Sponsor
Eleanor Holmes Norton
Representative · D-DC
Representative · D-DC
The bill lets the Bureau of Prisons shift medical costs to attacker inmates and clarifies fee authority to recoup expenses and deter violence, but it also risks increasing financial hardship for incarcerated people, removing procedural safeguards, and producing uneven implementation across facilities.
Taxpayers and the federal prison system could recover medical costs by charging an attacker's commissary account when the attacker caused injuries that require care.
Incarcerated people who cause injuries may face financial consequences, which could deter inmate-on-inmate or inmate-on-staff violence and reduce medical incidents.
BOP administrators get clearer, narrower fee-authority language, reducing legal ambiguity when implementing the program.
Prisoners—especially low-income or no-funds individuals—and their families could face greater financial hardship and reduced commissary access if attacker accounts are charged, with no guarantee the costs will actually be collected.
Removing subsection (c) and exclusion language may eliminate procedural protections, increasing the risk that fees are imposed without adequate due process for prisoners.
Implementing the policy through regulations could produce inconsistent application across facilities and complicate inmate grievance processes, creating uneven outcomes and added administrative burdens.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Allows the BOP Director to deduct medical fees from an inmate's account when that inmate caused an injury requiring another inmate's medical care; removes a prior subsection and an exclusion phrase.
Allows the Bureau of Prisons Director to charge an incarcerated person for health care services provided to another inmate when the chargeable medical visit resulted from an injury the charging inmate inflicted. The bill narrows the fee-assessment authority, removes one prior subsection, and deletes a previously referenced exclusion from the statute.
Official title: To amend title 18, United States Code, to limit the ability to assess a fee for health care services for prisoners, and for other purposes.
Introduced June 29, 2026 by Eleanor Holmes Norton · Last progress June 29, 2026