US · guidance
BOP Program Statement 5300.22 § 2
DEFINITIONS
a. Volunteers. For the purposes of this Program Statement, volunteers are private citizens who
provide a variety of gratuitous services to the Bureau of Prisons. Gratuitous services are
uncompensated services that would otherwise not be performed by a paid Government worker.
Per 31 U.S.C. Section 1342, the Federal Government is not permitted to accept voluntary
P5300.22 11/07/2016 5
services that are not pursuant to a prior contract or under an advance agreement that they will be
gratuitous. The gratuitous services agreement under which the services are performed must
state, among other things, that the volunteers waive all claims to financial reimbursement or
compensation from the Bureau for their services, time, or expenses. The gratuitous service
agreement should be entered into before the services are provided.
Volunteers are ordinarily any adult 18 years of age or older (except at high security and
administrative institutions where volunteers must be at least 21 years of age).
Volunteers cannot serve as both a volunteer and contractor in the Bureau.
Bureau staff may not serve as volunteers at any facility housing Bureau inmates except in limited
circumstances not involving one-on-one contact with inmates (e.g., choirs). These activities
must be approved by the Warden (Bureau institutions) or branch administrator (contract
facilities).
b. Non-Volunteers − Government Providers. A number of Federal, state, and local
government agencies provide services to inmates that are part of these agencies’ duties; for
example, the Social Security Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of
Labor, state workforce departments, etc. These providers are not considered volunteers.
Non-Federal providers or Federal providers without Federal Government credentials must
complete an NCIC Check (BP-A0660). The Warden approves their entry into the institution via
memo for each entrance into the institution, which is kept on file with the NCIC by the program
manager for a period of three years.
History
PS 5300.22 dated 2016-11-07
Provenance
- Source
- bop.gov
- Retrieved
- 2026-09-20
- Edition
- bop-ps-2026-09-20
- Content hash
d649feb4193d32dc91d97318d210d2f22d4ce575ce81ca14abd30fe683a8f995
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