New Sex Offender Program Statement

Things have been busy. While that’s a good thing, it does not lend itself to blogging. So, even though there have been and are numerous, interesting Bureau of Prisons-related issues about which to write (for example, the impact of the sequester), they must remain on the priorities back burner. For now, I wanted to quickly give attention to the Sex Offenders Programs program statement (PS 5324.10) issued on February 15. The stated purpose and scope of the new policy, which does not appear to derive from any corresponding Code of Federal Regulation provisions, is:

To establish procedures and guidelines for Sex Offender Treatment and Management Services in the Bureau of Prisons (Bureau). This Program Statement is a plain-language, comprehensive set of operational guidelines for sex offender programs operated by psychologists, treatment specialists, and other Bureau staff.

 

BOP Agrees to Review of Solitary Confinement Practices

As various media outlets have reported, on Monday, Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-IL) issued a statement “announcing that the Federal Bureau of Prisons has agreed to a comprehensive and independent assessment of its use of solitary confinement in the nation’s federal prisons.” According to Reuters:

A spokesman from the bureau confirmed that the National Institute of Corrections plans to retain an independent auditor “in the weeks ahead” to examine the use of solitary confinement, which is also known as restrictive housing.[…]

Prisoners in isolation are often confined to small cells without windows for up to 23 hours a day. Durbin’s office said the practice can have a severe psychological impact on inmates and that more than half of all suicides committed in prisons occur in solitary confinement.

The ACLU issued a statement in response to the news, offering:

The Bureau is the nation’s largest prison system with over 215,000 prisoners, and has been using solitary confinement at an alarmingly high rate. Similar reviews in state prison systems have led to dramatic reductions in solitary confinement, generating millions of dollars in taxpayer savings. We hope and expect that the review announced today will lead the Bureau to significantly curtail its use of this draconian, inhumane, and expensive practice.

I touched on these important issues in a post shortly after starting this blog last summer.

What Role Will Private Prison Corporations Play in Immigration Reform?

As the immigration reform debate heats up on Capitol Hill, Business Insider has this interesting article regarding how private prison corporations stand to be “negatively impacted by any move to fix the country’s broken immigration system.”

Perhaps no one has a bigger interest in maintaining the status quo than private prisons, a billion dollar industry built largely on contracts with federal agencies, including Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Over the past decade, revenues for the industry giants — Corrections Corporation of America and The GEO Group — have skyrocketed, thanks in large part to a federal program introduced under President George W. Bush in 2005 dubbed Operation Streamline, which brought federal criminal charges against people who cross the border illegally.[…]

The program is part of the Department of Homeland Security’s enormous $18 billion immigration enforcement budget— more than what’s spent by the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Secret Service, U.S. Marshals, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives combined.

The result has been a 49 percent increase in detainee population since 2005, and 107 percent increase in the price private prisons charge for government contracts since 2004.

In 2011, GEO Group and CCA reported combined revenues over $3 billion, with $1.3 billion coming from federal sources — a 137 percent increase from 2004.

Lest there be any doubt that this multi-billion dollar business is focused on reform’s impact on the bottom-line, Business Insider quotes from CCA’s 2011 shareholders’ report: “For instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them[.]” Similarly, Business Insider reports that in a 2011 SEC filing, GEO Group provided: “Immigration reform laws which are currently a focus for legislators and politicians at the federal, state and local level also could materially adversely impact us.”

MDC Brooklyn Guard Pregnant With Convicted Killer’s Child

Although I tend to avoid the New York Post’s tabloid approach to the news, this Law & Order-ready story seems to call out for a bit of over-the-top flair:

She’s a traitor to every badge.

A Brooklyn prison guard offered herself up for jail-cell trysts with the convicted killer of two NYPD detectives — intentionally getting pregnant so she could provide the death penalty candidate with a baby to give him “some kind of hope,” federal authorities charged yesterday.

Disgraced federal officer Nancy Gonzalez, 29, is carrying the son of coldblooded killer Ronell Wilson — who faces death by lethal injection for the 2003 execution slayings of Detectives James Nemorin and Rodney Andrews, a criminal complaint says.

Meanwhile, the Staten Island Advance reports:

Court documents said Ms. Gonzalez told authorities she was impregnated in June 2012, during the time she was involved in a relationship with Wilson.

"There was an inmate there that for whatever reason, I took a chance because I was so vulnerable and wanted to be loved and now I am carrying his child," court papers quote Ms. Gonzalez as telling a second inmate in a December telephone call.

Ms. Gonzalez, who began a relationship with a second inmate in September after ending her affair with Wilson, said she "kind of got sucked into his world" and "felt like, well, why not give him a child as far as giving him some kind of hope," according to court papers.

Court documents said she had sex with Wilson over the course of three weekends, the sole purpose of which was to impregnate her.

The second inmate had been imprisoned in the Metropolitan Detention Center, but is now serving state time in a New York prison.[…]

According to defense attorney Anthony Ricco, Ms. Gonzalez has had “long-term issues that affected her life and judgment.”

“She’s had a very tragic life and, as the case proceeds, you’ll learn more about it,” he said.

Notwithstanding the alleged spectacle of a female correctional officer so blatantly violating her duties and responsibilities, a pretty sad story all the way around.

Two Men Enter, One Man Leaves

Last week came word that everyone’s favorite daring duo, Mark Conley and Joseph “The Second Hand Bandit” Banks, who escaped from MCC Chicago in mid-December by repelling down 15 stories using a bed sheet rope, had been transferred to FCC Terre Haute. While BOP spokesperson Ed Ross would not comment on whether the Bureau had concern that the pair might again abscond from the Metropolitan Correction Center, he did tell the Chicago Sun-Times that “It’s not uncommon for an inmate to be transferred from one institution to another.” Respectfully, that assertion is not accurate as it concerns inmates like Conley and Banks, both of whom are reportedly still awaiting sentencing. MCC Chicago is a pre-trial holding facility, which, while having a small minimum-security work cadre unit, does not typically house sentenced prisoners. Terre Haute, on the other hand, is a standard complex for sentenced prisoners (i.e., not pre-trial detainees), and which happens to be home to one of the BOP’s two Communication Management Units. In short, contrary to what the BOP asserts, the move is unusual.

While Conley and Banks appear headed for greyer pastures, according to WPDE in Myrtle Beach (SC), an inmate at FPC Bennettsvile left out for greener ones. The station reports that last Thursday at 10:45 am, guards at the South Carolina prison camp realized that 45-year-old Noah Hilton had gone missing. Inasmuch as the BOP’s Inmate Locator does not show Hilton as in custody, it seems he has yet to be found.