We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, federal prison issues, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

With this post, we celebrate our 1,800th blog since we put up our first newsletter back when Nino Scalia was still a Supreme Court Justice and Joe Biden was Vice President.

STOLEN DATA, LOUSY FOOD, BUDGET CUTTING – JUST ANOTHER WEEK AT THE BOP

Oops: Over 320 gigabytes of inmate data may have been hacked from Federal Bureau of Prisons computers, Cybernews announced last week.

On a popular data leak forum, hackers claim that some of the data was taken as recently as June 20th. It may include names, register and social security numbers, incident reports, release plans and medical records, Cybernews reported last week.

Cybernews said BOP told it, “We’re aware of the claims and are investigating their legitimacy.”

Cybernews, Massive breach exposes US Federal Bureau of Prisons, hacker claims (June 27, 2025)

Inspector General Reports on BOP Food Services: The DOJ Inspector General issued a report last week detailing inspections of BOP food service facilities at FCI Mendota, FCI Pollock, USP McCreary, FCI Marianna, MCC Chicago and FCI Allenwood.

The IG said, “USP McCreary and FCI Marianna had the greatest number of deficiencies. When considering the overall volume and nature of the deficiencies, we also determined that USP McCreary’s deficiencies were the most significant of all the institutions we inspected. In comparison, FCC Allenwood and MCC Chicago had the fewest deficiencies of the institutions we inspected, and we came away with a positive impression of their food service operations.”

Three of the six facilities were marked down for sanitation. A fourth, FCC Pollock, had a malfunctioning freezer. The Report said, “Ultimately, many of the issues we observed are manifestations of longstanding BOP-wide issues the OIG has previously identified, including ineffective contraband mitigation, insufficient security camera coverage, staff shortages, and failing infrastructure. The DOJ OIG’s body of BOP oversight work has previously identified these as significant enterprise-wide challenges for the BOP…”

DOJ Inspector General, Concurrent Inspections of BOP Food Service Operations (Report 25-062, June 17, 2025)

Administration Seeks to Cut Out New Kentucky Prison in BOP Budget: The DOJ is seeking to claw back $500 million earmarked for a new medium-security federal prison in Letcher County in a DOJ FY 2026 budget that nevertheless proposes a 2.8% increase in the BOP’s budget in order to add about 600 correctional officers.

The June 13 budget request proposes to rescind construction funding for the proposed prison that Representative Hal Rogers (R-KY) has worked to bring to Letcher County since 2006. The BOP moved forward last year with acquiring land for the project, but the Trump Administration now seeks to rescind funding for the project.

DOJ proposes that the BOP receive $8.869 billion, up from this year’s $8.629 million, for operations starting in October 2025.

DOJ Budget FY 2026 Budget and Performance Proposal (June 13, 2025)

Kentucky Lantern, Trump administration moves to rescind $500 million for federal prison in Letcher County (June 23, 2025)

– Thomas L. Root