Why Aren't Federal Officials Supporting the Second Chance Act?

We need new leadership for the agency that oversees federal prisons. Harley G. Lappin (left), the current Bureau of Prisons Director, has been too slow to implement progressing changes that could help more prisoners emerge from confinement successfully. As a long-term prisoner, I feel particularly incensed that under Director Lappin’s leadership, Bureau of Prisons administrators still refuse to follow the spirit of The Second Chance Act of 2007.

More than one year ago, then-President Bush signed The Second Chance Act of 2007 into law. The Act followed a statement former President Bush made during his 2004 State of the Union address. He said, “America is the land of second chances, and when the gates of prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.”

For the next few years, legislators worked on changes designed to help more federal offenders succeed upon release. In the Act that eventually passed both houses of Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support, Congress made some specific findings. According to the Bureau of Prisons’ own metrics, Congress concluded that those prisoners who had strong family and community support stood the best chance of emerging as law abiding citizens.

In light of such findings, Congress urged federal prison administrators to support programs that would help prisoners nurture strong family and community ties during the prisoner’s term of confinement. Further, the new legislation also authorized federal prison administrators to release offenders to community confinement centers for up to the final 12 months of their scheduled imprisonment.

More than 12 months have passed since the Act became law. Nevertheless, under Director Lappin’s leadership, the Bureau of Prisons maintains policies that hinder rather than help prisoners’ efforts to prepare for law-abiding lives upon release through the nurturing of strong family and community ties. Strict limitations imposed by the BOP on prisoner access to telephones represent one of the most blatant obstacles.

In the federal prison system, the BOP restricts prisoners to 300 minutes of telephone access per month. This restriction limits prisoners to averages of fewer than 10 minutes of telephone access per day, an amount insufficient for prisoners who struggle to nurture strong family and community ties. Those telephone policies directly contradict Congress’s intention with the passage of the Second Chance Act.

Besides hindering prisoner efforts to build support groups that could help the prisoners overcome the challenges that await release from confinement, BOP administrators under Director Lappin’s leadership do not support the extended halfway house placement that Congress authorized with the Act. For example, the prison camp here where I am confined in Taft, California, has had a steady population in the range of 500 prisoners. Since Congress recognized the wisdom providing more halfway house time to help prisoners acclimate to society, however, administrators under Director Lappin have authorized only a single prisoner from Taft Camp to the full year of his term in a halfway house.

Director Lappin, it appears, does not want to see the prison boon end, notwithstanding the real costs his flawed policies have on society. And those costs are magnificent.

In Professor Joan Petersilia’s book When Prisoners Come Home, I read of a comprehensive study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The government study found that 30 percent of released prisoners were rearrested within the first six months, 44 percent within the first year, and 67.5 percent with three years of release from prison. Those percentages should trouble every citizen, especially when considering the fact that more than 650,000 prisoners return to society each year.

With costs of confining each prisoner averaging more than $25,000 per year, taxpayers ought to demand better leadership from the Director of the Bureau of Prisons. Unlike Harley Lappin has done, the person who leads that office should implement mechanisms that facilitate prisoner efforts to build stronger ties to society. Those ties prove essential to successful release plans that are in the interest of every American citizen.

At the very least, the Director of the Bureau of Prisons should rescind the telephone limitation policy. The 300-minute restriction did not exist prior to the former Attorney General John Ashcroft, and it serves only to isolate prisoners further from the family and friends who could help the offender transition into law-abiding life upon release. Further, the Director ought to allocate resources more effectively in order to ensure prisoners serve the final 12 months of their sentences in community confinement centers, as Congress authorized. Those changes would allow more prisoners to secure employment prospects, accumulate resources, and strengthen support networks that would help them overcome the stigma of conviction to live as contributing American citizens.