Department of Justice February 2008 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) announces the availability of the Draft Environmental Assessment (EA) for the proposed development of a Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) to be located in Hazelton, Preston County, West Virginia. The BOP is seeking to expand the facilities that currently exist at BOP's USP Hazelton facility due to a growing population of federal inmates and an increased demand in the Mid-Atlantic Region for facilities to house the growing inmate population.

As required by the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990, as amended by the Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice are publishing these rules adjusting for inflation the civil monetary penalties assessed or enforced by those two Departments under sections 274A, 274B, and 274C of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). The adjusted civil money penalties are calculated according to the specific formula laid out by law, and will be effective for violations occurring on or after the effective date of these rules.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a component agency of the Department of Justice (DOJ), is issuing a final rule exempting a new Privacy Act system of records, the Law Enforcement National Data Exchange. The FBI published a system of records notice for N-DEx and a proposed rule implementing these exemptions on October 4, 2007. The listed exemptions are necessary to avoid interference with the law enforcement functions and responsibilities of the FBI. This document addresses public comments on the proposed rule.

The National Institute of Corrections (NIC) is soliciting proposals from organizations, groups or individuals who would like to enter into a cooperative agreement with NIC for the eighteen month development phase of a new initiative, ``Evidence Based Decision Making for Local Criminal Justice Systems'' (justice systems). Project Goal: The overall goal of the initiative is to establish and test articulated linkages (information tools and protocols) between local criminal justice decisions and the application of human and organizational change principles (evidence based practices) to achieve measurable reduction of pretrial misconduct and post-conviction risk of re-offending. The unique focus of the initiative is locally developed strategies of criminal justice officials (broadly defined below) that guide practice within existing sentencing statutes and rules. The initiative intends to: (1) Improve the quality of information that leads to making individual case decisions in local systems, and (2) engage these systems as policy making bodies to collectively improve the effectiveness and capacity of the decision processes related to pretrial release/sentencing options. The local officials will include judges, prosecutors, public defenders, court administrators, police, human service providers, county executives and legislators, and jail, probation and pretrial services agencies' administrators. Local criminal justice decisions are defined broadly to include dispositions regarding: Pretrial release or detention and the setting of bail and pretrial release conditions, pretrial diversion or post plea diversion ``sentences,'' charging and plea bargaining, sentencing of adjudicated offenders regarding use of community and custody options, mitigation or reduction of sentences, and responses to violations of conditions of pretrial release and community sentences.