From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov

Transcript for: High Risk Update 2023: Management of the Federal Prison
System 

Description: As part of GAO's 2023 update to our High Risk List, we
added the Bureau of Prisons for staffing issues that can affect inmate
and staff safety, and the need to better monitor rehabilitation programs
that help inmates return to the community.

Related GAO work: GAO-23-106203, High-Risk Series: Efforts Made to
Achieve Progress Need to Be Maintained and Expanded to Fully Address All
Areas

Released: April 2023

[Gretta Goodwin:] Nearly 45% of federal prisoners who complete their
time in prison are re-arrested or returned to federal prison within 3
years of their release. The Bureau of Prisons, or BOP, is charged with
providing safe and secure confinement for inmates and with reducing
recidivism by helping people successfully return to the community. While
BOP received $8.5 billion in the current fiscal year to do this, it
continues to face challenges in its efforts to manage the federal prison
system.

We have reported longstanding and increasing concerns with the federal
prison system across three areas. For 2023, we added Management of the
Federal Prison System to our High Risk List to help BOP focus its
attention on the root causes of these matters, as well as the more than
20 recommendations we've made in these areas.

First, BOP has had challenges managing its staff and resources. For
example, there have been six different individuals serving as BOP
director in the past 6 years. BOP also has increasingly used overtime to
address staff vacancies. But that's not a solution because officer
fatigue presents a serious threat to prison safety.

Second, BOP's plans to manage some of its inmate rehabilitation programs
are limited. These programs require better planning and ongoing review
for BOP to be successful in reducing some incarcerated individual
sentences through credit-earning programs and in lowering the rates of
recidivism.

Third, BOP needs to improve how it monitors and evaluates all of its
programs. Some efforts that haven't yet been evaluated include BOP's
management of disaster risk at its facilities, efforts to help
incarcerated individuals secure ID documents before they leave prison,
and the delivery of programs that may lower the risk of recidivism. In
March 2023, we recommended that BOP monitor whether it's offering enough
recidivism reduction programs.

GAO and BOP leadership recently met on these issues, and the new
Director of the Bureau of Prisons expressed her commitment to bring
sustained attention to resolving this high risk area. In addition to
sustaining leadership commitment, BOP needs to address the other four
criteria for which GAO assesses high risk areas--capacity, an action
plan, monitoring efforts and demonstrated progress.

Attention to these and other issues we've identified could ultimately
improve prison safety, reduce recidivism, and save taxpayers money.