Time frame: 12-36 months
START: All categories
This series, “Facts of Life in the BOP”, has 10 posts now, and has explained what I think are the initial shorter term key initiatives to be taken by the BOP, Congress, and the DOJ during the next 12 and/or 12-36 months to build a launching point and foundation for the BOP START Transformation Plan. Remember focused initially on first and second time non violent offenders. As a refresher, START is an acronym for:
S- Staff
T-Technology
A- Accountability
R- Resources
T- Treatment of Inmates
To date the blog has 12 month initiatives and 36 month initiatives as summarized below, especially for those who don’t wish to read all ten posts in detail:)
A. 12 Month Initiatives
* Reduce the BOP budget by $1 Billion+ by bringing inmate headcount in balance with staffing levels
– Improve staff moral and treatment of inmates while saving money
* Dramatically improve BOP’s transparency and effectiveness via a master marcom plan sharing Incarceration, Education, Vocational related content, BOP Key Metrics and BOP Advocacy goals/partners
* Congress should pass a new law “The Second Step Act” as a follow-up to the First Step Act(FSA)
– eliminate Good Time credits statute and Second Chance Act benefits and consolidate both with First Step benefits
– Re emphasize Congress’s intent to maximize time in pre custody release and clean up prior case law accordingly, especially 924(c) and eliminate 3584, BOP’s reliance on authority “that for Administrative purposes multiple sentences be treated as one” to avoid making FSA otherwise eligible for a sentence in prison that’s eligible
– solves multiple issues identified in prior blog posts
B. 36 Month Initiatives
* Eliminate 15-20% of BOP facilities as a result of bringing inmate headcount into balance with staffing levels
* Hire new BOP Executive Leadership team, with focus on definition of programs/services, how to cost effectively deliver them, accountability/compliance by each location, and much less decentralized authority by the Warden’s
* Congress create and pass a new law focused on first time and second time non violent offenders
– Require grouping offenders by type of crime together for socialization/rehab purposes at BOP locations
i) drug, sex offender, white collar
– Creates BOP University through 100% 3rd party relationships to deliver all educational and vocational training- Increase quantity and quality of programming while reducing costs:
i) eliminate guard based educators of programs
ii) maximize on line learning solutions
– Implement a military high school equivalent education/vocational model, including full day classes, accountability, rewards and discipline for inmates based on performance
– Integrate both halfway houses and supervised release by type of offender and necessary/required ongoing rehabilitation, acquisition of life skills, etc.
– Cap Sentences as Incentive(leave sentencing guidelines in place) for compliance and achievement of performance based rehabilitation and compliance with halfway and supervised release programming per type of offender
i) First time offender- 7 Years
ii) Second time offender- 12 years
* DOJ and Congress team to reform oversight policies and laws
– performance management /accountability for non performing(as defined) prosecutors and judges
– ongoing project management of 4-5 major categories of crimes into their new revised statute for each, focused on simplifying and consolidating and rethinking prior laws, precedents into new statutes reflecting Congress’s intent
– Sentence Guideline Review Project for simplification and common sense
i) length
ii) make time based PLUS inmate performance base for final termination of supervisory release
On the one hand a lot to do, on the other hand only SEVEN key initiatives! To the extent you want more background as to “why” or “how” on each of these, please refer back to the relevant posts in this series, 1-10.
Now that I’ve summarized Year 1 and Years 1-3 key requirements for the START Transformation Plan, the next few posts will be on longer term requirements that in my estimation will take five and some even ten years to accomplish. Some of them are predicated on the successful implementation of the twelve month and twelve to thirty six month priorities outlined above. As you might expect, most of these longer term ones will focus on the BOP itself, building out what was started in Year One Priorities.
