Saturday, July 20, 2024 – BOP “Backwards on Purpose”
Peter Navarro, former Trump White House advisor, recently got out of prison for contempt of congress. A few weeks ago he came out with a new op-ed in the Daily Caller (I encourage all to google it) discussing the Bureau of Prisons failure to implement the First Step Act. He also referred to the BOP acronym as standing for “Backwards on Purpose”, as many of us inmates refer to the BOP as, bringing attention to the sheer lack of common sense (to put it nicely) that governs this agency on a daily basis. I was thrilled to see this editorial. While I denounce the prosecutions of Donald Trump, and the imprisonments of Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon, I hope there is a silver lining. The silver lining being that these individuals have gotten to witness first hand what many average citizens, who have been persecuted by the Department of Justice, and prison inmates have known for quite some time, which is, The Department of Justice is corrupted. Jesse Kelly, radio host, recently said something very astute on his radio show. He said “when an institution becomes corrupted the institution views its only goal in life as to protect the institution itself.” This is why there is no accountability within these institutions because the leaders of these corrupted institutions (Attorney General, FBI Director, Secret Service Director, etc.) view their role as to not fix problems that arise within their agency or have someone resign but rather to protect themselves or the institution itself. “Corrupted institutions therefore cannot be fixed, they have to be removed.” I had never heard it summarized better.
I admit being in transit since June 17th is starting to take a toll on me. The fact that this is likely to go on for another 10-24 days is starting to take its toll on me. When I take a step back it is easy to see how needless this transit is and how wasteful our government spending is. There are countless individuals going through the same thing. Take one inmate here in Atlanta for example. He was at Maxwell Camp for 6 weeks before he was given a writ to make a court appearance in April 2024. The court appearance was not until June. They did not issue him a furlough at the Camp and instead put him on a BOP bus to the USP Atlanta Detention Center. From Atlanta he was transported to the local county jail in Savannah Georgia. He goes to court, a one day court appearance, and then goes back to the county jail. From there he is taken to Atlanta and has been waiting here for 40 days and counting to go back to Maxwell. Why is our government spending money to transport, feed, house, and cloth this man in transit? He is a minimum security inmate with out custody. If the BOP was concerned with giving him a furlough, telling him to show up in court, and make it back to Maxwell by a certain date then he should not even be at a prison camp to begin with. Any inmate can leave a prison camp at any time just by walking off. It makes no sense!
Now lets look at my case. I was at FCI Yazoo Low 2 in Yazoo City Mississippi. I have 3 custody points with “out” custody and am designated to Maxwell Prison Camp. For reference anyone with 0-11 custody points is considered minimum security, 12-15 custody points is considered low security, 16-23 custody points is considered medium security, and 24 points + is considered high security. Additionally, I was on bond for over 5 years and self surrendered to prison in February 2022. Maxwell AFB prison camp is 230 miles from Yazoo City and my family offered to drive me to the camp. I requested a transfer furlough from my case manager at Yazoo Low 2. My request was denied. Instead this is what the Backwards on Purpose BOP paid for:
- June 17, 2024: 500 mile bus ride from Yazoo City, MS to Oklahoma City, OK
- June 17, 2024 to July 10, 2024: Room and Board in Oklahoma City, OK
- July 10, 2024: 760 mile flight from Oklahoma City, OK to Atlanta, GA
- July 10, 2024 to current: Room and Board in Atlanta, GA
- TBD: 100 mile bus ride from Atlanta, GA to FCI Talladega to drop off the Talladega people first then 90 miles to FPC Montgomery
In summary, instead of taking a 230 mile trip from Yazoo to Montgomery in a few hours, the government is transporting me over 1400 miles across likely 60 days to get me to a prison camp. During this journey, I have been housed with other inmates with security levels all the way up to high.