The Federal Bureau of Prisons (often referred to operationally as the BOP) is a federal law enforcement agency subdivision of the United States Department of Justice and is responsible for the administration of the federal prison system. The system also handles prisoners who committed acts considered felonies under the District of Columbia's law. The Bureau was established in 1930 to provide more progressive and humane care for federal inmates, to professionalize the prison service, and to ensure consistent and centralized administration of the 11 federal prisons in operation at the time.
According to its official web site, the Bureau consists of more than 116 institutions, six regional offices, its headquarters office in Washington, D.C., 2 staff training centers, and 22 community corrections offices, and is responsible for the custody and care of approximately 210,000 federal offenders. Approximately 82 percent of these inmates are confined in Bureau-operated correctional facilities or detention centers. The remainder are confined through agreements with state and local governments or through contracts with privately-operated community corrections centers, detention centers, prisons, and juvenile facilities.
The Bureau is also responsible for carrying out all judicially ordered federal executions (other than those carried out under military law) in the United States, and maintains the federal lethal injection chamber at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Read more about Federal Bureau Of Prisons: Authority, Censorship of Inmate Communications With The Media, Training, Types of Federal Prisons, Inmate Population, Employee Statistics, Designation and Sentence Computation Center, Death Row
Famous quotes containing the words federal, bureau and/or prisons:
“Daniel as a lad bought a handkerchief on which the Federal Constitution was printed; it is said that at intervals while working in the meadows around this house, he would retire to the shade of the elms and study the Constitution from his handkerchief.”
—For the State of New Hampshire, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“If this bureau had a prayer for use around horse parks, it would go something like this: Lead us not among bleeding-hearts to whom horses are cute or sweet or adorable, and deliver us from horse-lovers. Amen.... With that established, let’s talk about the death of Seabiscuit the other night. It isn’t mawkish to say, there was a racehorse, a horse that gave race fans as much pleasure as any that ever lived and one that will be remembered as long and as warmly.”
—Walter Wellesley (Red)
“Yes, it is the hour at which, long ago, I felt happy. What always awaited me then was a light and dreamless sleep. But something had changed because, with the wait for tomorrow, it is my cell that I have found. As if the familiar paths traced in the summer skies could lead to prisons as well as innocent slumbers.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)