Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Government at Work - buying bus tickets
I guess it's called playing the percentages.
I don't like it but you can form your own opinion...
I don't like it but you can form your own opinion...
Abigail Goldman reports:
"Since April 2006, the Bureau of Prisons has allowed 89,794 federal inmates to be transferred without escorts, traveling mainly by bus. The rationale behind the unescorted transfers, according to bureau spokeswoman Traci Billingsley, is purely economic: Having prison officials, or U.S. marshals, in charge of moving inmates who have been prescreened and deemed low-risk would be incredibly expensive, she said. Exactly how much it would cost, the Bureau of Prisons doesn't know.
Historically, fewer than 1 in 500 inmates being transferred without escorts have absconded, Billingsley said. Although the federal agency doesn't have the exact numbers for recent years, that calculates to no more than 180 inmates since 2006. The Bureau thinks this number is small enough to justify the cost-saving program, though bus companies don't agree.
Bus companies have no idea when inmates are being transferred. Greyhound in particular has asked the federal prison system several times to stop transferring convicts on its fleet."
