BOP Eases Money Grab from Federal Prisoners
On December 17, 2024, the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) issued a proposed rule change to its Inmate Financial Responsibility Program (IFRP), outlining how much of a federal prisoner’s trust account may be garnished to satisfy restitution and other court-ordered payments. The new rule came after BOP received over 1,300 comments about an earlier proposed rule change to IFRP that would let the agency grab anything in a trust account for restitution, including money deposited there on a prisoner’s behalf by friends and family to make commissary purchases.
The catalyst for that controversial proposal was a July 2021 Washington Post report that found some high-profile BOP prisoners with unpaid restitution requirements also had large trust account balances. Former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nasser, for example, had collected $12,825 in deposits since reporting to prison to serve a sentence for possessing child pornography (he was also convicted in Michigan of sexually abusing young team members); during that period, however, Nasser had averaged just $8.33 a month in payments toward $57,488.52 in restitution he was ordered to pay victims under his kiddie porn sentence.
The report noted that “20 inmate accounts [held] more than $100,000 each for a total exceeding $3 million,” though it was unclear how much of that was owed for restitution. Nevertheless, BOP’s remaining 155,000 prisoners were also subject to the proposed rule change, penalizing them and the loved ones who donated to their trust accounts. After the resulting outcry, BOP has now softened the proposed rule to garnish nothing from a trust account with a balance of $250 or less. For those with bigger balances, the portion arriving from outside sources is subject to garnishment—25% of it in accounts with balances of $250 to $1,000, 25% in those with balances of $1,000 to $2,500, 55% when the balance is $2,500 to $5,000 and 100% if the balance is over $5,000. Public comments on the proposed new rule will be accepted through February 18, 2025. See: 28 CFR § 545.11.
Federal prisoners not enrolled in IFRP are not subject to the proposed new rule, however, those not in the program are penalized in a variety of ways. They are ineligible for sentence credits, halfway house or home confinement. Their commissary purchases are limited to a short list of merchandise, and they may hold only the lowest-wage prison jobs, which pay about $5 a month.
Sources: Legal Information Services Assoc., LLC, Washington Post
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