H.R. 1046 — Marc Fischer Memorial Act

This section establishes the short title of the Act as the “Marc Fischer Memorial Interdiction of Fentanyl in Postal Mail at Federal Prisons Act” or the “Marc Fischer Memorial Act.”

This section states congressional findings that the Bureau of Prisons operates 122 institutions, employs nearly 38,000 employees, and is responsible for more than 150,000 Federal inmates; that inmate mail is a major source of drug smuggling, including synthetic drugs such as fentanyl and fentanyl analogues; that drug overdoses in prisons have risen by 600 percent in recent years; that mail-based contraband threatens the health and safety of correctional staff and inmates and increases staffing burdens by requiring officers to be reassigned to mail processing; that a congressionally authorized digital mail scanning pilot at the Federal Correctional Institution in Beckley, West Virginia, and the United States Penitentiary in Canaan, Pennsylvania, ran from March 2020 through June 2021 and demonstrated effective interdiction and deterrence; and that removing mail processing from Federal prisons would provide budgetary relief and reduce staffing shortages.

This section defines “opioid” by reference to section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802) and defines “synthetic drug” as a controlled substance analogue under that section, including any analogue of fentanyl.

This section directs the Director of the Bureau of Prisons to, not later than 180 days after enactment, evaluate Federal correctional facilities’ acquisition and deployment of synthetic drug interdiction equipment and technology, their use of mail-scanning services, and whether technologies used by other Federal, State, or local corrections agencies to intercept contraband in mail may be used by the Bureau of Prisons. Not later than 90 days after completing that evaluation, the Director must submit to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees a strategy to equip all Federal correctional facilities to protect staff and inmates from synthetic drugs and opioids introduced through the mail, provide each inmate a digital copy of incoming mail within 24 hours of receipt, deliver the original physical mail within 30 days if it does not contain synthetic drugs or opioids, document both deliveries, and establish a legal-mail process that verifies the sender and preserves attorney-client privilege. The strategy must also achieve 100 percent scanning capacity for mail arriving at all Federal correctional facilities, identify the information technology, scanning equipment, and scanning services needed to do so, assess operational and logistical issues such as prioritizing high-security and large-population facilities, additional staffing and training needs, and maintenance and upgrade requirements, and include an equipment and technology budget proposal for FY2025 through FY2027. The Director must complete implementation of the submitted plan within 3 years after submission, subject to appropriations, and must submit annual reports beginning 1 year after the strategy is submitted and each year thereafter on the strategy’s efficiency and the total quantity of detected synthetic drugs and opioids.