Bill Would Require Federal Prisons To Notify Families of Serious Illness and Death
Families described not being told their loved one was in the hospital or even when they had died.
For years, families have complained of cruelty from the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) when their incarcerated loved ones become seriously ill or die. Now, legislation in Congress is attempting to put a stop to what it calls inhumane treatment.
Sens. Jon Ossoff (D–Ga.) and John Kennedy (R–La.) introduced legislation Wednesday—the Family Notification of Death, Injury, or Illness in Custody Act—that would require the Justice Department to issue guidance to the BOP for promptly notifying families of individuals in custody who become seriously ill, suffer life-threatening injuries, or die. The Justice Department would also distribute those policies as a model for state and local lockups to follow.
"Too often, the families of those incarcerated never find out about a serious illness, a life-threatening injury, or even the death of a loved one behind bars," Ossoff said in a press release.
A companion bill has been introduced in the House of Representatives by Reps. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D–Calif.), John Rutherford (R–Fla.), Barry Moore (R–Ala.), and Glenn Ivey (D–Md.).
A BOP spokesperson declined to comment on the legislation, citing the agency's policy of responding directly to members of Congress. However, the spokesperson said that "upon arrival at an FBOP facility, all individuals in our custody are asked to provide a primary point of contact (next of kin) in the event of death or illness. In the event of a serious illness, the institution will notify the next-of-kin."
According to BOP policy, the warden or other designee should telephone the deceased inmate's next-of-kin "immediately to communicate the circumstances surrounding the death." The policy also states that the warden should draft a letter of condolence explaining the nature and causes of death.
However, families say that's not what's happening. In interviews with Reason last year, they described delays in being notified that their incarcerated loved one had been hospitalized, or even died; having their phone calls ignored; not being allowed to see their loved one in their final moments; delays in being sent the body and death certificate; being given inaccurate or incomplete information about the manner of death; or waiting months and years for the Bureau to fulfill their public records requests for more information about how their loved one died.
Blanca Valencia's son, Anthony Maseda, was incarcerated at FCC Coleman, a federal prison complex in Florida, before he died on March 12. He was a 22-year-old with Type 1 diabetes.
"He was always complaining about how his blood sugars were always high, and they didn't listen to him, nobody would pay attention to him," Valencia told Reason last year. "I remember he called me one day and he told me, 'Mom, I've been really sick, but I feel a little bit better today.' And then he stopped calling me out of nowhere. They called me from the hospital a week, maybe two weeks later, saying that he was at the hospital really, really sick, and that he was probably not gonna make it."
Maseda died two months later, alone. Valencia says officials didn't allow her to be with her son in his final moments. The BOP listed his official cause of death as complications from influenza.
Another woman told Reason she discovered her husband had died in federal prison, not from a telephone call from officials, but instead when she checked the BOP's online inmate locator and saw his status had changed to "deceased."
These problems occur in state prisons and local jails as well. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in 2020 how the Clayton County Jail failed to notify a woman that her mother had suffered serious injuries from an alleged fall and had been on life support at a hospital for three weeks.
Ossoff's office highlighted another case of a Georgia woman who was only notified of her father's death at a state prison after a letter was returned to her stamped, "Return to sender: inmate dead."
It shouldn't take legislation for jailers to show families the bare minimum of human decency, and it should be embarrassing that lawmakers feel it's necessary to mandate such a thing.
