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FOR A GOOD TIME, CALL THE BOP AND ASK FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE
I was swimming in the middle of an Adirondack lake last summer with my 6-year-old granddaughter when she suddenly stopped, bobbing like a cork in her life jacket, and said, “Appa, I know the f-word.”
“Um,” I replied, not knowing what else to say.
“It’s got four letters and it starts with ‘f,’ which is why they call it the ‘f’ word,” Helen continued pedantically. “But it’s a bad word and you’re not s’posed to say it.”
Too bad an unnamed Federal Bureau of Prisons correctional officer wasn’t bobbing there with us. He could have learned something from 6-year-old Helen.
Last Wednesday, an after-hours phone call rang in on a federal prison’s main number. The caller was a Mr. Lee, asking whether a particular prisoner was suffering a medical emergency. The inmate – who normally called his family daily – hadn’t been heard from for days, and the family hoped Mr. Lee could find out what they couldn’t, whether the man was just out of telephone minutes for the rest of the month or rather might be in a bad way.
The Bureau of Prisons officer who answered told Mr. Lee that he was calling “too f****** late” and refused to provide him any information beyond claiming that the inmate was alive and receiving appropriate medical care. When Mr. Lee, surprised by the discourtesy, asked for the employee’s name, the staffer hung up.
“Sadly, this is not the first time I’ve had this experience when talking to people from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons on behalf of constituents with an incarcerated family member suffering from a severe medical condition,” Mr. Lee wrote on X. “And each occasion, I’ve been treated at best with dismissiveness and at worst with contempt and profanity.”
No one from the outside, especially inmate family members, could disagree with Mr. Lee or, for that matter, be surprised by the story. Medical neglect in the BOP is a sacred tradition, no matter what the 8th Amendment may say, and officer rudeness is legion.
The BOP officer’s response was essentially, “Who the f*** do you think you are, Mr. Lee?” The answer to that question is what makes the ending of this tale a little different than the seething frustration experienced by Joe or Jane Average when they call.
Mr. Lee happens to be Mr. Mike Lee, a former federal prosecutor who is now a Republican senator from Utah sitting on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
What is surprising is that Sen. Lee explained to the BOP officer exactly who he was and why he was calling (checking on a constituent) right before the CO’s snappy ‘too f****** late’ quip. Sadly, the BOP staffer apparently spends insufficient time reading the New York Times and Wall Street Journal to fully appreciate to whom he was being disrespectful. And, because he’s never talked to Helen, the officer apparently was unaware that the f-word is a bad word that you should never say.
Sen. Lee recounted his experience on X and asked, “Has anyone else experienced this with the US Bureau of Prisons?”
‘Of course not!’ said no one who’s ever called the BOP.
The X post came to the attention of BOP staff who had heard of Mike Lee, and the Bureau and the Dept of Justice spun up to full damage-control mode. DOJ’s Rapid Response social media account told Lee the CO’s conduct was “unacceptable” and said the matter was being addressed.
A BOP spokesperson told the Washington Examiner, “The way the Senator was spoken to is inconsistent with the level of professionalism expected of our staff,” the spokesperson said. “This matter… is regrettable and unacceptable. It was immediately addressed at the highest levels.”
The Examiner said the “agency said senior leadership has already contacted Lee’s office and that appropriate corrective action would be taken. It is not immediately clear whether any disciplinary action was taken in response to the staffer’s conduct, and the spokesperson said the matter was still under an active investigation as of Thursday afternoon.”
But as the officer probably found out, the damage control was “too f****** late.” Reason magazine reported on the phone call, saying, “Lee’s experience is a particularly pointed example of an issue that families and criminal justice advocacy groups have complained about for years: It’s next to impossible to get information about inmates’ health from the federal BOP, and the agency frequently fails to notify families when their incarcerated loved ones are sick or even dying.”
Reason cited its 2024 interviews with inmates’ family members describing delays in the BOP notifying them “that their incarcerated loved one had been hospitalized, or even died; having their phone calls ignored; not being allowed to see their loved one in their final moments; delays in being sent the body and death certificate; being given inaccurate or incomplete information about the manner of death; or waiting months and years for the BOP to fulfill their public records requests for more information about how their loved one died.”
In 2025, Sens Jon Ossoff (D–GA) and John Kennedy (R–LA) introduced the Family Notification of Death, Injury, or Illness in Custody Act (S.1322), which would require the BOP to promptly notify prisoners’ families when the inmate became seriously ill, suffered life-threatening injuries, or died. The bill was referred to the Judiciary Committee, but it has not yet gotten a hearing. Sen. Lee has a say in moving that measure forward, and he may now have an incentive to push it through.
However, it is probably too much to hope that the BOP culture of disrespect for inmates’ families will end any f****** time soon.
(Sorry, Helen, we really shouldn’t say that word).
Sen Mike Lee, X Post of April 15, 2026
Washington Examiner, Prison bureau addresses ‘unacceptable’ treatment of Mike Lee after mishandled inmate call (April 16, 2026)
Reason, Sen. Mike Lee Says Federal Prison Hung Up on Him When He Tried To Check on Inmate (April 15, 2026)
S.1322, Family Notification of Death, Injury, or Illness in Custody Act
~ Thomas L. Root
