Title: Report: Increase in Federal Prison Population, Overcrowding  | Prison Legal News
Headings: Report: Increase in Federal Prison Population, Overcrowding
Report: Increase in Federal Prison Population, Overcrowding
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Content: “Some of this sounds small and trivial,” Maurer said, “but it adds up.” Additionally, “nearly all BOP facilities had fewer correctional staff on board than needed, with a BOP-wide staffing shortage in excess of 3,200 ... [and] there was also anecdotal evidence that understaffing was stressing the workforce.” The GAO noted that “population pressures on both staffing levels and inmate living space have an upward impact on serious prison violence,” although system-wide violence rates had remained stable. According to statistics compiled by the Council of Prison Locals, the union representing about 32,000 federal prison employees, nearly 60 guards were assaulted by prisoners from January to September 2012, and 14 of those attacks involved weapons. The GAO also reviewed the BOP’s efforts to use its statutory authority to help mitigate the effects of the growing federal prison population, including the Residential Drug Abuse Program (RDAP), utilization of sentence credits for GED participation and increased halfway house placement pursuant to the Second Chance Act. While such efforts were covered more extensively in a separate report, the GAO study focused on the “effects of population growth and prison crowding on BOP operations,” including “available bed space, inmate program participation and waiting lists, inmate-to-staff ratios, and available infrastructure costs.” The reduction in rehabilitative and reentry services is another source of frustration for prisoners. Programs such as RDAP – which in theory can shave up to a year off a prisoner’s sentence – and vocational training courses often have lengthy waiting lists. “People will get out of prison, but they’re not being helped to reenter society,” stated Inimai Chettiar with the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law. “ People are going to recidivate more when they get out of horrendous [prison] conditions without job training and development programs to get their lives back together.”