Filed
5:00 a.m. EDT
07.11.2025
The report, by the Justice Division’s inner watchdog, comes after an investigative collection by The Marshall Challenge and NPR uncovered comparable abuses.
One particular person died in federal jail after being saved in restraints for greater than two days. One other was held in restraints so tight that, afterward, a part of a limb needed to be amputated. A 3rd particular person was confined in restraints for 12 days, then 30 days, after which once more for 29 days.
These abuses are outlined in a brand new report from the Justice Division’s Workplace of the Inspector Common, which is very vital of the federal Bureau of Prisons’ use of restraints on prisoners.
The report concludes that federal jail officers violated their very own guidelines, shackling prisoners to beds and chairs for hours — and even days — typically utilizing restraints on each wrists and ankles. Moreover, they violated a separate rule that prohibits using restraints as punishment.
In response to the inspector normal’s findings, the bureau said it agreed with the report’s suggestions and would revise its insurance policies and practices transferring ahead.
The report follows an investigative collection in recent times by The Marshall Challenge and NPR, which uncovered abuse in federal prisons, together with the overuse of restraints and shackles so tight that prisoners report scarring and everlasting damage.
The OIG reviewed six years of bureau information and located hundreds of situations of abuse. These included “hundreds of incidents of inmates held in restraints for 16 hours or longer, a whole bunch of which had been held in restraints for greater than 24 hours and a few for over per week or weeks.” Nonetheless, the investigators famous that their work was restricted by insufficient record-keeping at prisons.
“Clearer and extra strong insurance policies would help the BOP in defending inmates from abusive remedy, shielding employees from false allegations, deterring misconduct by employees, and holding employees who interact in misconduct accountable,” says the report from William Blier, appearing Inspector Common to William Marshall, the brand new Director of the Bureau of Prisons.
The report doesn’t establish particular prisons or prisoners nor disclose their gender, however a few of the particulars are disturbing.
The one that died had been “positioned in a restraint chair with restraints on each wrists and each ankles for greater than 2 days,” in response to the report. Lower than two hours after being launched, they had been sprayed with pepper spray “following an alleged altercation with a cellmate” and positioned again into the restraint chair. 5 hours later, the prisoner was discovered unresponsive and later pronounced useless.
An post-mortem concluded that the particular person died from a painful blockage of blood circulation, a extreme results of sickle cell illness, which was difficult by being pepper sprayed and positioned in“extended restraint”.
The bureau’s guidelines enable using restraints when a prisoner’s habits poses an instantaneous threat to themselves or others. However the guidelines explicitly prohibit restraints from getting used “as a way of punishing an inmate” or in “a way that causes pointless bodily ache or excessive discomfort.”
Officers at Thomson federal penitentiary in Illinois maintain a person in a four-point restraint, with wrists and ankles secured to limit motion.
The Marshall Challenge and NPR revealed comparable misuse of restraints. On the Particular Administration Unit within the federal penitentiary at Thomson, Illinois, prisoners described what they known as their “Thomson tattoos,” — the lasting and typically everlasting marks on their wrists and ankles from restraints utilized too tightly and left on too lengthy.
On the federal jail at Lewisburg, Pennysylvania, The Marshall Challenge and NPR reported that Sebastian Richardson was punished for objecting to being positioned with a brand new cellmate he feared. He was put in restraints for 28 days, throughout which era he was uncuffed solely as soon as. Because of this, he was unable to make use of the bathroom and infrequently compelled to sleep on the ground of his cell.
Following reviews of widespread abuse, the Division of Justice shut down the disciplinary items at each Lewisburg and Thomson.
In response to the memorandum from the Inspector Common, the bureau said that it “is dedicated to addressing these points and implementing significant enhancements,” and welcomed the report’s suggestions as “an important alternative to reinforce company practices and make sure the humane remedy of all inmates.”
A Bureau of Prisons’ spokesperson instructed NPR that the company can’t remark additional right now as a result of it’s nonetheless finishing a assessment of the Inspector Common’s “a number of suggestions and requested revisions.”
Nonetheless, the bureau knowledgeable the Inspector Common it will take steps to forestall the extended use of restraints, and conduct extra frequent checks and thorough documentation of prisoners in restraints.
