Filed
5:00 a.m. EDT
07.11.2025
The report, by the Justice Division’s inside watchdog, comes after an investigative sequence by The Marshall Venture and NPR uncovered related 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 Normal, which is very essential 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 common’s findings, the bureau said it agreed with the report’s suggestions and would revise its insurance policies and practices shifting ahead.
The report follows an investigative sequence in recent times by The Marshall Venture and NPR, which uncovered abuse in federal prisons, together with the overuse of restraints and shackles so tight that prisoners report scarring and everlasting harm.
The OIG reviewed six years of bureau data and located 1000’s of situations of abuse. These included “1000’s of incidents of inmates held in restraints for 16 hours or longer, lots of of which had been held in restraints for greater than 24 hours and a few for over every week or weeks.” Nonetheless, the investigators famous that their work was restricted by insufficient record-keeping at prisons.
“Clearer and extra sturdy insurance policies would help the BOP in defending inmates from abusive remedy, shielding workers from false allegations, deterring misconduct by workers, and holding workers who have interaction in misconduct accountable,” says the report from William Blier, appearing Inspector Normal 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 who died had been “positioned in a restraint chair with restraints on each wrists and each ankles for greater than 2 days,” in accordance with 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 lifeless.
An post-mortem concluded that the particular person died from a painful blockage of blood stream, 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 a right away danger 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 Venture and NPR revealed related 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 Venture 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 period he was uncuffed solely as soon as. Consequently, he was unable to make use of the bathroom and sometimes pressured to sleep on the ground of his cell.
Following stories 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 Normal, 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 boost 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 at the moment as a result of it’s nonetheless finishing a assessment of the Inspector Normal’s “a number of suggestions and requested revisions.”
Nonetheless, the bureau knowledgeable the Inspector Normal it might take steps to stop the extended use of restraints, and conduct extra frequent checks and thorough documentation of prisoners in restraints.
