Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz announced today the release of a report examining the U.S. Marshals Service’s (USMS) operations of the Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System (JPATS). JPATS schedules and transports prisoners and detainees across the United States and its territories.
The DOJ Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found that the USMS established adequate controls over JPATS flights to transport prisoners and detainees, as well as its billing process. However, the report identifies several areas for improvement related to administrative management of JPATS, including:
- Updating its budget policy, which does not reflect procedural changes since it was issued in 2003;
- Implementing a data validation and retention policy to ensure Quarterly Performance Reviews are accurate;
- Documenting how it sets specific performance targets to demonstrate that it transported detainees effectively and efficiently; and
- Continuing its efforts to engage federal, state, and local customers and deploy a secure, cloud-based system to track custody of prisoners and detainees.
Today’s report makes four recommendations to the USMS to improve administrative management of JPATS. The USMS agreed with all of the recommendations.
Report: Today’s report is available on the OIG’s website under “Recent Reports” and at the following link: https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2019/a1933.pdf.
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