President Joe Biden signed into law on Thursday a bill strengthening oversight of the crisis-plagued federal Bureau of Prisons after reporting by The Associated Press exposed systemic corruption, failures and abuse in the federal prison system.
The Federal Prison Oversight Act, which passed the Senate on July 10 and the House in May, establishes an independent ombudsman to field and investigate complaints in the wake of sexual assaults and other criminal misconduct by staff, chronic understaffing, escapes and high-profile deaths.
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It also requires that the Justice Department’s inspector general conduct risk-based inspections of all 122 federal prison facilities, provide recommendations to address deficiencies and assign each facility a risk score. Higher-risk facilities would then receive more frequent inspections.
Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters lauded the bill as she testifying before Congress this week. But, she told the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance that the agency will need tens of millions of dollars in additional funding “to effectively respond to the additional oversight and make that meaningful, long-lasting change.”
Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., introduced the oversight bill in 2022 while leading an investigation of the Bureau of Prisons as chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee’s subcommittee on investigations.
Ossoff and the bill’s two other sponsors, Judiciary Committee Chair Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Sens. Mike Braun, R-Ind., launched the Senate Bipartisan Prison Policy Working Group in February 2022 amid turmoil at the Bureau of Prisons, much of it uncovered by AP reporting. Reps. Kelly Armstrong, R-N.D., and Lucy McBath, D-Ga., backed the House version of the bill.
“The human rights crisis behind bars in the United States is a stain on America’s conscience," Ossoff said in a statement thanking the bill's other sponsors. “The United States Congress will no longer tolerate the ongoing and widespread abuse of those who are in Federal Bureau of Prisons’ custody.”
Under the legislation, an independent federal prison ombudsman would collect complaints via a secure hotline and online form and then investigate and report to the attorney general and Congress dangerous conditions affecting the health, safety, welfare and rights of inmates and staff.
Along with inspecting prison facilities, the legislation requires the Justice Department’s inspector general to report any findings and recommendations to Congress and the public. The Bureau of Prisons would then need to respond with a corrective action plan within 60 days.
Last year, Inspector General Michael Horowitz launched an unannounced inspection program of federal prison facilities that identified critical shortcomings, including staff shortages in health and education programs, crumbling infrastructure, and moldy and rotten food being served to inmates.
The oversight bill “recognizes the importance of our inspection program,” Horowitz said. “We look forward to working with Congress to expand its impact.”
Peters said the bill “really enhances” what the inspector general has been doing, while also enabling the agency to collect data and spot problems more quickly.
“We’ll be seeing more announced visits — more unannounced visits from the inspector general,” Peters told the House subcommittee. “And then I think the ombudsman position is very powerful as well, for it to have a place where individuals can bring forward complaints and somebody is there to ensure that those complaints are asked and answered.”
Biden signed a separate Ossoff bill into law in December 2022 requiring the Bureau of Prisons to fix broken surveillance cameras and install new ones.
An ongoing Associated Press investigation has uncovered deep, previously unreported flaws within the Bureau of Prisons, the Justice Department’s largest law enforcement agency with more than 30,000 employees, 158,000 inmates and an annual budget of about $8 billion.
AP reporting has revealed dozens of escapes, chronic violence, deaths and severe staffing shortages that have hampered responses to emergencies, including inmate assaults and suicides.
In April, the Bureau of Prisons said it was closing its women’s prison in Dublin, California, known as the “rape club,” giving up on attempts to reform the facility after an AP investigation exposed rampant staff-on-inmate sexual abuse.
Last year, two high-profile prisoners were attacked and another killed himself in federal prisons.
Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was stabbed 22 times by a fellow prisoner last November at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson, Arizona. The assailant said he targeted Chauvin because of his notoriety for killing George Floyd, federal prosecutors said.
Disgraced former sports doctor Larry Nassar was stabbed in July 2023 at a federal penitentiary in Florida, and “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski killed himself at a federal medical center in June 2023.
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Sisak reported from New York.