Emergency help
Of the $290 million BOP received in fiscal 2023 for its building and facilities account, $108 million came through regular appropriations and an additional $182 million was provided through emergency funding.
For the fiscal 2025 budget request, Jolene Ann Lauria, assistant attorney general for administration, said the department worked in concert with the inspector general’s office on some of the “targeted increases” for prison infrastructure.
Lauria said it’s hard to compare one year to the next when it comes to “one-time construction projects,” and she pointed to a law that established new discretionary spending caps in fiscal years 2024 and 2025.
“These investments reflect a thoughtful, serious approach to what can be achieved in a single given year and where the investments are most critical, and then also given the overall environment of the Fiscal Responsibility Act,” Lauria said.
The inspector general’s office previously has documented prison infrastructure problems.
After an unannounced visit to a federal prison in Florida in May 2023, the inspector general’s office said they found a sink detached from the wall, an electrical outlet with apparent fire damage and “feminine hygiene products” that were being used to soak up water from leaking windows.
The watchdog report also said that female housing unit roofs “routinely leak” and “that all five general population housing unit roofs need to be replaced.”
“Many female inmates live in housing units in which water frequently leaks from ceilings and windows on or near their living spaces,” the report said.
Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., raised prison infrastructure concerns at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last month, as Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters testified before the panel. He cited a figure that showed Congress appropriated $59 million for BOP modernization and repair in fiscal 2022.
“I’ve watched you now as a professional struggle mightily to meet the demands that are put on you in a moment where Congress is not giving you the resources necessary to do your job even, in facilities that are outrageously decrepit,” Booker said.
Peters responded that the maintenance and repair backlog at the agency had grown since they last reported a $2 billion backlog.
“It is now closer to $3 billion because we continue to have roofs that are crumbling. We continue to have HVACs that have stopped working,” she said.
Article Appeared @https://rollcall.com/2024/03/20/congress-cuts-federal-prison-infrastructure-funding/