The National Consumer Law Center (NCLC), on behalf of its low-income clients, and advocate Stephen Raher submitted comments in response to the Bureau of Prisons’ Proposed Rule regarding the Inmate Discipline Program, RIN 1120-AB71, BOP-1171-P (Proposed Rule). Our comments address a single subsection of the Proposed Rule: its proposed prohibition on incarcerated people’s “use of fund transfer services such as CashApp.” In our comments, we urge the Bureau to strike this provision of the Proposed Rule because it: (1) is substantially ambiguous on its face; (2) lacks an adequate evidentiary record and a satisfactory justification, as required by the Administrative Procedure Act; (3) could be construed to prohibit conduct that is societally beneficial; and (4) appears to prohibit conduct the Bureau expressly authorizes. Finally, we explain that fund-transfer services in correctional facilities do in fact cause serious harms to vulnerable consumers, but the Proposed Rule does not address these harms. We assert that the Bureau’s resources would be better spent addressing those harms, rather than advancing the ill-conceived Fund-Transfer Provision.
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