A Federal Inmate Had a Limb Partially Amputated After Being Kept in Restraints for Two Days
A federal inmate had to have one of his or her limbs partially amputated after being kept in restraints for two days. Another incarcerated person died after being pepper sprayed and left shackled in a restraint chair for five hours.
The Department of Justice Office of Inspector General (OIG), an independent watchdog agency, published those details in a memorandum released Monday that found inadequate policies and limited oversight of the use of physical restraints on inmates in the Bureau of Prisons (BOP).
The inspector general launched the investigation after receiving dozens of complaints a year from inmates alleging they were strapped to beds or chairs for long periods of time and assaulted or otherwise mistreated while restrained.Â
A 2022 investigation by The Marshall Project and NPR uncovered rampant abuse and deaths at U.S. Penitentiary Thomson, a federal prison in Illinois. “Specifically, many men reported being shackled in cuffs so tight they left scars, or being ‘four-pointed’ and chained by each limb to a bed for hours, far beyond what happens at other prisons and in violation of bureau policy and federal regulations,” the report found. A follow-up investigation by the outlets published last December found dozens of similar allegations of prolonged shackling and abuse at another federal prison in Western Virginia.
BOP policy allows corr
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