Report finds federal prisons held 157 inmates too long, one by almost three years

“Untimely” probably seems a bit mild to the individual who was released 928 days late, almost three years, because of an error by the Bureau of Prisons (BOP).

Then, the agency didn’t have the decency to offer the convict even a dime for this extra time.

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That’s one case study from the report released by Michael E. Horowitz, the Justice Department’s inspector general (IG). His office says there were “157 untimely releases attributable to staff error” between 2009 and 2014. Of those, only five inmates were released too soon. The other 152 served too much time.

Given the 462,000 people released during those years, BOP made few mistakes. Sixty percent of the inmates released late were set free within a month of the correct date and 38 percent were freed from 31 days to one year late. But each case represents a serious lapse for people incarcerated longer than they should have been.

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