More than 240 inmates have slipped away from federal custody in the past three years while traveling to halfway houses, including several who committed bank robberies and a carjacking while on the lam, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Ah yes, the much-heralded "low risk" offender. Aren't they all.Some of the inmates who absconded from 2012 through 2014 were reported by prison officials to have histories of violence and misconduct while in prison, the records show.
The federal Bureau of Prisons each year permits thousands of inmates it considers low risk to serve the final months of their sentences at halfway houses where counseling, job placement and other services are offered. These inmates travel unescorted, often by bus, as part of the process of transitioning back into the community.
An what the gooey phrase "transitioning back into the community" actually turns out to mean is committing yet more crime, as DOJ's never-spoken-about-too-loudly (because sky-high) recidivism numbers show. And that's even on those occasions when he inmates choose to show up at the halfway house.
Records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show that 327 inmates were placed on escaped status during those years. About 65 of them were simply late arrivals, though the circumstances of their tardiness are not detailed. Most of the escapes occurred as inmates were traveling without escort from a prison to a halfway house. The remaining few took place during travel for social, medical or other purposes that were not specified.
The bureau could not say how many who fled have since been apprehended.
In other words, DOJ cannot keep track of its own prisoners. But you're safe, honest!
The escapees are a fraction of the roughly 30,000 who travel unescorted to halfway houses each year. But the data nonetheless expose lingering imperfections in a system that's come under scrutiny from the Justice Department's watchdog and that relies on trust that inmates nearing the end of their sentences will arrive at their destinations as scheduled.
"It's an unfortunate reality that a number of these individuals are not going to succeed," agency spokesman Ed Ross said. "But they have certainly been given the opportunities to prepare themselves the entire time while they're in prison."
That last paragraph is wonderfully revealing about DOJ's give-a-hoot mindset.
"It's an unfortunate reality" = "Stuff happens, people, get over it."
"[A] number of these individuals are not going to succeed." = "What we're thinking about is their well-being. As to your well-being, ummmm..............."
"But they have certainly been given the opportunities to prepare themselves..." = "What counts is whether the Great Satan has given 'opportunities' to the downtrodden, not whether they have any interest in their hearts in taking advantage of those opportunities."
And if you're the next one they mug while they're on the lam......hey, you can get over that, too.
Your tax dollars at work.
Let's review this essentials of this story, Bill, with an effort to make constructive your apparent criticism:
1. It seems that 99% of the time, DOJ has wisely decide that a low-risk inmates can travel unaccompanied. Not a bad success rate, and the alternative would be to accompany all these 30,000 with a federal employee who'd cost, I would venture to guess, at least an additional $1,000 per trip. Ergo, this program with a 99% success rate has saved federal taxpayers, I am guessing, at least $30 million.
2. Among the 240 folks who escaped (out of 30,000), it seems from the AP report only 3 clearly and quickly went back to a life of crime. So, arguably the success rate for deciding who is low-risk is 99.99%. I sure wish all gov't programming had anything close to that success rate.
3. Though I know you would be quick to take money from other federal programs to give an additional $30 million to chaperone all 30,000 low-risk folks in order to avoid the escape of less than 1% of them AND in order to try to prevent any further crime from the .01% of them, I suspect we could both find ways to spend $30 million of federal tax dollars that would prevent more than 3 criminals from going back into crime. That money likely could go to funding, say, 500 additional cops on the beat in cities experience a surge in gun violence and I would hope that would help prevent a lot more crime.
But maybe I misunderstand your criticisms and maybe you do think $30 million would be a good use of federal tax monies in an effort to prevent 3 of 30,000 folks from being able to do mischief while still formally under the feds watchful eye.
Especially in the wake of another mass shooting by a heavily armed mentally unstable 20-something male, I find curious and telling that you are eager to post here about a story that suggests (to me at least) that DOJ does a pretty good job figuring out who is a low-risk individual and maybe should be given a lot more power to screen gun sellers and purchasers if we hope to do anything to stem gun violence. Am I wrong to think we could and should from this story reasonably expect DOJ to have a 99% or 99.99% success rate if it were to screen who could be trusted to own multiple assault weapons? Wouldn't that help keep us and are kids safer?
Of course the right attitude to adopt about escapees who commit crime is to minimize the whole thing. This is at least consistent with he attitude that crime of every other sort is likewise to be minimized -- because the only thing to be considered is incarceration! Which is, after all, a racist plot!!
And after minimizing the additional crime made possible by DOJ's wink-and-a-nod guess about who is supposedly "low risk," we can move right along to talking repeatedly about a $30 million figure that nowhere appears in my entry but that -- as has happened so often -- you make up and stick in my mouth.
Let me ask again: Since the overriding principle in America is freedom, why don't we end ALL incarceration? How can we have a truly free country will people behind bars?
As you have forthrightly acknowledged on your blog, the next step in "reform" is to release violent criminals, not just the "low level" types Mike Lee et al. are (quite deceptively) talking about now.
And what is the next step beyond releasing violent criminals? I think it's to release ALL criminals, or never to incarcerate them to begin with. Isn't that the logical next move? Why not?
As I trust you know, Bill, I would like to move to a world in which federal incarceration is a last resort, not a first resort, in response to criminal behaviors. I do think such an approach would be more consistent with America's historic commitment to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (and also to keeping the feds out of matters better handled at a state/local level).
But, in this setting, I was really just trying to take the story you referenced and better understand what it really tells us and what you think it should lead us to do in response. Am I wrong to concluded that one key feature of the story is that DOJ is actually VERY EFFECTIVE AT FIGURING OUT WHO IS LOW RISK?
Please correct my numbers and understanding if I am off-base, but I surmise that DOJ concluded that 30,000 prisoners were low-risk (not no-risk) and could be trusted to travel on their own to a lower-level (and cheaper) form of federal custody. And it appears they were right more than 99% of the time, as only 240 out of 30,000 prisoners failed to do what they were ordered to do. Isn't this generally a story of DOJ success, not failure? Certainly, if so many stories of wrongful convictions (and wrongful acquittals) are to be believed, DOJ risk-assessment tools have a MUCH better accuracy rate than criminal trials.
In addition, unless I read the story wrong, of the less than 1% who failed to show up when they were supposed to, only a very few of that group went on to commit additional crime. I do not want to minimize the harm of those handful of crimes, but I do want to understand whether you think to prevent this handful of crimes we ought to have incarcerated 30,000 low-risk folks for more years at significant taxpayer costs. I threw out a guess for the (relatively small) economic cost for just federal officials traveling with the 30,000 offenders while in transit, and that number would increase to nearly $1 billion if you were suggesting we keeping them all incarcerated for an extra year of longer.
Again, my point is not to make the case here for reduced incarceration, but rather to better understand how much taxpayer money you are eager to spend on big government federal solutions to seemingly small criminal problems. Aside from basic ideas about whether locking up people in cages should be embraced or questioned in a free society, I just want to get practical about your willingness to spend huge taxpayer sums on punishment for seemingly very little public safety benefit. I fear it is exactly a willingness to spend first and think later of the impact of expenditures that has long led us to make poor public safety decisions from a cost-benefit perspective. And here I just wanted to be clear if that is what you wish to continue in this arena in light of the AP report you have highlighted.
"In addition, unless I read the story wrong, of the less than 1% who failed to show up when they were supposed to, only a very few of that group went on to commit additional crime. I do not want to minimize the harm of those handful of crimes, but..."
You had me fooled about the "not wanting to minimize" part. Indeed, I confess to STILL being fooled.
"Aside from basic ideas about whether locking up people in cages should be embraced or questioned in a free society, I just want to get practical about your willingness to spend huge taxpayer sums on punishment for seemingly very little public safety benefit."
On a blog that at its best is about a discussion of basic ideas concerning crime and punishment, I don't think it's wise for me to just walk past the bedrock notion that, in a free society, we must not "lock people in cages."
Important though DOJ errors are (a not infrequent and incendiary subject on your blog), vastly more important is the question whether imprisonment IN ANY SENSE AT ALL is something society ought to be doing.