I’m beginning a series on Facts of Life in the Bureau of Prisons/Federal Prison System. My purpose is to support both the Bureau of Prisons (“BOP”) leadership leading the charge to improve how the BOP achieves its mission, and those many advocates and influencers seeking needed changes as well. My sense is that more first hand information available to everyone involved with reform and future outcomes might be helpful. Hopefully by sharing facts and observations and my opinions from the inside, this series will serve to “lift all boats” so to speak!! Hopefully its also good timing right after the election as I’m sure there will be changes under consideration by the new Trump team, and hopefully some of these solutions might be useful to them:)
My 40 years of business experience form my world view of business challenges, turnarounds, and growth opportunities. BOP has elements of all three as well. Addressing these elements within the confines of a government agency, not really in control of its mission makes its likelihood of success very hard, even impossible in my view. What do I mean by not in control of achieving its mission? Well, let me list examples, and its far from a complete list:
* DOJ oversees the BOP and Judiciary/Judges, but doesn’t provide any meaningful oversight or resolution of issues between the BOP and Judiciary such as:
– DOJ allows BOP to create policies inaccurately interpreting laws/biased views of the laws, creating all kinds of unnecessary Administrative Appeals and then court filings as a result, negatively impacting inmates rights and further burdening an over burdened judiciary and understaffed BOP
– Interestingly, Congress has recently forced a Board of Directors over BOP as a result of DOJ’s lack of oversight and Congress’s oversight committees not having bandwidth to address all the issues that come to light-I’m already seeing changes here in terms of First Step Act, inmate surveys, etc.
* Congress, while maybe clear in their intent, often writes laws that are not clear, have contradictory provisions, or omit addressing key issues which ultimately impact BOP operations/inmates due to this lack of clarity and overall confusion created as a result
* Perverse sentencing incentives(first time offender 20 or 30 years for non violent offenses etc.) and inconsistent sentences applied for similar level offenses by Judges throughout the U.S. that need to be addressed
* Old school BOP union employees not in support of Ms. Peter’s mission/goals for BOP
* Unproductive budgeting process/stress between Congress and the BOP resulting in misallocation of resources and insufficient resources in some areas
* Lack of universal agreement by various constituencies of BOP’s role in rehabilitating inmates vs. the overall security and safety of the public as a result
* Hypocrisy of U.S. government over immigration policy, treatment of illegal aliens, and then using BOP to house them, further reducing and burdening BOP resources/staff
– I see it here at Lompoc and leadership is very vocal about the negative impact on resources,including an excuse for just about everything that isn’t up to standard
And that’s just for starters! I can cite many more sub issues under each one of these areas if I chose. The net result of these issues is that as a society we are detracting from the probability of successfully having an inmate re enter society upon their release. Plain and simple. And that comes with a huge cost to society, when one includes additional law enforcement/judiciary costs for repeat offenders, children growing up with a single parent trapped in the repetitive cycle of crime and imprisonment, and the overall emotional impact on friends and families of criminals. And much more. I saw recently where 25% of the US population has either experienced directly, or knows some one who has, the US justice system, which year in and year out houses at least 2.3mm Americans. Over 10 years that’s a huge part of our society in any manner one wishes to measure it!
So this blog series will attempt to unpack issues related to all the above in a manner that is professional, well thought out, and hopefully informative and insightful from an insider inmate’s perspective. Like most entities needing a transformation, I will rotate dealing with issues and solutions which are potentially impactful:
* Within one year
* Within 1-3 Years
* Within 5 Years
*Within 10 Years
As always, I welcome your thoughts and comments and further suggestions for solutions as I share thoughts at least weekly, if not more often! As a country that spends so many resources on public education, social services, healthcare, and government subsidies, and incarceration of 2.3mm people, I think we can all agree we can do much better in terms of the outcomes we are achieving, and in my view, we need to get serious making the changes that allow us to do so. I hope the recent election serves as an impetus for our country to do so!
