Reports

U.S. Attorney Justin Herdman sent a letter to Northern Ohio housing advocacy groups asking anyone who has witnessed or experienced sexual harassment by a landlord, property manager, maintenance worker, or anyone with control over housing to report that conduct to the Department of Justice.

The Department of Justice today filed a Statement of Interest in a Virginia federal court concerning the First Amendment’s freedom of religion in support of Lighthouse Fellowship Church (Lighthouse), a congregation in Chincoteague Island, Virginia, that serves, among others, recovering drug addicts and former prostitutes.

The OIG is conducting a capstone review analyzing the findings of 15 published remote inspection reports of 16 facilities housing BOP inmates during the 2019 Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic and remaining challenges for the BOP during the pandemic and beyond.  These inspections assessed whether BOP-managed institutions, contract institutions, and contract Residential Reentry Centers complied with available guidance and best practices regarding preventing, managing, and containing potential COVID-19 outbreaks in correctional and residential reentry settings, and highlighted particular challenges faced by specific institutions.  In addition to the three surveys the OIG conducted in 2020 regarding BOP’s COVID-19 pandemic response, the OIG is also conducting two additional surveys in 2021 – a second survey of BOP federal prison staff and a new survey of inmates.