Forrest City and FDC SeaTac.

A Seattle-area newspaper published a story last week alleging that a BOP CO came to work one day in August with a fever and headache, spreading the virus throughout the facility before his shift ended. The paper said FDC SeaTac violated its own protocols of taking every staff person’s temperature before each shift, thus letting the coronavirus into the facility. As of last night, FDC SeaTac reported 46 sick inmates and seven sick staff.

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CoreCivic, the private prison operator that runs facilities holding immigration detainees and thousands of federal prisoners, is getting grilled as well. New Mexico’s congressional delegation wrote to ICE, Marshals and CoreCivic last month about conditions in Cibola County Correctional Institution, a CoreCivic immigration detention prison. CoreCivic took troublingly long to realize that it had “a massive outbreak in its facility endangering the safety of inmates, detainees, staff and the community,” the delegation said, noting that the state Department of Health had to direct CoreCivic to conduct mass testing. The delegation was also concerned that “correctional officers working at the Cibola facility are not wearing adequate [personal protective equipment] when escorting COVID-19 positive inmates into the local hospital.”

Neither any of the agencies nor CoreCivic has responded.

Sentencing Resource Counsel for the Federal Public Community Defenders, The COVID-19 Crisis in Federal Detention (Sept. 9, 2020)

The Verge, Prisons battling COVID-19 face another disease threat this fall (Sept. 11, 2020)

IMHE, Model Updates for Sept. 3, 2020

South Seattle Emerald, SeaTac Federal Detention Center Exposed Prisoners to the Coronavirus by Allegedly Failing to Follow Coronavirus Protocols (Sept. 7, 2020)

Santa Fe New Mexican, Prison’s virus outbreak brings fear to rural area (Sept. 12, 2002)

– Thomas L. Root

 

Prisons Not Testing Right For COVID, CDC Says – Update for August 26, 2020

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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 LOSING AT WHACK-A-MOLE

whack200602Not quite three months ago, Bureau of Prisons Director Michael Carvajal confidently told the Senate Judiciary Committee, “at this point, we have more recoveries than new infections. And I believe that this shows that we are now flattening the curve.”

What is being “flattened” is the BOP’s response to the pandemic.

Twelve weeks later – after inmates spiked July 26 at 4,413 – the BOP’s numbers have stopped falling, and in fact increased slightly. As of Tuesday night, 1,597 inmates were sick, up 8% from last week. Sick staff numbered 638, up 11% from a week ago, four more inmates died, bringing the total to 122, and COVID-19 was present in 109 facilities, 89% of BOP facilities.

Complaints continued last week about the BOP’s handing of the pandemic continue, mostly from staff. When the correctional officer union president at USP Thomson (Illinois) found out he was COVID-19 positive, the 20th BOP staffer there to come down with the virus, he told ABC news he had to find an independent testing site on his own. “Testing for staff isn’t available at the prison but they test inmates for COVID-19 at the prison,” ABC quoted him as saying. “Staff also can’t get tested due to being forced to work double 16-hour shifts almost on a daily basis.”

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Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a study last week that looked at 15 prisons, including five unidentified BOP facilities. The CDC found that mass testing at the facilities “suggests that symptom-based testing underestimates the number of COVID-19 cases in these settings. Mass testing resulted in a median 12.1-fold increase in the number of known infections among incarcerated or detained persons in these facilities, which had previously used symptom-based testing strategies only.” Symptom-based testing, of course, is the preferred BOP approach, in which only inmates with symptoms get tested.

Additionally, the study found that “in two federal prisons, all persons who had tested negative during mass testing events and had subsequently been quarantined as close contacts of persons testing positive were retested after 7 days. At retesting, 20.5% of persons in BOP prison 2 and 26.8% in BOP prison 3 had positive test results.”

As of last night, the BOP had still only conducted enough tests to cover 31% of the BOP population, with 26% of those tests coming back positive.

The failure of symptoms-only testing is illustrated in the whack-a-mole problems the BOP faces. Besides USP Thomson, the BOP is facing outbreaks at FCC Petersburg (Virginia), FDC San Diego and FCI Victorville in California, FCC Coleman (Florida), and FCI Manchester (Kentucky). Numbers are finally dropping at FCI Seagoville and FCI Beaumont (both Texas).

Marketwatch ran a piece last week on the cost to taxpayers of COVID-19 in prisons, noting that “the public understands the urgent need for action. A national survey found that 66% of likely voters, including 59% of those identifying as ‘very conservative,’ believe elected officials should consider measures to reduce overcrowding in prisons and jails. Survey research over many years has shown that most Americans believe the U.S. locks up too many people.”

poorcorresp200826Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) is not happy, and last week, he let Attorney General William Barr know it. The Miami Herald reported that “nearly nine months after demanding an investigation of allegations of rampant sexual abuse at Coleman Federal Correctional Complex exposed in a Miami Herald story, Sen. Marco Rubio says he still hasn’t gotten a ‘substantive response’. And he is not happy — especially since there is new cause for concern with COVID-19.”

On Thursday, Rubio wrote to Attorney General William Barr to express his “dissatisfaction that the DOJ has not sufficiently responded to inquiries I have made in regard to FCI Coleman” about the allegations. As well, he complained that “my office continues to receive numerous complaints that FCI Coleman staff are not following the CDC’s Guidance for Correctional and Detention Facilities, which — among other measures — recommends BOP officers and inmates wear masks when in close proximity with others. Most concerning, my office has been made aware that facility management may have ordered staff to return to work despite testing positive for COVID-19. I have already requested the BOP take immediate action to address this allegation, and I look forward to the outcome of its investigation.”

ABC News, ‘Who is going to man the prison if everyone tests positive?’ Corrections officer union warns of dual threat facing federal prisons (August 19, 2020)

CDC, Mass Testing for SARS-CoV-2 in 16 Prisons and Jails — Six Jurisdictions, United States, April–May 2020 (August 21, 2020)

Marketwatch, U.S. taxpayers already pay a high price to support America’s giant prison population. Now COVID-19 is costing them even more (August 20, 2020)

Miami Herald, Rubio demands answers from Barr on sexual abuse, COVID response at Florida prison (August 20, 2020)

– Thomas L. Root

Has BOP Found ‘Peak COVID’? – Update for July 28, 2020

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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 COVID NUMBERS MAY BE CRESTING AS CRITICISM OF BOP PANDEMIC RESPONSE GROWS

The number of Federal Bureau of Prisons prisoners with COVID-19 increased 14% last week to 4,413 as of Sunday night (an all-time high), after falling slight on Saturday. Yesterday, however, the number of infected inmates took a 7% plunge.

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It appears that all of that decrease was due to FCC Beaumont’s dramatic (some might say ‘miraculous’) decrease in reported cases, from 463 on Sunday night to 135 on Monday night. But for that decrease, BOP systemwide cases increased by 35.

Miracle200513Other numbers were not so encouraging. Infected BOP staff increased 33% to 405, and four more inmates died. Most ominously, 108 facilities have COVID-19, 88.5% of BOP joints, an increase of 9% over last week.

Of the 4,120 active inmate cases, Texas facilities FCI Seagoville has 1,257, the women’s FMC at Carswell has 529 cases, and Beaumont Low has 463. Other significant outbreaks are at FCI Miami and Coleman Low and Medium (Florida), Victorville Medium I (California), Butner Low (North Carolina), Elkton (Ohio) and Jesup (Georgia).

A report from the Dept. of Justice Inspector General released last week criticized BOP mismanagement of the pandemic at Lompoc. The report said two Lompoc BOP staff members came to work in late March despite experiencing coronavirus symptoms, although those symptoms were not detected during screening. Officials then failed to test or isolate an inmate who reported that he had begun having symptoms two days earlier and later tested positive. And thus it started.

Medical staff shortage limited inmate and staff screening for COVID-19 symptoms, and other staff shortages resulted in Lompoc officials delaying for 15 days the full implementation of staff movement restrictions required by BOP for institutions with active COVID-19 cases.

What’s more, the BOP’s use of home confinement authority in April was “extremely limited.” As of May 13, the IG report said, over 900 Lompoc inmates had contracted COVID-19 but only 8 inmates had been transferred to CARES Act home confinement.

Fault200728In a statement following the release of the report, the BOP said it had fixed nearly all of the issues identified by the inspector general. It blamed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for many of the problems cited in the report. “These findings must be placed in context, as these were unique circumstances where the BOP, along with the rest of the country, was learning about how to treat and manage this novel virus,” the agency said.

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles Federal Court, Judge Consuelo Marshall granted a preliminary injunction in a class-action lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California that accuses the BOP Lompoc management of failing to take basic hygiene steps to protect those imprisoned.

The Judge ordered BOP officials to tell the court which inmates are medically eligible under CDC risk guidelines for release as part of a plan to reduce the population.

corona200323The BOP asked the judge to dismiss the lawsuit, noting it had built a field hospital and adopted mass testing in May. But after more than 70% of inmates at Lompoc Low tested positive, the judge found there was a “substantial risk of exposure to COVID-19, which is inconsistent with contemporary standards of human decency” and that the BOP had “likely been deliberately indifferent to the known urgency to consider inmates for home confinement, particularly those most vulnerable to severe illness or death.”

DOJ Inspector General, Pandemic Response Report 20-086, Remote Inspection of Federal Correctional Complex Lompoc (July 23, 2020)

CNN, DOJ watchdog report finds lack of staffing contributed to Covid outbreak in California prison (July 23)

Los Angeles Times, Judge orders release of vulnerable inmates at Lompoc prisons hit by virus (July 22)

Torres v. Milusnic, Case No 2:20cv4450 (C.D.Cal, entered July 14, 2020), 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 131446

– Thomas L. Root