Journal Entry: Robert Jesenik-12/02/2024-Blog #6 Facts of Life in the BOP- Part IV

Journal Entry

Time Frame: Next 12 months
START Categories: Accountability & Resources

The BOP has a tough job to do for society, and setting aside its own issues, doesn’t do much to educate, explain or even communicate to is constituents, it literally has no Voice. So one of the first things they need to do is get a Voice. After all, this is the 21st century, the age of social media, YouTube TV, blogs, podcasts and so forth, and they are no where to be found.

Why is getting a Voice so important? First of all, the majority of American’s perceives that we’re in an era of injustice or “perceived injustice” due to the DOJ’s internal lack of oversight of itself and the BOP which its responsible for, and this is impacting a large segment of the population who now have to deal with incarceration. Plus in an era where “Prosecutorial Deference” is abused so often by political bias/career seeking prosecutors with no oversight (another blog topic in the future), BOP needs to separate itself from the DOJ’s prosecutor’s abuse of criminal statutes to obtain any conviction and resulting unjust convictions.

Many have lots of misconceptions about prison, and no idea of what to expect, how to prepare or operate once a family member or friend is inside, nor where to even go for information. In addition, Marketing 101 dictates that having a Brand is crucial, and to date the BOP has been unintentional about their Brand in my view, and that needs to change so Transformation can truly occur. Its only human nature for the BOP’s various constituencies to want to support something they understand, see results from, and is somewhat transparent, unlike today.

In the absence of a Voice, BOP ends up being criticized, attacked, and resource constrained as a result, as the constituents have plenty to complain about, and don’t see what the BOP does well. No wonder the scale of BOP’s reputation is tilted to negativity. Whatever Voice it does have is always playing defense against criticism from Congress, inmates, families of inmates, advocates for change, the employee union, etc. It just doesn’t have to be that way, and if the BOP is going to be successful in their mission, establishing its Voice now so it can be used over the next 10 years is very important.

In my view, for the BOP to accomplish a 10 year START Transformation Plan successfully, it needs to immediately begin communicating a track record , and build a coalition of support for its efforts, despite all its internal operational issues it should fix per START over the next five years. The focus should especially be on low/minimum security inmates, and especially first time offenders. Believe it or not the BOP has plenty to communicate about, and on an ongoing basis:

* Incarceration Related Content

– visitation matters
– credits and tracking
– ambassador/ombudsman for families to address issues and concerns

* Education Related Content

– graduation ceremonies for GED/College diplomas
– interviews of students in classes and graduates
– discussions with offenders teaching classes
– explanation of options for inmates so family/friends can understand

* Vocational Related Content

– explain available programs at various BOP locations
such as woodworking, leather goods, hobby shops etc.
– vocational partnerships for jobs with post release offenders

* BOP Key Metrics
– interviews of success stories of post release offenders
– promote numerous partnerships with 3rd parties helping with
job training, reentry assistance etc.
– convert data into information normally provided Congress and share in marcom across platforms

* Advocacy Goals of BOP

– interviews of CEO’s of partner firms of BOP
– interview BOP Director for Next Quarters Initiatives/Priorities
– anything BOP can be transparent about

* START Transformation Plan Status/Progress itself

– Staffing/HR
– Technology
– Accountability
– Resources
– Treatment of Inmates

There should be a master marcom plan the BOP deploys for each of these categories across:

* earned media
* press releases
* podcasts
* Blogs
* You Tube TV
* social media

Overall this doesn’t have to be crazy expensive, but even .1% of BOP’s annual $7 billion+ budget would be more than sufficient to get off the ground and then expand annually thereafter.

It might seem strange to you as a reader that I would bring this up so early in the blog series and START Transformation Plan, but without transparency and changing the perception of the BOP through the above tactics, the BOP has little hope of ever changing its position as “Congress’s whipping boy”, and thus not getting the right type of resources to attain its mission and goals for inmate success and recidivism, especially the non violent and first time offenders.