Chronic failures by the Bureau of Prisons lead to the deaths of hundreds of federal prison inmates, the Department of Justice’s Inspector General said in a blistering report released Thursday.
The report found that recurring failures within the Bureau of Prisons, such as inaccurate mental health screenings or prison staff missing inmate rounds, lead to inmates dying in federal custody. Longstanding institutional issues also limited BOP’s ability to investigate inmate deaths and prevent similar conditions in the future, it said.
CNN has reached out to the Bureau of Prisons for comment on the report.
For years, the embattled Bureau of Prisons has been the subject of accusations by politicians, prisoner advocacy groups for mistreating or neglecting inmates.
The Justice Department itself has issued scathing rebukes against BOP, outlining serious mistakes that have led to the deaths of high-profile inmates like notorious Boston gangster and convicted murderer James “Whitey” Bulger, who was killed shortly after being transferred to a new prison, and financier Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide in his jail cell.
But the circumstances that led to Bulger and Epstein’s deaths are emblematic of wide-ranging and recurring issues within the federal prison system that affect hundreds of inmates across the country, the DOJ inspector general found in its report that outlined a system in crisis failing to protect its charges.
The 100-page report analyzed the circumstances of 344 inmates who died by suicide, homicide, accidents or other unknown factors between 2014 and 2021.
The OIG recommended several changes to BOP procedure, including developing strategies to ensure that inmate mental health is properly evaluated, that prison staff is taught to use defibrillators and naloxone, and to develop procedures that require inmate death records to be consistently completed and collected.
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