You Can't Trust the B.O.P.

May 18, 2005

Hello, Folks;

Further information from interviews with recently released federal inmate reveals an interesting set of facts.

Inmates are allowed to shop for hygiene items and food in B.O.P. operated commissary stores in each institution.

The prices are determined by the cost of the goods with a markup dictated by policy. The profit margin is supposed to be used for the benefit of the inmates, to buy TV sets, clothes washers and dryers, recreation equipment, and like things that are geared towards making inmate life a bit more tolerable under the difficult circumstances being in prison imposes.

These funds are carried as "Inmate Trust Funds" and amount to a very considerable sum of money. The average commissary sales for an institution with about 1500 inmates is about $1,500,00.00 per year. Multiply that amount by the some 109 institutions and you are talking about a lot of money...huge sums. The profit margin is about 25%.

What my interviews reveal is that some of this money is being used for questionable purposes. For instance, in most institutions, there is a staff training center. In these centers, the B.O.P. provides an exercise room with a vast array of expensive equipment thought to run in excess of $100,000.00 per facility, all bought out of inmate trust fund account money.

What is even more questionable is that all the ammunition used by guards to train on the M-16 machine guns, pistols, sniper rifles, and .12 gauge shotguns is bought out of the trust funds.

I post the question, "What is actually bought from these funds and who audits them to assure no fraud or mismanagement?"

The people I interviewed stated that all attempts to obtain financial statements and like information are met with no response or retaliation by B.O.P. staff.

Sounds like something fishy going on, doesn't it?

Join the NO Vote Party and stop putting people in positions of power who put others in positions of power to do such questionable things.

D. Tom