Congressman Dan Goldman Celebrates House of Representatives' Passage of Federal Prison Oversight Act

Washington, DC – Congressman Dan Goldman (NY-10) today celebrated the passage of Congresswoman Lucy Mcbath (GA-07) and Congressman Kelly Armstrong’s (ND-AL) ‘Federal Prison Oversight Act’ which would establish new, independent oversight of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Congressman Goldman was an early cosponsor of the bipartisan bill.

“Our prison system is in dire need of rigorous oversight, accountability, and reform,” Congressman Dan Goldman said. “Incarcerated individuals have endured dangerous temperatures, been deprived of medical care, assaulted, and subjected to wholly unsafe conditions with inadequate inspections for far too long. This bill is a critical first step to ensuring that every incarcerated person and correctional officer receives a baseline level of dignity and safety. Prisons must rehabilitate and prepare Americans for re-entry into society while simultaneously caring for the safety and well being of corrections officers. No prison sentence should be a death sentence.” 

The bipartisan bill requires the Department of Justice’s Inspector General to conduct comprehensive, risk-based inspections of the Bureau of Prison’s 122 correctional facilities, provide recommendations to fix problems, and assign each facility a risk score, with higher-risk facilities required to be inspected more often. The Inspector General must also report its findings and recommendations to Congress and the public, and the Bureau of Prisons must respond to all inspection reports within 60 days with a corrective action plan.    

The bipartisan bill will also establish an independent Ombudsman to investigate the health, safety, welfare, and rights of incarcerated people and staff. The Ombudsman would create a secure hotline and online form for family members, friends, and representatives of incarcerated people to submit complaints and inquiries. 

Congressman Goldman has made correcting injustice in our criminal justice system a centerpiece of his first term. 

This winter, Goldman sent a letter to the New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams in support of banning solitary confinement in New York City. 

Last year, Goldman cosponsored the Clean Slate Act to automatically seal federal arrest records for individuals not convicted and records for individuals convicted of low-level, nonviolent drug offenses as well as establishing new procedures to allow individuals to petition to seal records for other nonviolent offenses that are not automatically sealed.