New Policies at the Federal Bureau of Prisons Help to Reduce Rehabilitation

Title: New Policies at the Federal Bureau of Prisons Help to Reduce Rehabilitation Author: Gregory J. Marcinski Date: Thursday, May 24, 2018 Comments: ON Categories: Prisons, News Release Picture: find something appropriate related to story. Don't worry too much over it. New Policies at the Federal Bureau of Prisons Help to Reduce Rehabilitation Directory Mark Inch had a very short tenure at the Federal Bureau of Prisons yet within four months he was able to sign a minimum of 9 new policies known as Program Statements. Some of them had to do with staff human resources, however, there was one policy that was issued in March known as the Inmate Trust Fund/Deposit Fund Manual (P.S. 4500.12). In this new Program Statement there are two revisions that will substantially affect inmates and is a change from the previous policy issued in 2015.

1. All language that had to do with microwaves for inmate use had been deleted. In the previous policy this section authorized purchase of microwaves for inmate use from the Inmate Trust Fund (Inmate Trust Fund is tax payer money from the Federal Budget, but money collected from inmates from a 30% markup on all commissary purchases, purchase orders, etc.)
2. The current markup for any inmate purchases has been changed. In the 2015 policy it says that 30% will be added to all items purchased by inmates. In this 2018 revised policy it now says "30-40% markup on all items purchased and to be determined by the Central Office".

Common procedure in the past was to post any new or revised policy either in paper on a central bulletin board or as an electronic copy on the Corrlinks electronic bulletin board (inmate access computers) for inmates to read. This was not done in this case. In fact other new or revised policies have been posted since March, the latest being the "Transgender Offender Manual" issued and posted on May 11, 2018. In addition, every new policy has a summary of revisions, although other revisions in the Program Statements were listed no mention of the above two items were included in this summary. It seems that the BOP wants to keep this particular policy and revisions in the dark. The microwave issue had been an ongoing rumor for a few years eventhough there were denials from the BOP's Central Office and now with the issuance of the Program Statement it proves to be a fact. Thomas M. Susman, the Director of Governmental Affairs of the American Bar Association has come to the defense of maintaining microwaves in BOP facilities. In a letter to the Bureau of Prisons he points out that the removal of microwaves are not in line with the ABA's "Standards for Criminal Justice Treatment of Prisoners" and makes the argument that, "[N]umerous documentaries and studies (based on prisons in the United States as well as in other countries) have been published showing the value in providing prisoners with some sort of a feeling of normalcy that can be found with cooking or heating up