The high price for minimum security federal prisoners

There are four security levels in the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP): minimum, low, medium, and high. Maximum security prisons are U.S. prisons that house some of the most dangerous criminals, many of whom are serving life sentences. The complexes that house these prisoners, who make up over 18,000 (11.8%) of the prison population, are double fenced with barbed wire, have electric fences, are perimeter patrolled, and have security cells. In short, they are expensive to operate.

At the other end of the security spectrum are minimum security facilities, commonly referred to as “camps.” Most are not even fenced, have fewer staff to monitor prisoners, and routinely allow prisoners to go out into the community unsupervised to perform work assignments. The camps house those serving less than 10 years of their sentence, many far less, and their inmates are prisoners serving sentences for crimes that were not violent (small-time drug dealers and white-collar criminals).

One might think that the cost of housing a prisoner in a maximum security prison is far higher than the average cost of housing a camper. A recent statement by Donald Murphy of the BOP The Office of Public Affairs reports that the average cost of housing minimum security prisoners has increased by almost the same amount as the average cost of housing a person in a U.S. prison.

Of the BOP's nearly 160,000 inmates, 24,000 are in minimum security custody. According to the BOP, the average cost of housing an inmate in minimum security custody in 2024 is $151.02. The cost of housing an individual in a U.S. prison is $164.87 ($129.72 for low security inmates and $122.50 for medium security inmates). Because there are more inmates in minimum security custody than in maximum security custody, the total cost of housing inmates in minimum security custody far exceeds the cost of housing inmates in maximum security custody.

At a time when the BOP is under enormous pressure due to staff shortages, poor morale and crumbling infrastructure, the cost of continuing to house prisoners in institutional facilities is becoming questionable.

Prisoners across the BOP are becoming increasingly expensive to house. Food costs have risen for prisons as well as for U.S. households. Health care costs have risen, and the BOP has spent money to retain employees while paying signing bonuses to attract new people. According to testimony by BOP Director Colette Peters before the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Federal Crime and Oversight, the BOP needs to hire 6,500 people, 3,500 of whom are medical professionals. The BOP is also trying to maintain its 122 facilities, which would cost an estimated $3 billion to completely modernize. Each year, the BOP has only a fraction of that budget available for maintenance, which it can afford.

One way to save costs is to look at prisoners in labor camps and see if there are alternatives to getting them out of expensive facilities, such as house arrest or halfway houses. However, as Director Peters explained, the BOP has a shortage of halfway house capacity across the country.

The First Step Act primarily benefits minimum-security inmates. The law allows the BOP to reduce inmates' sentences by up to one year if they participate in programs and productive activities. In addition, inmates can earn time on house arrest. However, the BOP's problems implementing the First Step Act, signed by President Donald Trump in December 2018, have left many minimum-security inmates in prison who might otherwise be under house arrest or in a halfway house. Nearly six years after the law went into effect, the BOP's 2024 annual report on the First Step Act states, “…As with the last report, it is too early to evaluate the cost savings from implementing the FSA.” The reasons cited for the lack of cost savings were certain fixed costs necessary to operate the facilities, such as food and medical contracts.

During the pandemic, the BOP was granted authority under the CARES Act to move many minimum security prisoners to house arrest. Some of the prisoners had years left to serve, and others are still serving their sentences. Moving prisoners to house arrest under the CARES Act was one of the BOP's biggest successes.

According to the CARES Act final rule published in the Federal Register, “between March 26, 2020, and January 23, 2023, the Bureau placed a total of 52,561 inmates under house arrest. The majority of these inmates have since completed their sentences.” In addition, the final rule states that there were “significant cost savings to taxpayers.” The CARES Act expired in April 2023, and another program, the Older, Sicker Inmates Pilot Program, which was designed to move older, sicker inmates out of facilities, has also expired. It should be noted that the BOP's Murphy explained that the cost of housing a prisoner in a federal hospital (there are 7 across the country) is $281.80/day, the highest cost per inmate in the BOP. There are also minimum security inmates in these facilities.

The cost of living in a halfway house is still high at $126.17/day. Halfway houses provide beds for some prisoners and home confinement supervision for others. However, living in a halfway house is 20% less expensive than living in an institution.

The inmate population at the BOP has dropped from over 200,000 over the past 12 years to about 160,000 today. However, the BOP's current budget of $8.3 billion remains the largest item in Justice Department spending. Sixty-eight percent of that budget is allocated to staff salaries and benefits. However, some question how many people the BOP needs to operate. According to previous BOP budget requests, there were 41,904 authorized positions at the BOP in fiscal year 2013 (20,162 correctional officers and 21,742 positions listed as other positions). The inmate population at that time was 217,000 federal prisoners, for an inmate-to-staff ratio of 5.2:1. For fiscal year 2024, 42,398 positions (14,900 correctional officers and 27,798 other) are authorized for 158,500 prisoners, for a prisoner-to-staff ratio of 3.7:1. It is worth noting that the BOP used a figure of 170,000 inmates for its budgeting in each of the past two years, but the average was about 10,000 fewer.

Hiring is a constant challenge for the BOP, as it is for prisons, jails, and law enforcement agencies across the country. This problem is not going away anytime soon. Although President Joe Biden signed a federal prison oversight bill this year, the BOP still needs to do more with the same budget. One solution is to house fewer prisoners in institutions and move them to other forms of housing, such as halfway houses. Minimum security prisoners offer a way to safely move people out of institutions and into the community without putting society at risk in the process.

When prisoners are moved out of the camps, there is a flood of prisoners being transferred from higher security prisons to lower security ones. One key to moving prisoners is giving them a place to stay. Halfway houses are in short supply, and an NBC investigative report found that many prisoners, especially minimum security prisoners, are staying in institutional prisons longer than necessary because of the BOP's problems implementing the First Step Act.

Former BOP acting director Hugh Hurwitz wrote an op-ed in The Hill calling for an independent study of prison facilities and staff so the BOP can “examine its current and future needs and provide Congress with the information it needs to make informed decisions.” While the BOP has the authority to move more people to community facilities, it lacks the capacity or will to do so.

A look at the numbers shows that moving prisoners from facilities to halfway houses is a cost-effective way to cut costs if only the BOP would use the tools at its disposal. The passage of the First Step Act was intended to address this very problem, but it has not yet produced the cost savings that were the heart of the legislation. In the 2024 budget, the BOP admitted that increased use of “these reform tools could lower population estimates and result in projected savings for the BOP.” If only it would act.