Published on: Tuesday, May 4, 2021

Today, May 4, 2021, the Federal Public & Community Defenders sent a letter, available here, expanding on the April 15, 2021, Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, explaining the crucial need for increased Congressional oversight of DOJ and BOP in light of their lackluster implementation of the First Step Act (FSA), specifically:

  • The humanitarian crisis within BOP continues, as BOP fails to keep incarcerated individuals safe from COVID-19. And the arrival of vaccines failing to end ongoing deaths in BOP custody; about half of BOP staff have accepted vaccination. BOP policies and preexisting problems have allowed COVID-19 to tear through facilities, exacerbating racial disparities in health equity, given the disproportionate number of persons of color in BOP custody.
  • These in-custody deaths are exacerbated by BOP’s refusal to meaningfully use Congressionally-created tools, such as home confinement and compassionate release, to pursue decarceration. In addition, the DOJ’s position that individuals released on home confinement pursuant to the CARES Act must return to prison after the COVID-19 crisis, regardless of successful performance, also violates the spirit of the FSA.
  • Nor has BOP implemented the FSA’s core vision for reform: expanding evidence-based rehabilitative programming in custody to reduce recidivism and provide a path back as a productive member of the community after incarceration.
  • BOP has not complied with the FSA’s mandate to create a risk and needs assessment, instead creating PATTERN, an opaque risk-assessment tool that has exacerbated racial disparities and yet to be validated by evaluated for accuracy by outside stakeholders.
  • Even prior to the pandemic, BOP failed to offer enough evidence-based programming to meaningfully comply with the FSA’s intent. And BOP’s restrictive time-credit rule effectively guts the FSA’s incentive structure and withholds time credits from individuals who have completed the limited number of evidence-based programming and productive activities that are available.

The Training Division is providing COVID-19 resources and materials, updated multiple times daily, to assist defenders and CJA panel attorneys with understanding and litigating issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic.