Report Says Compassionate Release Would Save Strapped BOP Money

by Derek Gilna

It apparently took the May 2013 issuance of an 85-page report by the non-partisan Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz, but that report and a well-publicized budget crunch led the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to consider expanding its compassionate release program. Originally designed to send home the terminally-ill or aged prisoners who are no longer a threat to society, it has clearly been underutilized by the BOP.

To say that the BOP is poorly managed is an understatement. Waste and lack of planning, compounded by money troubles, have put the BOP in a poor position to handle the rising population of federal prisoners. In April, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was compelled to transfer funds from other federal law enforcement agencies to cover sequester-aggravated cutbacks in the BOP budget that would have necessitated guard furloughs.

If there is one thing the BOP does not like it is adverse publicity, and the report appears at an inopportune time. Previous General Accounting Office reports in the past year have highlighted the fact that the BOP does not take advantage of many of the legislatively-provided methods to reduce the prison population. The reason that it doesn’t is the same reason why many BOP wardens do not like to transfer away prisoners from their facility: it reduces their prisoner population and puts them in line for budget cuts.

Clearly the release of prisoners who are dying or facing other extraordinary health-related problems or problems relating to aging would not put the public at significant risk. The report found over a five-year period that recidivism among this group of prisoners was less than 5%, eight times better than the BOP average of over 40%.

Why the BOP persists in holding onto these prisoners is beyond understanding. The average federal prisoner costs the agency approximately $28,000 per year to feed, clothe and house, but medical costs for some of the older prisoners can easily double or triple that figure. It is one thing to maintain prison medical facilities for mental health treatment, or to deal with chronic conditions, but the time has clearly come for the BOP to be held accountable for their poor management of their elderly and ill prisoners.

It could easily be argued that this poor management prevents the BOP from offering timely medical and dental care to its younger and otherwise healthy population, resulting in multiple grievances and lawsuits over treatment delays and alleged medical malpractice.

Horowitz said, “We concluded that an effectively managed compassionate release program would result in cost savings for the BOP, as well as assist the BOP in managing its continually growing (prisoner) population and the resulting capacity challenges it is facing. We further found that such a program would likely have a relatively low recidivism rate....”

BOP Director Charles E. Samuels, Jr., agreed with most of the suggested changes, and according to the inspector general’s office, the BOP issued a memo setting the criteria for consideration for compassionate release as terminal disease with life expectance of 18 months or less.         

Brie Williams, associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco Division of Geriatrics was in favor of the report’s findings, calling it “a fantastic first step” which could address the problems of an aging prison population. The author of a 2011 report, “Balancing Punishment and Compassion for Seriously Ill Prisoners,” Williams observed that guidelines have to be put in place to insure that prisoners who qualify for such a program can take advantage of it in a timely fashion, before they die. Unfortunately, that has not often been the case.

It is not just a problem for the BOP, but also for many states, with California spending $1.97 million per prisoner for the most seriously ill, and being forced to divert resources to provide security and transportation for the sickest of their prison population.

Williams said that “many prisoners appear to have chronic illnesses and disabilities we would expect when they are about a decade older, [and] prisons are totally unprepared to address the unique problems of this population.”

Sources: The New York Times, Associated Press

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