Chronic staffing shortages in federal prisons and a lack of training have hampered the implementation of a Trump-era law designed to give nonviolent inmates the option of early release, locking some up longer and helping to erode morale, union leaders and rank and file staff. the members said in interviews.
Outgoing Bureau of Prisons Director Michael Carvajal was questioned this week by Democratic and Republican senators during a contentious subcommittee hearing in which employee whistleblowers described unsanitary and unsafe conditions at a Atlanta Federal Penitentiary and sexual abuse by staff at a California women’s prison, among other misconduct allegations.
Carvajal, a holdover from the Trump administration, announced his retirement in January amid criticism of a crisis-filled tenure marred by scandals in the embattled office and compounded by low staff numbers during the coronavirus pandemic.
Staff at some of the nation’s largest federal prisons have said implementing the First Step Act, a bipartisan law signed in 2018 by then-President Donald Trump, was trying, if not impossible.
“It’s not okay at all,” Joe Rojas, the literacy coordinator at the Coleman Federal Corrections Complex in Florida, said of the implementation of the First Step Act.
“I’m the education department, and we’re never open, and if we are, it’s barely,” said Rojas, who is also president of the American Federation of Employees Local 506. government in Coleman.
Under the First Step Act, inmates are scored using an algorithm that determines whether they are eligible for early release based on whether they are at “minimal” or “low” risk of re-offending and whether they have been convicted of certain serious crimes, including violent crimes.
Then, eligible inmates must participate in approved prison and work programs focused on education and rehabilitation and accumulate time credits each month. Once the credits equal the time remaining on an inmate’s sentence, the inmate can be transferred to “pre-release custody”, such as a halfway house or home confinement. Some may also be eligible for supervised release, such as probation.
The law aims to reduce recidivism, alleviate the federal prison population and address racial disparities historically resulting from harsh drug-related sentences.
In January, the Justice Department released a final rule for the Time Credit Program in a broader effort to ensure inmates are not left behind and their hours are properly counted. Still, prisoner advocacy groups, concerned inmates and former federal prison officials have expressed skepticism, telling NBC News this month that there are thousands of inmates whose time credits are not enforced and that in some cases detainees are not released as early as they should.
Bureau officials say they have been working to identify inmates who qualify for early release and “have no data to suggest that inmate release dates have been delayed.”
Rojas said employees like him who should be running programs that can help inmates earn time credits aren’t able to do so because they’re being diverted to other corrections officer-type duties during the staffing shortage — a practice known as augmentation.
“Most of us are augmented,” Rojas said. “There’s no programming. If there’s no programming, you can’t do the First Step Act.”
He said the situation worsened when Trump ordered a hiring freeze in the Bureau of Prisons when he took office and headcount fell nationwide from more than 43,000 positions in 2016 to just over 35,000 currently.
Long hours, staff attrition and difficulties retaining employees, especially during the pandemic, have only left departments struggling, Rojas said. In June, a bureau review of Coleman found its operations “deficient,” citing a 14% vacancy level in its correctional programs department.
“It’s really terrible,” said Rojas, who has worked at the Florida prison for nearly three decades. “I’ve seen the good, the bad, and now we’re in the ugly.”
At the Federal Detention Center in Miami, case manager Mary Melek had done double duty — she said she handled as many as 364 inmate cases last summer while fulfilling other roles. While its caseload has fallen to a standard of around 150, processing such a large number of inmates means the prison is four to six months behind in processing cases under the First Step Act.
She estimates that 10% of her cases involve inmates who probably could have already been released but who remain incarcerated.
“If the daily rate to incarcerate someone is $100 – maybe more – imagine if releases are four months behind schedule,” said Melek, who is also chief shop steward for the union representing his prison. “That’s about $12,000+ per inmate that could be saved.”
Staff members and union leaders in other prisons say they struggle with similar issues, which have also affected morale.
“People who do the actual work, we die on the vine,” said Aaron McGlothin, president of a union at the federal prison in Mendota, Calif., which houses medium-security male inmates.
“We are overworked, underestimated and hitting the ground,” said McGlothin, who worked in the federal prison system for 15 years. “With the First Step Act, it’s the biggest failure I’ve seen of something that’s law. It’s pathetic.”
Justin Tarovisky, president of a union at a federal facility in Hazleton, West Virginia, called morale “terrible” as dozens of vacancies left workers to tackle more responsibilities.
“When you’re 52 officers short, that means there’s a lot of vacancies,” Tarovisky said. “You want to talk about morale, how much do you care about a particular program if you don’t have staff to do it and the staff that are there have already worked 16 hour days?”
A Bureau of Prisons spokesperson said Thursday that officials are aware of the staffing issues and their effect on the First Step Act. Plans are in place to expand the hiring of corrections officers and fill law-related positions by September 30. the “increase” process.
The office said staff training on facets of the First Step Act began in the fall of 2019 and is “continuing to date.”
Frank Melendez, case counselor and union president at a federal prison in Victorville, Calif., said insufficient training and a lack of policies around the First Step Act have made it difficult to ensure that inmates get the answers they want.
“We’ve been reinforced here for about seven months. It’s about people,” said Melendez, who added that his establishment’s new executive command has helped improve operations in recent months.
Across the federal prison system, the impending change in senior leadership is being watched closely.
Attorney General Merrick Garland this month named Carvajal’s replacement: Colette Peters, the director of the Oregon prison system. Peters, whose term begins Tuesday, was not immediately available for comment. Union leaders who spoke to NBC News say they are cautiously optimistic that bringing in someone from the outside will be beneficial in clearing up accusations of cronyism and corruption.
“Carvajal left such chaos in his wake,” Rojas said. “From the union’s perspective, I want to see the new manager succeed.”
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