Bureau of Prisons ends contract with American Correctional Association

The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has not renewed its contract with the American Correctional Association (ACA). ACA focuses on providing accreditation services to correctional facilities at various levels, including state, local, federal and personal facilities.

This move got here after an Office of Inspector General report criticized the BOP’s contract with ACA. The BOP operates 122 facilities that house nearly 160,000 federal prisoners. The BOP has quite a few policies governing the care of incarcerated individuals, but these are subject to review by the U.S. Department of Justice (OIG). accomplished that BOP and ACA agreed that ACA would depend on BOP’s internal program review reports. As a result, it seems that the BOP has effectively paid the ACA to verify the BOP’s own findings, thus providing no real certification or improvement measures.

The BOP has aging facilities which might be in dire need of repair. It has been estimated that the BOP needs nearly $2 billion to update all of its institutions, lots of that are over 50 years old. The U.S. Senate has proposed $209 million for the BOP’s buildings and facilities account in fiscal yr 2024, while lawmakers on the House side have sought $273 million of their Commerce, Justice and Science spending bill to offer. Neither is almost enough to repair these aging prisons. To discover facility needs, audits and oversight are required to handle problems in prisons in order that they might be corrected/upgraded. The OIG concluded that the accreditations have little value and subsequently don’t correct actual errors in BOP facilities.

In February 2024, Senators Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey, and Jeff Merkley wrote a letter to the BOP and the Justice Department urging the agencies to not renew a contract with the ACA. In their letter, the three senators said the ACA has a financial incentive to accredit the facilities it’s purported to independently evaluate. According to the letter, nearly half of the organization’s revenue comes from fees and payments related to its accreditation process, while one other 25 percent comes from private prison corporations’ financial support for ACA conferences. “The ACA’s accreditation system is at best ineffective and at worst it misleads the public into believing that the operation of a failing facility is appropriate,” the senators’ letter said.

The BOP released an announcement Its website states: “After careful consideration, the FBOP has decided to explore other options to ensure continued improvement and innovation in correctional standards for the benefit of the FBOP’s incarcerated adults and workforce.”

The BOP has been rocked by scandals lately. The introduction of Contraband into facilities by staff, sexual abuse of inmates And indifference have all led to problems on the agency, which is serving as director for the sixth time in as a few years. Current warden Colette Peters has promised more humane treatment of prisoners, but many problems remain.

Although ACA has approved its work for BOP, it’s now as much as BOP to police itself. OIG has conducted surprise inspections of facilities and is commonly critical of BOP practices. If the BOP would just address the key problems of the OIG and the media, perhaps it could higher fulfill its mission of returning higher residents to society.