This is the first in a series of magazines in which I explain some facets of the prison system that may be useful in understanding my stories and consequently the prison system as a whole. Feel free to post questions in the comments section.
You may have read some of my posts and wondered how I ended up living with men convicted of serious violent and sometimes heinous crimes. I’m not talking about what I personally did to end up on the brick. We can save that for another post. What I’m talking about is how the California Department of Corrections (and Rehabilitation) decides which prisoners go where and who they should or should not live with.
Management Variables
Management Variables (MGTV) are factors that can override a defendant’s PSF or Security Rating and are usually imposed by the designator. The management variables include the following elements:
- Court recommendation. On occasion, the BOP may rely on a court recommendation to apply an MGTV to place an occupant at a higher or lower safety level than the occupant’s score would require.
- release residence. Occasionally, the BOP assigns an inmate to a facility because it is close to his or her “release residence,” even though the inmate’s score would normally require a facility with a different security level. Generally, this MGTV is applied to assign an occupant to a higher security facility, although in theory it can work both ways.
- Population management. Sometimes the BOP moves an inmate to a higher security facility because the lower security facilities for which the inmate is qualified are overcrowded. If so, it applies this MGTV.
- Central occupant monitoring order. Some inmates must be monitored or separated from others. Sometimes these special administrative issues limit placement opportunities. In this case, the BOP will apply this MGTV to allow placement outside of normal guidelines.
- Medical or psychiatric. The BOP applies this MGTV when an inmate requires medical/psychiatric treatment that is only available at a facility outside their security rating.
- work table. In secure facilities without satellite camps, the regional director can assign a certain number of inmates from the work squad to carry out work outside the facility’s boundaries. If such a location falls outside the normal security level rating guidelines, the BOP will apply this MGTV to allow the inmate to participate in the work squad.
- PSF relieved. This MGTV applies when a PSF has been reviewed and approved for lifting by the DSCC Administrator and results in the occupant being placed at a different level of safety than if the PSF were in place.
- Long term imprisonment. Although the BOP assigns security levels to long-term alien inmates at the time of initial classification, these inmates do not receive subsequent detention reviews as do regular non-alien BOP inmates. Therefore, if circumstances justify a transfer at a lower or higher value, the BOP will allocate that MGTV. This MGTV can only be approved by the BOP Detention Services Division, Correctional Programs Division, Central Office, Central Office.
- More security. If the Bureau of Prisons believes that an inmate poses a greater security risk than the assigned security level suggests, it may apply this management variable and place the inmate in a facility with a higher security level. The BOP generally applies this MGTV to offenders with long arrest histories but few convictions, nonviolent offenders with a history of maladjustment under probation or community supervision, offenders with a history of involvement in organized crime, offenders with foreign connections, and/or Resources and offenders who had disciplinary problems during their previous incarceration. Inmates who receive this MGTV are reclassified to a higher security level than their score would require.
- Less security. If the Bureau of Prisons concludes that delinquents pose less of a security risk than their security level suggests, it may apply this MGTV to place them in a facility outside of normal guidelines.
Custody Classification and Security Designation
- 5100 Program Statement: https://prisonprofessors.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Custody-and-Classificatin-System.pdf
Determining where a person will serve their sentence begins with an initial classification. The program statement above provides all the details needed to understand how administrators classify individuals in federal custody.