OFDT is the primary government agency in charge of federal programs involved with detainment of people in the custody of the United States while they wait for a trial or immigration proceedings. It also manages the Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System (JPATS).
Until September 2001, the confinement of persons in federal custody awaiting a trial or immigration procedures had been the responsibility of both the U. S. Marshall’s Service (USMS) and the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). But there had been growing concern among Department of Justice (DOJ) officials about the safety, cost, and efficiency of such a fragmented approach, especially as the number of detainees had been significantly increasing since the mid-1990s. Eventually those issues were the catalyst for the DOJ Appropriations Act of 2001, which, when Congress approved it, led to the creation of OFDT, with the objective that it would centralize the supervision of functions relating to the detention of federal prisoners and aliens awaiting adjudication and/or removal from the United States. In 2005 OFDT was also given the responsibility of managing JPATS.
OFDT oversees and coordinates detention activities for the DOJ, and with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (DHS/ICE). It’s in charge of seeing that detained persons are provided safe, secure and humane confinement in the most cost-effective manner, and appear when they’re required to for judicial proceedings or confinement. In addition, it monitors facilities to make sure their performance level is up to agreed standards; develops and implements strategies to deal with potential detention crises; negotiates and awards contracts in support of operational needs; and formulates recommendations and projections on population trends, bed space availability, and costs of state and local government, versus private facilities. It also recently created an e-Designate program, a secure electronic web-based system that automates the sentencing to commitment process, and accelerates the movement of prisoners. The system has increased efficiency for OFDT in its managing of JPATS, one of the largest transporters of prisoners in the world, which provides centralized transportation services to USMS, Bureau Of Prison inmates, and ICE deportable aliens, moving over a thousand individuals a day between judicial districts, correctional institutions, and foreign countries. OFDT has also developed DSNetwork (PDF), a multifaceted consolidated detention services website which aids in handling of scheduling, collecting and maintaining data, long-range planning, and improving interaction between government agencies and service providers.
From the OFDT Website
Stakeholders include American citizens in neighborhoods where there are proposals for new detention centers to potentially be built; detainees and their legal representatives; private facilities hoping to garner contracts to house federal detainees, and technology businesses hoping to garner contracts for OFDT to utilize their equipment and/or services.
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Founded: September, 2001
Annual Budget: $37.6 million
Employees: 50
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Office of the Federal Detention Trustee (OFDT)
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Stacia A. Hylton, who was apppointed Federal Detention Trustee by Attorney General John Ashcroft on June 14, 2004. She earned her B.S. in Criminal Justice at Boston’s Northeastern University, which she attended on a full athletic scholarship. She began what is now a 25-year career in law enforcement in1983, serving until 1991 as a member of the Marshals Service Special Operations Group dive team, helicopter repel and stabo team, and as a water survival instructor. She has also been Assistant Director for the United States Marshals Service Prisoner Operations; Chief Deputy for the District of Columbia; an instructor at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center; an inspector in the Witness Security Program; and Chief of the Marshals Service Court Security Program. Additionally, she served in field operations in the District of Columbia, the Southern District of Florida, and the Eastern District of Virginia. From January to June 2001, she was designated by the Attorney General to be Acting Deputy Director of the U.S. Marshals Service. Also in 2001, she was Operational Commander for the Vieques, Puerto Rico operation, and Incident Commander for the Marshals Service Emergency Response Team at Ground Zero after the September 11th terrorist attacks. In 2003 she was designated by the Director of the Marshals Service as the Agency Deciding Official for all adverse actions.
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