Case managers decide when prisoners can be sent from a low security prison to a camp or when they can be sent to a HWH and how much time they will get at the HWH. There are probably 12-14 case managers for the eight units that are here in Lexington. From what I can gather, they all have their own individual “calculations” on how much HWH time each prisoner gets when it is time to move on. I am sure that you might even see greater variability when you start comparing prisons. I was going to write this email on the need for benchmarking case managers against each other and even benchmarking prisons against one another to encourage more equality in terms of the amount of HWH time each prisoner gets when they leave Lexington – meaning that two prisoners with the same crime and same recidivism level from two different prisons would get the same amount of HWH time.
Fortunately, the BOP released a memo on Tuesday afternoon indicating that everyone getting out should get a full year of HWH time and if no HWH’s are available, then the prisoner can be released to home confinement. This is a very welcome event, although I am sure that there will be a while before the prisons get it figured out and start implementing it. The funny thing was, when they first announced what they were doing (before the memo went out), the prisons were fighting it. That tells you that there were many times when prisoners could have gotten out early and the prisons held them back for longer than necessary, costing taxpayers alot of extra money. This memo stresses that it WILL happen, so now we will see how long it takes to implement. I am sure there are a great deal of people who will go home as soon as it is implemented, which means they could start going home next week or the week after. I personally know several inmates who this will affect, if I am interpreting it in the same way as it is intended and the prisons interpret it in the same way. It doesn’t affect me immediately, but will impact me when I get closer to my release date.
Kudos to the new BOP Director for implementing this new policy that will help get prisoners out so they can start contributing to society instead of being on glorified welfare (we get free food, housing, laundry, etc). This will save the government money and reduce how crowded the prisons are. There is more I can write about here, but I will hold off until I see how it is implemented.
