Fixing the Federal Bureau of Prisons

High recidivism, rotten conditions, almost no rehabilitation. This site is the public case file on the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons.

A call for change

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Compassionate Release Is Quietly Dying in Federal Court 16 September 2026 Legal Battles & Legislative Updates The Sentencing Commission counted 195 compassionate release grants in nine months. The First Circuit granted half of the motions it decided, the Eighth granted 4 percent, and two Supreme Court decisions in May closed two of the routes that were still working. Read more
Two Forrest City Officers Get Thirty Months for the Contraband Economy 6 September 2026 Corruption & Lack of Accountability Robert Cochran and Tejuana Dillard each got 30 months for smuggling contraband into the Forrest City Federal Correctional Complex. One made $58,775 moving tobacco and sunglasses. The other made $91,788 selling cigarettes to two inmates. These are the cases that get prosecuted. The rest get fired. Read more
BOP Suspends Its mindSHFT Pouch Deal 4 September 2026 Healthcare Neglect in Prisons The BOP ordered every federal prison to stop buying mindSHFT nicotine pouches after a whistleblower complaint and a CBS News investigation found the product has no FDA authorization. Only two brands have it: ZYN and on! Read more
BOP Expands First Step Act Time Credits After Courts Told It To 31 August 2026 Legal Battles & Legislative Updates A new BOP rule lets inmates start earning First Step Act time credits at sentencing instead of arrival at a facility, and extends eligibility to treaty-transfer inmates. Courts forced the change. Comments close September 30. Read more
One Company, Many Names: Inside the ContactMeASAP and GorillaText Operation 31 August 2026 Technology & Data: Smarter Solutions for Reform ContactMeASAP and GorillaText sell $20 and $30 monthly plans for services over the BOP's mandatory TRULINCS terminal, take the payment, and in many cases deliver nothing. We traced their shared checkout, their referral network, and the calling platform behind the robocalls families report. Read more
One Real Technology Company in a Fly-by-Night Industry 31 August 2026 Technology & Data: Smarter Solutions for Reform CorrLinks gives federal inmates bare text-only email. Open Efforts, a Wyoming technology company, built a whole assistant layer on top of it, and says it is already building for the BOP's move to Securus, with plans to serve Securus-covered institutions including Texas and California. Read more
Josh Smith Is Gone. His BOP Reforms Are Still Standing. 29 August 2026 Advocacy & Reform Strategies Deputy Director Josh Smith, the first formerly incarcerated person in BOP senior leadership, resigned August 25 with no stated reason. He swapped out 70% of executive staff, rewrote decades-old policy in 90 days, and left the agency arguing about itself in a way it hadn't in decades. Read more

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What this site is

FixingBOP.org, also written Fixing the BOP, reports on the federal Bureau of Prisons from the people who work in it and the people held in it. The case for fixing the BOP sets out what reform has delivered, what it hasn't, and what would change recidivism.