Thread: Unescorted Prisoners Take the Bus

Unescorted Prisoners Take the Bus

Thanks to a little-known policy at the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), the guy sitting next to you on the bus could be a convicted felon. As part of a cost-cutting program, the BOP allows more than 25,000 prisoners each year to ride unescorted and unannounced between federal correctional facilities. At least 50 have escaped, including a drug dealer who is now considered armed and dangerous.

Traci Billingsley, a BOP spokeswoman, says that almost all of the inmates are traveling to halfway houses where they will come into contact with the public anyway. She adds that the other 6% of inmates are traveling to minimum-security facilities, most of which don’t even have fences. Prisoners who will travel alone are screened to make sure they “pose no significant risk.â€

Should federal prisoners be allowed to travel unescorted on public transportation?
Yes
No
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You can vote in the poll at this link:

http://www.parade.com/news/intelligence ... e-bus.html

American Bus Association's Letter Protesting Unescorted Prisoners

published: 06/01/2009

April 9, 2009

Mr. Harley G. Lappin
Director, Federal Bureau of Prisons
Home Owners Loan Corporation Building
320 First Street NW, Room 654
Washington, DC 20534

Dear Mr. Lappin:

The American Bus Association, and its 800 bus operator members who account for twothirds of all U.S. motorcoaches, is outraged that your agency has, for at least four years, and continues a dangerous policy of placing unescorted prisoners on independently run buses to transfer them to different prison facilities, often several states away.

It is unfathomable that your agency would engage in such a practice at all. But to do so without even informing our bus operator members or their passengers imperils public safety, violates the principle of government transparency, and requires us to demand that such practices crease and desist immediately.

At a time when security and safety remains a top public policy priority for our nation, the BOP’s practice of surreptitiously buying tickets for prisoners, giving those tickets to such prisoners and putting them on intercity buses with no law enforcement oversight is in direct conflict with the purpose we have a Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration. No bus operator or driver can possibly monitor a prisoner who is traveling incognito. Though when one decides to escape, as several have, it’s clear the unescorted prisoner program is ill-advised.

This letter hereby serves as notice that no ABA member bus operator will provide service to any unescorted prisoner -- under any circumstances.

Sincerely,
Peter J. Pantuso
President & CEO
American Bus Association

http://www.parade.com/news/2009/05/aba-letter.html

Most prison inmates return home on the bus after they are released because prisons aren't allowed to just release them all at the front gate, because there would be to many dumped in the city near the prison. Most of them are driven to the nearest bus station and given a one way, non-refundable, ticket to their home city.

Should federal prisoners be allowed to travel unescorted on public transportation?
Yes 37%

No 63%

Where is the ACLU when you need them? Oh, never mind. They would argue the case on behalf of released prisoners.
What is absolutely insane is the insanity by BOP by not telling the drivers that there is someone on board their bus that was just released. Any problem on a bus is the driver's problem to take care of.