Sponsor
Tammy Duckworth
Senator · D-IL
Senator · D-IL
The bill funds and standardizes routine mental‑health screening, outreach, and treatment protections for corrections officers—potentially improving officer wellbeing and public safety—but it increases federal spending, creates new administrative and privacy burdens, and channels set portions of funds to prisons rather than community programs.
Corrections officers (and BOP officers) will get routine, confidential mental-health screening and referral pathways, increasing access to care and earlier identification of PTSD, depression, and other job‑related conditions.
Provides predictable, multi‑year grant funding and clear allocation shares to states, localities, and the Bureau of Prisons (FY2026–FY2030), enabling planning and resource commitments to implement screening/outreach programs.
Officers seeking treatment are protected from job loss, suspension, or fitness‑for‑duty penalties while receiving care, and treatment decisions will be informed by mental‑health providers, reducing barriers to getting help.
The program increases federal spending (about $300 million over five years) and creates new administrative costs, raising taxpayer burden and budgetary pressures.
Mandatory screenings and required collection of residence/clinical history, plus potential mandatory reporting steps, create privacy, stigma, and civil‑liberties concerns that may reduce officer participation.
States, localities, and detention facilities face added administrative and compliance burdens (hiring liaisons, running outreach teams, meeting federal oversight), which can strain budgets and staff capacity, especially in smaller jurisdictions.
Based on analysis of 7 sections of legislative text.
Establishes federal grants and BOP programs for confidential mental health screening, outreach, referrals, and employment protections for corrections officers.
Creates a federal program to screen and support the mental health of corrections officers in federal, state, and local prisons and jails, funds outreach teams and referrals, and protects officers from adverse employment actions while they seek treatment. It sets up a grant program run by the Attorney General, requires the Bureau of Prisons to run a parallel program, establishes an Advisory Board to oversee grants and provide technical assistance, and authorizes escalating appropriations of $50M–$70M per year for FY2026–FY2030 to implement the law.
Official title: Provide funding to the Bureau of Prisons, States, and localities to carry out mental health screenings and provide referrals to mental health care providers for certain corrections officers.
Introduced May 13, 2026 by Tammy Duckworth · Last progress May 13, 2026