Federal Inmates Call A Cab To Transfer Prisons - Forbes

Each day at minimum (camp) and low security federal prisons across the country, inmates walk out the front gate and get into a cab for a ride to the bus stop or train to transfer to another prison. The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has a furlough program that allows inmates to dress in street clothes and travel to another prison instead of receiving a ride on the infamous “Con-Air” system run by the BOP. These furloughs are at the discretion of the Warden.

A Fox news television station in Memphis, TN recently covered the practice of federal inmates taking commercial transportation in their community. However, those granted furloughs represent low security inmates who have been convicted of non-violent offenses and who have no documented risks of violence in their past. Still, inmates running around the community raises concerns and makes for a good story…but it shouldn’t.

A friend of mine, who I will call “Tom”, was transferred in August 2001 between the minimum security camps in Atlanta, GA and Edgefield, SC. His mode of transportation, Greyhound Bus Lines. Tom had been convicted of a white-collar crime in the late 90s and was in the midst of a 41 month sentence. His reason for transferring prisons was to participate in the Residential Drug Abuse Program (RDAP), which was available in Edgefield but not Atlanta. Participation in the program stood to take a year off of his prison sentence.

Tom, dressed in nondescript gray sweat pants and sweat shirt, was taken from the Atlanta prison camp by an inmate who had the title of “town driver”. Each prison camp has an inmate who has a driver’s license and permission to take a government owned vehicle for small errands for the prison or to take and retrieve inmates from bus stops or rail stations. The “town driver” for Tom was a dentist in another life who was doing time for evading income taxes. He dropped Tom off at the Greyhound bus station in downtown Atlanta where he boarded a bus that would eventually get him to Edgefield in approximately 6 hours. Had Tom’s trip been on the government’s Con-Air, he would have had his feet shackled and hands cuffed for a bus ride that could have taken him through a various prison hubs landing him at his destination after a few weeks.

Once at the bus station, Tom hailed a cab that took him to the front gates of the prison offices of the Medium security prison of Edgefield, SC. On the ride to the prison, a nervous cab driver asked Tom what he did for the prison – hoping he was an employee of the prison. Tom replied, “I’m in the incarceration business, it’s classified.” Tom’s goal was to get to his destination, not make idle talk with a cabbie … he also didn’t want the guy to pull over and make him get out to walk the last few miles to the prison.

Tom walked into the prison, gave his name, and sure enough they were expecting him. After a few hours of waiting around for the paperwork to be completed, Tom was taken to his new cell in Edgefield prison camp, just down from the medium security prison. That completed 6-hours of freedom for an inmate.

Each year, about 45,000 federal inmates are released into society …. and some others may just be in between prisons. Sharing a cab with either group would make for some interesting conversation, if you decided to stay in the cab.