BOP Program Statement 1330.18 § 10

a. An inmate may obtain assistance from another inmate or from institution staff

in preparing a Request or an Appeal. An inmate may also obtain assistance from

outside sources, such as family members or attorneys. However, no person may

submit a Request or Appeal on the inmate's behalf, and obtaining assistance will

not be considered a valid reason for exceeding a time limit for submission unless

the delay was caused by staff.

b. Wardens shall ensure that assistance is available for inmates who are

illiterate, disabled, or who are not functionally literate in English. Such

assistance includes provision of reasonable accommodation in order for an

inmate with a disability to prepare and process a Request or an Appeal.

For example, Wardens must ensure that staff (ordinarily unit staff) provide assistance in the

preparation or submission of an Administrative Remedy or an Appeal upon being contacted by

such inmates that they are experiencing a problem.

11. RESUBMISSION §542.17

a. Rejections. The Coordinator at any level (CCM, institution, region, Central

Office) may reject and return to the inmate without response a Request or an

Appeal that is written by an inmate in a manner that is obscene or abusive, or

does not meet any other requirement of this part.

b. Notice. When a submission is rejected, the inmate shall be provided a written

notice, signed by the Administrative Remedy Coordinator, explaining the reason

for rejection. If the defect on which the rejection is based is correctable, the

notice shall inform the inmate of a reasonable time extension within which to

correct the defect and resubmit the Request or Appeal.

(1) Sensitive Submissions. Submissions for inmate claims which are too sensitive to be made

known at the institution are not to be returned to the inmate. Only a rejection notice will be

provided to the inmate. However, other rejected submissions ordinarily will be returned to the

inmate with the rejection notice.

(2) Defects. Defects such as failure to sign a submission, failure to submit the required copies

of a Request, Appeal, or attachments, or failure to enclose the required single copy of lower level

submissions are examples of correctable defects.

Ordinarily, five calendar days from the date of the notice to the inmate is reasonable for

resubmission at the institution level; at least 10 calendar days at the CCM or regional offices; and

15 calendar days at the Central Office.

(3) Criteria for Rejection. When deciding whether to reject a submission, Coordinators,

especially at the institution level, should be flexible, keeping in mind that major purposes of this

Program are to solve problems and be responsive to issues inmates raise. Thus, for example,

consideration should be given to accepting a Request or Appeal that raises a sensitive or

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problematic issue, such as medical treatment, sentence computation, or staff misconduct, even

though that submission may be somewhat untimely.

c. Appeal of Rejections. When a Request or Appeal is rejected and the inmate is

not given an opportunity to correct the defect and resubmit, the inmate may

appeal the rejection, including a rejection on the basis of an exception as

described in §542.14 (d), to the next appeal level. The Coordinator at that level

may affirm the rejection, may direct that the submission be accepted at the lower

level (either upon the inmate’s resubmission or direct return to that lower level),

or may accept the submission for filing. The inmate shall be informed of the

decision by delivery of either a receipt or rejection notice.

12. RESPONSE TIME §542.18

If accepted, a Request or Appeal is considered filed on the date it is logged into

the Administrative Remedy Index as received. Once filed, response shall be

made by the Warden or CCM within 20 calendar days; by the Regional Director

within 30 calendar days; and by the General Counsel within 40 calendar days. If

the Request is determined to be of an emergency nature which threatens the

inmate’s immediate health or welfare, the Warden shall respond not later than the

third calendar day after filing. If the time period for response to a Request or

Appeal is insufficient to make an appropriate decision, the time for response may

be extended once by 20 days at the institution level, 30 days at the regional level,

or 20 days at the Central Office level. Staff shall inform the inmate of this

extension in writing. Staff shall respond in writing to all filed Requests or

Appeals. If the inmate does not receive a response within the time allotted for

reply, including extension, the inmate may consider the absence of a response to

be a denial at that level.

The date a Request or an Appeal is received in the Administrative Remedy index is entered into

SENTRY as the “Date Rcv”, and should be the date it is first received and date-stamped in the

Administrative Remedy Clerk’s office. Notice of extension ordinarily is made via SENTRY

notice.

13. REMEDY PROCESSING

a. Receipt. Upon receiving a Request or Appeal, the Administrative Remedy Clerk shall stamp

the form with the date received, log it into the SENTRY index as received on that date, and write

the “Remedy ID” as assigned by SENTRY on the form. Once a submission is entered into the

system, any subsequent submissions or appeals of that case shall be entered into SENTRY using

the same Case Number. The “Case Number” is the purely numerical part of the “Remedy ID”

which precedes the hyphen and “Submission ID.”

All submissions received by the Clerk, whether accepted or rejected, shall be entered into

SENTRY in accordance with the SENTRY Administrative Remedy Technical Reference

Manual.

Sensitive issues, when the inmate claims that his or her safety or well-being would be placed in

danger if it became known at the institution that the inmate was pursuing the issue, should be

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withheld from logging in until answered and/or should be logged into SENTRY with sufficient

vagueness as to subject code and abstract to accommodate the inmate’s concerns.

A Request should be submitted and logged in at the institution where the inmate is housed at the

time the inmate gives the Request to the counselor or other appropriate staff member. If the

event(s) occurred at a previous institution, staff at that previous institution shall provide,

promptly upon request, any investigation or other assistance needed by the institution answering

the Request. If an inmate is transferred after giving the Request to a staff member, but before

that Request is logged in or answered, the institution where the Request was first given to a staff

member remains responsible for logging and responding to that Request.

b. Investigation and Response Preparation. The Clerk or Coordinator shall assign each filed

Request or Appeal for investigation and response preparation. Matters in which specific staff

involvement is alleged may not be investigated by either staff alleged to be involved or by staff

under their supervision. Allegations of physical abuse by staff shall be referred to the Office of

Internal Affairs (OIA) in accordance with procedures established for such referrals. Where

appropriate; e.g., when OIA or another agency is assuming primary responsibility for

investigating the allegations, the response to the Request or Appeal may be an interim response

and need not be delayed pending the outcome of the other investigation.

Requests or Appeals shall be investigated thoroughly, and all relevant information developed in

the investigation shall ordinarily be supported by written documents or notes of the investigator’s

findings. Notes should be sufficiently detailed to show the name, title, and location of the

information provided, the date the information was provided, and a full description of the

information provided. Such documents and notes shall be retained with the case file copy.

When deemed necessary in the investigator’s discretion, the investigator may request a written

statement from another staff member regarding matters raised in the Request or Appeal.

Requested staff shall provide such statements promptly. For a disciplinary Appeal, a complete

copy of the appealed disciplinary actions record shall be maintained with the Appeal file copy.

c. Responses. Responses ordinarily shall be on the form designed for that purpose, and shall

state the decision reached and the reasons for the decision. The first sentence or two of a

response shall be a brief abstract of the inmate’s Request or Appeal, from which the SENTRY

abstract should be drawn. This abstract should be complete, but as brief as possible. The

remainder of the response should answer completely the Request or Appeal, be accurate and

factual, and contain no extraneous information. The response should be written to be released to

any inmate and the general public under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and the Privacy

Act. Inmate names shall not be used in responses, and staff and other names may not be used

unless absolutely essential.

Program Statements, Operations Memoranda, regulations, and statutes shall be referred to in

responses whenever applicable, including section numbers on which the response relies.

d. Response Time Limits. Responses shall be made as required in Section 12 of this Program

Statement.

e. Index Completion. When a response is completed, the Clerk shall update SENTRY in

accordance with the SENTRY Administrative Remedy Manual and the instructions in

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Attachment A. Particular attention should be paid to updating the status date, code, and reason,

and to making any changes to the subject code and abstract indicated by the Coordinator or by

the response drafter. The abstract shall be taken from the response’s first paragraph.

Abbreviations may be liberally used, as long as they are easily understood, to allow as complete

a description of the issue in the 50 characters allotted. For consistency, the Administrative

Remedy Coordinator shall approve the closing entry, including the subject codes, status code and

reason, and abstract, before the closing entry is made by the Clerk.

f. Response Distribution. For an institution response, one copy of the complete Request and

response shall be maintained in the Warden’s Administrative Remedy File together with all

supporting material. Three copies shall be returned to the inmate. An inmate who subsequently

appeals to the regional or Central Office shall submit one copy with each appeal.

One copy of a Regional Appeal and response shall be retained at the regional office. One copy

shall be sent to the Warden at the original filing location. The remaining two copies shall be

returned to the inmate; one to submit in case of subsequent appeal to the Central Office, and one

to retain.

One copy of a Central Office Appeal and response will be returned to the inmate. One copy will

be retained in the Central Office Administrative Remedy File, one copy will be forwarded to the

regional office where the Regional Appeal was answered, and one to the Warden’s

Administrative Remedy File at the original filing location.

g. File Maintenance. The Warden’s Administrative Remedy File and Administrative Remedy

Files at the Regional Offices and Central Office shall be maintained in a manner that assures case

files are readily accessible to respond to inquiries from Federal Bureau of Prisons staff, inmates,

and the public. Institutions shall file Regional and Central Office response copies with the

inmate’s institution submission copy. Regional offices shall file copies of Central Office

responses with the inmate’s Regional Appeal file. Each location shall maintain copies of

supporting material and investigation notes with the case file.

When a Regional or Central Office Appeal was not preceded by a lower level filing, the

institution and regional copies shall be filed at the institution and region having responsibility for

the inmate at the time of response.

To provide information and feedback, Wardens and Regional Directors are encouraged to route

response file copies from subsequent appeal levels to the Coordinator and the appropriate

department head or person who investigated and drafted the response at their respective levels.

14. ACCESS TO INDEXES AND RESPONSES §542.19

Inmates and members of the public may request access to Administrative

Remedy indexes and responses, for which inmate names and Register Numbers

have been removed, as indicated below. Each institution shall make available its

index, and the indexes of its regional office and the Central Office. Each regional

office shall make available its index, the indexes of all institutions in its region,

and the index of the Central Office. The Central Office shall make available its

index and the indexes of all institutions and regional offices. Responses may be

requested from the location where they are maintained and must be identified by

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Remedy ID number as indicated on an index. Copies of indexes or responses

may be inspected during regular office hours at the locations indicated above, or

may be purchased in accordance with the regular fees established for copies

furnished under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

At present, fees are detailed in 28 CFR § 16.10, which specifies a charge of $.10 per page

duplicated and no charge for the first 100 pages. Staff shall forward funds received for purchase

of index and response copies to the FOIA/Privacy Act Section, Office of General Counsel,

Central Office.

Any location may produce its index or that of another location by making the appropriate entries

on a SENTRY retrieval transaction, and specifying the “SAN” (sanitized) output format.

15. RECORDS MAINTENANCE AND DISPOSAL

a. Disposal Authority. The authority for Administrative Remedy records disposal is the “job

number” NC1-129-83-07 provided by the National Archives.

b. Administrative Remedy Indexes. SENTRY Administrative Remedy indexes shall be

maintained in computer-accessible form for 20 years, then destroyed. Pre-SENTRY indexes

shall be maintained at the site of creation for 20 years, then destroyed.

c. Administrative Remedy Case Files. Administrative Remedy Case Files shall be destroyed

three full years after the year in which the cases were completed (i.e., response completed). For

cases submitted since implementation of the SENTRY module (July 1990), at the end of each

calendar year (beginning at end of 1993), run SENTRY index retrieval transactions to identify

the lowest case number for cases answered (status = cl* and status date in the appropriate range)

during the calendar year ended three years previously. Cases below that number must be

destroyed. Thus, cases answered in 1990 would be destroyed at the end of 1993; cases answered

in 1991 would be destroyed at the end of 1994, etc.

To identify the lowest case number for cases answered during a given year, it may be necessary

to check indexes with “Date Received” in the year in question as well as those with “Date

Received” in the previous year.

Cases maintained under the pre-SENTRY numbering and filing system should be destroyed

according to the following schedule:

YEAR OF CASE # DESTROY AT END OF