I
118th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 5266
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
August 25, 2023
Mr. Bacon (for himself, Mr. Cartwright, Mr. Weber of Texas, Mr. Pappas, Mrs. Miller of West Virginia, and Mr. Cuellar) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
A BILL
To require the Director of the Bureau of Prisons to develop and implement a strategy to interdict fentanyl and other synthetic drugs in the mail at Federal correctional facilities.
Short title
This Act may be cited as the Interdiction of Fentanyl in Postal Mail at Federal Prisons Act
.
Findings
Congress finds the following:
The Bureau of Prisons has 122 institutions located throughout the United States, employs nearly 38,000 employees, and is responsible for more than 150,000 Federal inmates.
Inmate mail is a primary entry point for smuggling drugs into correctional facilities, with tainted mail incidents also on the rise.
Elimination of dangerous contraband, including synthetic drugs, in mail is essential to protecting the health and safety of employees of the Bureau of Prisons and Federal inmates.
Prisons in the United States are increasingly deadly facilities, with a 600 percent rise in drug overdoses in recent years.
The introduction of synthetic drugs, particularly fentanyl and fentanyl analogues, into correctional facilities by mail threatens employees, inmates, and the security of correctional institutions, and the practice of deliberately lacing opioids to ensure targeted lethality represents a dramatic emerging concern.
The foregoing factors add tremendous pressures and workload that further burden existing employees, commonly reassigning officers from other functions to assist in processing mail.
Employees at correctional facilities at Federal, State, and local levels continue to request drug interdiction technologies to protect themselves and inmates.
A congressionally authorized digital mail scanning pilot program at the Federal Correctional Institution, Beckley, West Virginia, and the United States Penitentiary, Canaan, Pennsylvania, from March 2020 through June 2021, demonstrated effective interdiction technology and practices aimed at eliminating dangerous contraband arriving through the mail and served as an effective deterrent to smuggling attempts.
Apart from digital mail scanning, there is no widely deployed interdiction technology that has demonstrated a 100 percent efficacy to detecting fentanyl, and other synthetic drugs, arriving through the mail at Bureau of Prisons facilities.
Removing mail processing from Federal prisons and relieving Bureau of Prisons employees from mail sorting duties will result in an extensive budgetary relief to the Bureau and decrease the staffing shortages facing prisons.
Definitions
In this Act:
The term opioid has the meaning given such term in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802).
The term synthetic drug means a controlled substance analogue (as such term is defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802), and includes any analogue of fentanyl.
Strategy to interdict synthetic drugs in postal mail
Evaluation
Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Director of the Bureau of Prisons (referred to in this Act as the Director
) shall evaluate—
Federal correctional facilities’ acquisition and deployment of synthetic drug interdiction equipment;
Federal correctional facilities’ use of technology services to scan mail; and
whether any technologies used by other Federal agencies to intercept and interdict contraband in the mail may be used by the Bureau of Prisons.
Strategy
Not later than 90 days after completing the evaluation under subsection (a), the Director shall submit to the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate and the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives a strategy to provide all Federal correctional facilities with capabilities necessary to—
protect staff and inmates from exposure to synthetic drugs and opioids introduced to facilities through the mail;
ensure that—
not later than 24 hours after a piece of mail is received at a Federal corrections facility, each inmate receives a digital copy of any mail that is addressed to the inmate;
not later than 30 days after receiving a digital copy of a piece of mail under subparagraph (A), the inmate receives the original physical copy of any mail that—
does not contain synthetic drugs or opioids; and
is addressed to the inmate; and
delivery to the inmate under subparagraphs (A) and (B) is documented; and
achieve 100 percent scanning capacity of mail arriving at all Federal correction facilities.
Contents
The strategy required under subsection (b) shall—
identify critical information technology, digital mail scanning equipment, and mail scanning services necessary to achieve the scanning capacity described in subsection (b)(3);
include an assessment of operational and logistical considerations, including—
prioritization of high security and large inmate population facilities for digital mail scanning infrastructure and security technology deployment;
any need for additional personnel and technology training necessary to implement the strategy; and
scanning equipment maintenance requirements and periodic digital technology upgrades; and
include an equipment and technology budgetary proposal, for fiscal years 2024 though 2026, in order to fully implement the strategy described under subsection (b).
Annual progress reports
Beginning 1 year after the date on which the strategy is submitted under subsection (b), and each year thereafter, the Director of the Bureau of Prisons shall submit to the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate and the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives a report on the efficiency of the strategy and the total quantity of detected synthetic drugs and opioids.