WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senators Jon Ossoff (D-GA) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) sent a letter here Friday regarding prison staff safety oversight to Colette S. Peters, Director of the Federal Bureau of Prison (BOP).
The letter from the Chairman and Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Human Rights Subcommittee, respectively, said they are “launching a bipartisan inquiry” with the BOP in light of “recent reports of inmate-on-staff sexual assault and harassment.”
The letter requires BOP Director Peters no later than Oct. 4, 2024 to respond to all of the questions listed on the concerns of the federal prison staff’s well-being and safety.
In the oversight letter, the senators detailed questions on reporting procedures, correctional procedures, and staff assistance in order to stop the “pervasive” occurrence of sexual assault and harassment in BOP institutions “across the country.”
The letter requested BOP even release information based on “statistics and data from FCI Atlanta, formerly USP Atlanta, and federal prison facilities around the country.”
“The DOJ OIG report, as well as personal testimony BOP staff has provided to my office, strongly suggest that BOP’s reporting and corrective procedures for inmate-on-staff sexual assault/harassment are inadequate, creating an institutional culture that lacks accountability and endangers BOP employees,” the senators wrote to BOP Director Peters.
According to a February 2023 report by the DOJ Office of the Inspector General (OIG), said the lawmakers, 40 percent of 7,000 BOP surveyed staff stated they had been sexually harassed by an inmate.
“Since the DOJ OIG report was published in February 2023, has BOP worked to ‘do more to educate its staff on inmate-on-staff sexual harassment’ and address concerns ‘that the BOP’s training could further emphasize resources to assist staff who witness or experience inmate-on-staff sexual harassment,’ as the report recommended?” the senators inquired in the letter.
Sen. Ossoff notes he has a history of working to strengthen safety in federal prisons.
In December 2022, according to a press statement, Sen. Ossoff’s bipartisan Prison Camera Reform Act was signed into law, “requiring the Federal Bureau of Prisons to upgrade outdated and broken security camera systems” to ensure “all facilities have the coverage necessary to protect the safety of incarcerated people and staff.”
In another public statement in 2023, Sen. Ossoff and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) were reported introducing the bipartisan Federal Prisons Accountability Act of 2023, which would make the BOP Director a U.S. Senate confirmed position.
One year later, in Feb. 2024, Sen. Ossoff pressed BOP Director Peters in a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on the steps she’s taking to “crack down on the contraband flowing through BOP facilities that threaten public safety, including at FCI Atlanta.”
In April 2024, Sens. Ossoff and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) introduced The Lieutenant Osvaldo Albarati Stopping Prison Contraband Act to “crack down on the smuggling of contraband cellphones into Federal prisons.”
In July 2024, President Biden signed into law Sen. Ossoff’s bipartisan Federal Prison Oversight Act, a “historic prison reform legislation to overhaul independent oversight of the Federal Bureau of Prison’s 122 facilities nationwide.”
One month later, In August 2024, Sens. Ossoff and John Cornyn (R-TX) introduced the bipartisan Female Officers Ballistic Protection Act to “ensure women across Federal law enforcement agencies have improved ballistic body armor that keep them safe on the job, including for female BOP officers.”
