It seems as though little has changed from the days of the old road prisons where an inmate could be sentenced to “the box” for a rules infraction. Except now it’s not inmates, but Bureau of Prisons (BOP) whistleblowers who are being punished with exile to dark corners of a prison.

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel found that two women who reported misconduct at the prisons where they worked were given substandard office space in response to their complaints.

One, Linda Thomas, was moved from her office to a converted cell in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago after she reported mismanagement and financial waste in June 2014. The “office” had no phone, computer or other equipment necessary for her work and she was forced to climb staircases through inmate areas to reach her desk. During the Special Counsel’s investigation of the case, and one day before she was to be sent to the jail cell, Thomas was moved to a different office, this one satisfactory to her.

In another case of retribution, Julia Landucci, a BOP drug abuse coordinator in Waseca, Minnesota, was to be reassigned to an office a sixth the size of her previous one situated next to the office of a person against whom Landucci has filed an Equal Employment Opportunity claim and accusations of workplace violence. She was also removed from oversight of the drug abuse program, referred for a mental health exam, and denied educational reimbursement. The reassignment was postponed while Landucci’s case was investigated.

-Steve Straehley

To Learn More:

OSC Helps Federal Bureau of Prisons Whistleblowers (Office of Special Counsel) (pdf)