Wednesday, January 9, 2013

BOP Faulted for Failure to Reduce Prisoner Counts

   The Government Account Office (GAO) has once again criticized the Bureau of Prisons (BOP), for their failure to use current statutory and regulatory authority to reduce the prisoner population, and thereby save the taxpayers money. 

     In its study published in 2012, the GAO noted that the BOP has three principal authorities to legally reduce prisoner counts: 12-month sentence reduction for completion of the Residential Drug Abuse Treatment Program (RDAP), transfer of prisoners to community correction centers (also known as halfway houses) under the Second-Chance Act which authorizes up to to 12 months of halfway house, and the use of "good time" sentence reduction for good behavior while incarcerated.

     However, as long as Congress continues to approve BOP budget requests without tying them to using these tools at their disposal to reduce prison population, it is unlikely to be a priority for the BOP.  What government agency doesn't want to justify maintaining, or better yet, increasing their current budget? 

     However, the BOP, never known for administrative efficiency in the administration of any of its programs, continues to lag behind in its use of common sense to get people out of prison, back in their community, and home to their families. High prison populations are only popular with prison guard labor unions, thankfully not a large group. More on this in the future.