WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden signed into law on Thursday a bill strengthening oversight of the crisis-plagued federal Bureau of Prisons after reporting by The Associated Press exposed systemic corruption, failures and abuse in the federal prison system.
The Federal Prison Oversight Act, which passed the Senate on July 10 and the House in May, establishes an independent ombudsman to field and investigate complaints in the wake of sexual assaults and other criminal misconduct by staff, chronic understaffing, escapes and high-profile deaths.
It also requires that the Justice Department’s inspector general conduct risk-based inspections of all 122 federal prison facilities, provide recommendations to address deficiencies and assign each facility a risk score. Higher-risk facilities would then receive more frequent inspections.
Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters lauded the bill as she testifying before Congress this week. But, she told the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance that the agency will need tens of millions of dollars in additional funding “to effectively respond to the additional oversight and make that meaningful, long-lasting change.”
Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., introduced the oversight bill in 2022 while leading an investigation of the Bureau of Prisons as chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee’s subcommittee on investigations.
Ossoff and the bill’s two other sponsors, Judiciary Committee Chair Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Sens. Mike Braun, R-Ind., launched the Senate Bipartisan Prison Policy Working Group in February 2022 amid turmoil at the Bureau of Prisons, much of it uncovered by AP reporting. Reps. Kelly Armstrong, R-N.D., and Lucy McBath, D-Ga., backed the House version of the bill.
“The human rights crisis behind bars in the United States is a stain on America’s conscience," Ossoff said in a statement thanking the bill's other sponsors. “The United States Congress will no longer tolerate the ongoing and widespread abuse of those who are in Federal Bureau of Prisons’ custody.”
Under the legislation, an independent federal prison ombudsman would collect complaints via a secure hotline and online form and then investigate and report to the attorney general and Congress dangerous conditions affecting the health, safety, welfare and rights of inmates and staff.
Along with inspecting prison facilities, the legislation requires the Justice Department’s inspector general to report any findings and recommendations to Congress and the public. The Bureau of Prisons would then need to respond with a corrective action plan within 60 days.
Last year, Inspector General Michael Horowitz launched an unannounced inspection program of federal prison facilities that identified critical shortcomings, including staff shortages in health and education programs, crumbling infrastructure, and moldy and rotten food being served to inmates.
The oversight bill “recognizes the importance of our inspection program,” Horowitz said. “We look forward to working with Congress to expand its impact.”
Peters said the bill “really enhances” what the inspector general has been doing, while also enabling the agency to collect data and spot problems more quickly.
“We’ll be seeing more announced visits — more unannounced visits from the inspector general,” Peters told the House subcommittee. “And then I think the ombudsman position is very powerful as well, for it to have a place where individuals can bring forward complaints and somebody is there to ensure that those complaints are asked and answered.”
Biden signed a separate Ossoff bill into law in December 2022 requiring the Bureau of Prisons to fix broken surveillance cameras and install new ones.
An ongoing Associated Press investigation has uncovered deep, previously unreported flaws within the Bureau of Prisons, the Justice Department’s largest law enforcement agency with more than 30,000 employees, 158,000 inmates and an annual budget of about $8 billion.
AP reporting has revealed dozens of escapes, chronic violence, deaths and severe staffing shortages that have hampered responses to emergencies, including inmate assaults and suicides.
In April, the Bureau of Prisons said it was closing its women’s prison in Dublin, California, known as the “rape club,” giving up on attempts to reform the facility after an AP investigation exposed rampant staff-on-inmate sexual abuse.
Last year, two high-profile prisoners were attacked and another killed himself in federal prisons.
Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was stabbed 22 times by a fellow prisoner last November at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson, Arizona. The assailant said he targeted Chauvin because of his notoriety for killing George Floyd, federal prosecutors said.
Disgraced former sports doctor Larry Nassar was stabbed in July 2023 at a federal penitentiary in Florida, and “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski killed himself at a federal medical center in June 2023.
Sisak reported from New York.
President Joe Biden pauses as he concludes his address to the nation from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, about his decision to drop his Democratic presidential reelection bid. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, Pool)
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli air raids in the Gaza Strip killed more than a dozen people overnight into Saturday, hospital and local authorities said, as health workers wrapped up the second phase of an urgent polio vaccination campaign designed to prevent a large-scale outbreak.
The vaccination drive was launched after health officials confirmed the first polio case in the Palestinian enclave in 25 years, in a 10-month-old boy whose leg is now paralyzed. The nine-day campaign by the U.N. health agency and partners aims to vaccinate 640,000 children, an ambitious effort during a war that has destroyed Gaza's health care system and much of its infrastructure. The third phase of vaccinations is in the north.
Israel, meanwhile, kept up its military offensive. In central Gaza’s urban refugee camp of Nuseirat, Al-Awda Hospital said it received the bodies of nine people killed in two separate air raids. One hit a residential building, killing four people and wounding at least 10, while five people were killed in a strike on a house in western Nuseirat.
Separately, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, central Gaza’s main hospital, said a woman and her two children were killed in a strike on a house in the nearby urban refugee camp of Bureij.
In northern Gaza, an airstrike on a school-turned-shelter for displaced people in the town of Jabaliya killed at least four people and wounded about two dozen others, according to Gaza’s Civil Defense authority, which operates under the territory’s Hamas-run government. Israel's military said it struck a Hamas command post embedded in a former school compound.
The war began when Hamas and other militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people, primarily civilians. Hamas is believed to still be holding more than 100 hostages. Israeli authorities estimate about a third are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count. The ministry says more than 94,000 people have been wounded.
Violence has also spiked in the occupied West Bank. A dayslong military operation in Jenin left dozens of dead. “They (Israeli forces) besieged the area and brought in bulldozers. As you see, they destroyed the whole area," said a resident, Mahmoud Al Razi.
On Friday, a 13-year-old girl and an American protester were reported shot and killed in separate incidents in the West Bank.
Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, who also holds Turkish nationality, died after being shot in the head, two Palestinian doctors said. She had been demonstrating against Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Witnesses said she had posed no threat to Israeli forces and was shot during a moment of calm following earlier clashes.
The White House has said it was “deeply disturbed” by the killing and called on Israel to investigate. The Israeli military said it was looking into reports that troops had killed a foreign national while firing at an “instigator of violent activity” in the area.
Her family in a statement said that “given the circumstances of Aysenur’s killing, an Israeli investigation is not adequate” and urged President Joe Biden to order an independent investigation. They called the recent university graduate a “ray of sunshine” and an advocate for human dignity.
Separately, Palestinian health officials said Israeli fire killed 13-year-old Bana Laboom in the village of Qaryout.
The Israeli military said an initial inquiry indicated that security forces had been deployed to disperse a riot involving Palestinian and Israeli civilians that “included mutual rock hurling.” Security forces fired shots in the air, it said.
More than 500,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank, a territory captured by Israel in 1967. Israeli raids, attacks by Palestinian militants on Israelis and attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians have left more than 690 Palestinians dead since the Israel-Hamas war began in October, according to Palestinian health officials.
Israel has been under increasing pressure from the United States and other allies to reach a cease-fire deal in Gaza, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists on continued Israeli control of the Philadelphi corridor, a narrow band along Gaza’s border with Egypt where Israel contends Hamas smuggles weapons. Egypt and Hamas deny it.
Hamas has accused Israel of dragging out negotiations by issuing new demands. Hamas has offered to release all hostages in return for an end to the war, the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces and the release of a large number of Palestinian prisoners, including high-profile militants — broadly the terms called for under an outline for a deal put forward by Biden in July.
Along the border with Lebanon, near-daily clashes continue between Israeli forces and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
An Israeli drone strike hit a Lebanese Civil Defense team that was fighting a fire in the town of Froun, killing three volunteers and wounding two others, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said. The blaze was sparked by a previous Israeli strike, the statement said. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the strike.
Israel's military said some 45 rockets were fired at northern Israel in several barrages, many targeting the Mount Meron area but falling in open areas. Several rockets fell in Shlomi and around the city of Safed. There were no injuries. The military later said its jets struck Hezbollah military infrastructure and a rocket launcher in the area of Qabrikha in southern Lebanon.
Magdy reported from Cairo and Jeffery from Ramallah, West Bank. Associated Press writer Ellen Knickmeyer in Washington contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
Mourners carry the body of Palestinian girl Bana Bakr, 13, into the family house during her funeral in the West Bank village of Qaryut, south of Nablus, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024. Bakr was killed by Israeli fire, the Palestinian health ministry said. The Israeli army said they were reviewing the incident. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
Mourners take the last look at the body of Palestinian girl Bana Bakr, 13, at the family house during her funeral in the West Bank village of Qaryut, south of Nablus, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024. Bakr was killed by Israeli fire, the Palestinian health ministry said. The Israeli army said they were reviewing the incident. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
Palestinian Barakat Jabr, 15, displays a photo of his sister Bana Bakr, 13, on his mobile phone in her bedroom at the family house, as he waits for her funeral, in the West Bank village of Qaryut, south of Nablus, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024. Bakr was killed by Israeli fire the Palestinian health ministry said. The Israeli army said they were reviewing the incident. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
Palestinians gather around the body of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, who was fatally shot by Israeli soldiers while participating in an anti-settlement protest in the West Bank, at the morgue of the Rafedia hospital, in the West Bank city of Nablus Friday, Sept. 6, 2024. (AP Photo)
Palestinians look at the body of Turkish-American Aysenur Ezgi Eygi at the hospital morgue in Nablus, West Bank, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024. Ezgi Eygi, 26, died after being shot in the head on Friday, Palestinian doctors said. Witnesses to the shooting said the was fatally shot by Israeli forces in a moment of calm after clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces in the northern West Bank. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Palestinians carry the body of Turkish-American Aysenur Ezgi Eygi at the hospital morgue in Nablus, West Bank, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024. Ezgi Eygi, 26, died after being shot in the head on Friday, Palestinian doctors said. Witnesses to the shooting said the was fatally shot by Israeli forces in a moment of calm after clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces in the northern West Bank. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Palestinian mourners gather around the covered bodies of Turkish-American Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, and Bana Bakr, 13, at a morgue in Nablus, West Bank, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024. Witnesses said Eygi, was fatally shot by Israeli forces in a moment of calm after clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces near Nablus on Friday. Bakr was also killed by Israeli fire the Palestinian health ministry said, while the Israeli army said they were reviewing the incident which happened during clashes between Palestinians and Israeli nationals in an area south of Nablus. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
