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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
Time: 12:56 am
Time: 12:56 am
Results for prisoner release
3 results foundAuthor: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, Evaluation and Inspections Division Title: Review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons' Release Preparation Program Summary: During the past 3 years, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) released nearly 125,000 inmates from its custody into Residential Reentry Centers (RRC), into home confinement, or directly into communities in the United States. While not all of these inmates will re-offend, analyses of historical data have shown that many of them will. For example, the U.S. Sentencing Commission recently evaluated recidivism rates for federal offenders released in 2005 and found that nearly half of them were re-arrested within 8 years of their release for committing a new crime or for violating their supervision conditions. To help inmates successfully transition back into the community and to help reduce the likelihood that they will re-offend, the BOP operates, among various reentry efforts, the Release Preparation Program (RPP), which was the focus of this review. The BOP requires every institution to provide an RPP, and most sentenced inmates at BOP-operated institutions are required to participate in the RPP. The RPP consists of classes, instruction, and assistance in six broad categories: (1) Health and Nutrition, (2) Employment, (3) Personal Finance and Consumer Skills, (4) Information and Community Resources, (5) Release Requirements and Procedures, and (6) Personal Growth and Development. The RPP has two segments: the Institution RPP, developed by each institution's RPP committee based on the general release needs of the institution's inmate population, and the Unit RPP, developed by the institution's unit teams based on the needs of the individual inmate. Inmates must complete both segments for the BOP to consider them to have completed the RPP and to be better prepared for their eventual transition back into society. This review examines the BOP's effectiveness in fulfilling the RPP's established program objectives. These objectives are to enhance inmates' successful reintegration into the community through RPP participation; to enter into partnerships with various groups to provide information, programs, and services to releasing inmates; and to reduce inmate recidivism. Details: Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, 2016. Source: Internet Resource: Evaluation and Inspections Division 16-07: Accessed September 2, 2016 at: https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2016/e1607.pdf Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2016/e1607.pdf Shelf Number: 140124 Keywords: Federal Bureau of PrisonsPrisoner ReentryPrisoner ReintegrationPrisoner ReleaseRecidivism |
Author: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, Evaluation and Inspections Division Title: Review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons' Untimely Releases of Inmates Summary: Following news reports that the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) had confined an inmate for 13 months past his correct release date, the Department of Justice (Department) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) initiated an examination of the BOP's process for ensuring federal inmates are released on their correct release dates and the incidences of releases before or after the correct release date due to staff error between 2009 and 2014. We found that of the 461,966 inmate releases between 2009 and 2014, the BOP categorized 157 as untimely due to staff error. We also learned that the BOP classifies a far greater number - 4,183 - as untimely for other reasons. According to the BOP, the vast majority of non-staff error "untimely" releases were due to situations that are beyond its control, such as amended sentences that result in shorter sentences than the time an inmate had already served. Also, data and information we reviewed indicates that other entities inside and outside the Department may sometimes contribute to untimely releases. Although BOP officials told us that it was highly unlikely that staff error on the part of a Department entity contributed to any of the 4,183 cases, they could not rule out the possibility and we found that the BOP does not always have complete information about the circumstances of untimely releases to which other entities contribute. We therefore concluded that the Department should work with all relevant entities, both within and outside the Department, to review the full range of possible reasons for untimely releases and how to address those that are in any way preventable. With regard to the 157 untimely releases that BOP categorized as due to staff error, 152 were late releases and 5 were early releases. We found that three of the late releases and three of the early releases involved an error resulting in more than 1 year of over- or under-served time by the inmate. Table 1 displays the number of days of over- or under-served time for the 157 untimely releases. While the 157 untimely releases due to staff error was rare compared to the 461,966 releases by BOP during the 6-year period of our review (an error rate of 0.03 percent), the consequences of an untimely release can be extraordinarily serious. Late releases from prison deprive inmates of their liberty, while early releases can put communities at risk if the inmates are dangerous. Early releases also can harm an inmate and the inmate's family, particularly if the inmate's efforts to gain employment and reestablish ties with the community are interrupted by a re-arrest for the purpose of completing the sentence. Late releases also are costly: in addition to BOP costs associated with the unauthorized period of incarceration, there is the potential for significant compensatory judgments to those inmates who suffered an unconstitutional deprivation of their liberty. For the 152 late releases, we estimated the total cost to the BOP, exclusive of litigation and settlement costs, to be approximately $669,814. In addition, between 2009 and 2015, the Department settled four lawsuits by inmates alleging untimely release, one for $90,000; another for $120,000; another for $295,000; and the fourth for $175,000. This does not include additional costs the Department incurred as a result of these cases, such as salary costs expended to handle the lawsuits. Additionally, untimely releases, whether early or late, contravene judicial sentencing orders, yet the BOP does not have in place a process to consider whether to notify the sentencing court of an untimely release. We found that, for late releases, the BOP notifies the relevant U.S. Probation office but does not separately notify the sentencing court or the U.S. Attorney's Office that handled the case. For early releases, we found that BOP policy requires Wardens to notify "the appropriate Judicial Official(s)" when an inmate who is deemed to be a threat to the community is released early and when any inmate is released more than 30 days early. Despite this policy, we found no such notifications occurred for the four untimely early releases of 30 days or more that we reviewed. We found that 127 of the 157 untimely releases due to staff error were the result of errors made at BOP's Designation and Sentence Computation Center (DSCC). (The DSCC performs the vast majority of sentence computations the BOP uses to determine an inmate's release date.) The other 30 untimely releases were the result of staff errors at non-DSCC entities, such as BOP institutions, BOP Residential Reentry Management field offices, Residential Reentry Centers (previously known as Community Corrections Centers), and private contract prisons. Prior to 2005, when the BOP consolidated sentence computation functions in the DSCC, individual BOP facilities across the country had performed sentence computation. The BOP transitioned sentence computations to the DSCC in order to consolidate BOP sentence computation functions, reduce costs, and ensure consistent application of laws and BOP policies. This change also helped reduce the number of untimely releases caused by staff error. Based on BOP data, we determined that during the 6-year period from 1999 and 2004 there were approximately 344 untimely releases due to staff error (around 0.1 percent of all releases) compared to 157 (around 0.03 percent of all releases) between 2009 and 2014. We concluded that the most common sentence computation errors resulted from incorrect application of jail credit, incorrect determinations of primary jurisdiction between federal and state custody, and errors relating to concurrent versus consecutive sentences for defendants with multiple unexpired incarceration sentences. We also found that poor communication with outside entities - including local jails, courthouses, state departments of corrections, Native American reservations, the U.S. Marshals Service, and others - resulted in DSCC staff not obtaining complete and accurate sentencing information or interpreting sentencing information incorrectly, leading to untimely releases. The BOP has several processes in place to prevent untimely release. One is to conduct a final release audit 12 months prior to an inmate's scheduled release date to discover and correct any errors and to have the ability to account for any reduced sentence time. However, we found that in some cases 12 months is not early enough to discover and correct the error and prevent the untimely release. Specifically, 14 of the 19 errors discovered by final release audits might not have resulted in untimely releases had the audits occurred 18 months before the inmate's scheduled release date. Had the final release audit occurred 24 months prior to the release date, an additional 4 of the 19 errors might have been discovered in time to prevent the untimely release. Therefore, we recommend that BOP explore and implement additional sentence calculation processing or auditing strategies, taking into account that conducting final release audits only 12 months before an inmate's projected release date has led to preventable untimely releases. We also noted that the DSCC holds education events that bring together officials from the DSCC as well as outside the BOP (including U.S. District Court Judges, Federal Public Defenders, and U.S. Probation Office staff) to inform them about topics relating to DSCC operations, such as sentence computations. In our judgment, these events could help prevent untimely releases if the BOP included factors that can affect its ability to release inmates on time, including showing attendees how conflicting information can lead to incorrect sentence computations. This report contains three case studies profiling inmate releases that were more than 1 year late. The report also makes seven recommendations for the BOP to help reduce untimely releases due to staff error. Details: Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, 2016. 41p. Source: Internet Resource: Evaluation and Inspections Division 16-03 : Accessed September 23, 2016 at: https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2016/e1603.pdf Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2016/e1603.pdf Shelf Number: 146051 Keywords: Federal Bureau of PrisonsInmatesPrisoner Release |
Author: KPMG Title: Sentence and Remand Order Processing Internal Audit Report Summary: In May 2016 KPMG was commissioned to undertake an audit of sentence and remand order processing following the identification of a number of occasions where prisoners had been released on the incorrect date. The audit report produced by KPMG was released by the Government on 8 March 2017. The objective of the audit was to understand the inadequacies in the existing system and improve compliance with the processes for obtaining, entering and validating sentence and remand orders, and calculating release dates. The report includes a suite of recommendations for reforms to address the factors that contributed to the incorrect releases and to improve the accuracy and efficiency of the process for the future. The Government's response to the audit recommendations has also been released, outlining the actions that will be taken to prevent a recurrence of these issues. Work has already commenced to implement some of these responses. Details: Hobart, Tasmania: Department of Justice, 2017. 37p., app. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 11, 2017 at: http://www.justice.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/371790/KPMG_Sentence_And_Remand_Audit_March_2017.pdf Year: 2017 Country: Australia URL: http://www.justice.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/371790/KPMG_Sentence_And_Remand_Audit_March_2017.pdf Shelf Number: 144788 Keywords: Prisoner ReleaseRemand Orders Sentencing |