A warden who oversaw a tradition of abuse at two completely different federal prisons has a brand new job — operating a nationwide coaching academy for the Bureau of Prisons.
Andrew Ciolli was in command of the penitentiary at Thomson in Illinois for one 12 months earlier than he moved to guide an excellent bigger and extra high-profile jail complicated in Florence, Colo. An inside investigation by the Bureau of Prisons performed final spring found that some staff at Florence used excessive force in violation of policy, and Ciolli, as warden, ought to have stopped it — however didn’t. Investigators referred him for disciplinary motion. However he’s now landed a job because the director of the bureau’s Administration and Specialty Coaching Heart, which offers management coaching and specialised instruction throughout the company.
“Traditionally, when a warden is disciplined for misconduct, they aren’t reassigned as a director of something, not to mention a coaching middle,” stated Thomas Bergami, who succeeded Ciolli as warden at Thomson earlier than retiring final 12 months.
Reporters reached out to Ciolli at a bureau e mail tackle for his new place. An unsigned response to that e mail declined to remark and referred reporters to the bureau’s Workplace of Public Affairs.
In a press release, Bureau of Prisons spokesperson Carl Bailey confirmed that Ciolli oversees the day-to-day operations on the coaching middle, however stated he “doesn’t present or oversee coaching.” Accountability for the coaching “rests solely with material consultants, who function independently of Mr. Ciolli’s oversight,” Bailey wrote.
He added that “allegations of worker misconduct are taken critically,” and that the bureau “totally cooperates” with watchdog companies “to deliver to justice those that abuse the general public belief.”
After a two-decade profession rising via the ranks on the Bureau of Prisons, Ciolli grew to become warden at Thomson in February 2021. An investigation by NPR and The Marshall Challenge uncovered how throughout his tenure, three people were killed and dozens extra alleged in lawsuits and interviews that they suffered severe mistreatment. Many incarcerated people described being shackled for hours or days at a time with out entry to meals or a rest room. The restraints had been so tight, they usually left scars on individuals’s wrists, stomachs and ankles that prisoners nicknamed the “Thomson tattoo.”
In response to Bureau of Prisons policy, restraints ought to solely be used on somebody who’s in quick hazard of wounding themselves or others or inflicting severe property harm. Whereas employees can quickly apply restraints, a warden should approve their continued use.
When Bergami took over the power from Ciolli in 2022, he found an “huge drawback with inmate abuse,” he said in an interview final 12 months. The Bureau of Prisons shut down a high-security unit at Thomson in 2023, citing “vital issues with respect to institutional tradition and compliance with BOP insurance policies.”
In 2023, bureau Director Colette Peters testified before Congress that a number of Thomson staffers had been referred for administrative and legal investigation for his or her roles in abusing prisoners. She didn’t identify the workers. The bureau declined to touch upon the standing of these investigations.
After Ciolli left Thomson in 2022, Bureau of Prisons officers reassigned him to run the even greater complicated in Florence, with a $20,000 increase, based on the bureau. The job included overseeing a medium-security jail, a high-security penitentiary and the Supermax — which homes a number of the nation’s most infamous prisoners in single-cell solitary confinement.
A staffer at Florence turns into a whistleblower
However the latest federal investigation revealed that comparable patterns of mistreatment discovered at Thomson, such because the extreme use of restraints, adopted Ciolli to Florence. Final spring, a staffer at Florence who was tasked with investigating worker misconduct reported that officers had been routinely utilizing restraints on prisoners who didn’t meet the standards for such therapy, based on a letter he wrote to federal officers. “All inmates had been behind a safe door, no quick risk to employees existed, and no precise disruptive conduct was noticed from any inmate that will have positioned a employees member at risk,” the whistleblower wrote to the U.S. Workplace of Particular Counsel, an impartial company that handles such complaints.
The names of Ciolli and different Florence officers are redacted in investigative information obtained by NPR and The Marshall Challenge. However their job titles and descriptions are included, and two individuals with information of the investigation confirmed their identities.
Investigators with the Bureau of Prisons’ Workplace of Inside Affairs reviewed video footage collected over practically 9 months at Florence penitentiary and located a number of situations of staff utilizing pressure in opposition to prisoners who had been “compliant, below management, and never a risk to employees or others,” based on a letter from the Workplace of Particular Counsel to President Joe Biden.
Michael Antonio Thompson stated he was restrained thrice through the roughly 18 months he spent at Florence penitentiary, a lot of it whereas Ciolli was warden. Thompson was as soon as left in cuffs for over 10 hours, he stated. Officers “used to pepper spray me for nothing, maintain me in chains for an entire bunch of hours,” he stated in a cellphone interview. “Some individuals will put you in chains and put {the handcuffs} actual tight till your palms flip blue and so they swell up like baseball gloves.” He was launched from jail in 2023.
Bailey, the bureau spokesperson, declined to touch upon Thompson’s expertise, for “privateness, security and safety causes.”
The Bureau of Prisons’ inside investigation discovered the overuse of restraints at Florence was a part of a broader program generally known as the Excessive Visibility Watch Program, records from the whistleblower investigation show. This system focused prisoners who had been accused of masturbating in entrance of officers. Guards had been instructed to fireside pepper spray into their cells, pressure them into restraints and escort them to solitary confinement — whether or not or not they posed a right away risk, investigators discovered. These prisoners had been then labeled with a yellow card round their neck.
These measures posed a “vital risk” to these in this system, the whistleblower wrote, “as inmates who interact in masturbation in a jail setting are liable to extortion, rape or assault from fellow inmates.” The Workplace of Inside Affairs discovered this system violated bureau coverage, the workplace’s records show.
A number of different staff moved from Thomson to Florence across the time of Ciolli’s departure in 2022, together with Affiliate Warden David Altizer. In response to the investigation by the bureau’s Workplace of Inside Affairs, employees members reported that Altizer and Ciolli known as officers into a gathering after they arrived at Florence and instructed them to implement the watch program. The whistleblower informed investigators that Altizer and Ciolli stated “that they had performed an identical program at one other location, and it was profitable.”
When requested by investigators, Ciolli denied involvement and stated he “couldn’t keep in mind” telling employees about this system, based on the bureau’s Office of Internal Affairs. Altizer was not interviewed within the inquiry, as a result of he went on long-term medical go away shortly after the investigation started, based on paperwork from the investigation. Investigators concluded that on the very least, Ciolli was “accountable for offering managerial oversight and was accountable for figuring out coverage” of the complicated.
Altizer didn’t reply to requests for remark.
The whistleblower wrote in a separate letter to the Workplace of Particular Counsel {that a} third official on the complicated was concerned in implementing this system. That particular person was cleared by the investigation and never referred for disciplinary motion, and as an alternative was promoted to warden of one other jail complicated.
This investigation was referred to a number of federal companies, in the end leading to a report from the Office of Special Counsel to Biden explaining that a lot of the whistleblower’s allegations had been true.
Each Altizer and Ciolli had been referred for self-discipline, however neither was fired from the company. Altizer retired in April. Ciolli started his new place with the coaching middle in July, based on his LinkedIn profile and an inside bureau announcement. He misplaced his standing as a senior government within the company and took a $3,350 pay reduce, based on an e mail from the Bureau of Prisons.
After a string of scandals within the bureau, Congress has moved to extend oversight of the company. This summer time, Biden signed a law that will create a brand new ombudsman place within the Justice Division and require common inspections of amenities with greater threat of mistreatment.
After the whistleblower report from Florence, the bureau additionally updated its use-of-force policy for the primary time in a decade. It now explicitly states zero tolerance for extreme pressure, and that misconduct might lead to legal prosecution. It mandates de-escalation coaching and states that staff have an “affirmative obligation to intervene” in the event that they witness colleagues making use of extreme pressure.
The coverage now makes plain: Restraints is probably not used for punishment, or “in any method which restricts blood circulation” or “causes pointless bodily ache or excessive discomfort.”
Christie Thompson and Beth Schwartzapfel report for The Marshall Challenge.
