PRISONER 

OPERATIONS

United States 

Marshals Service 

Could Better Estimate 

Cost Savings and 

Monitor Efforts to 

Increase Efficiencies

Report to Congressional Committees

May 2016

GAO-16-472

United States Government Accountability Office
United States Government Accountability Office

Highlights of GAO-16-472, a report to 

congressional committees

May 2016

PRISONER OPERATIONS

United States Marshals Service Could Better 

Estimate Cost Savings and Monitor Efforts to 

Increase Efficiencies

Why GAO Did This Study

The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) 

USMS is responsible for managing 

more than 50,000 federal prisoners

during criminal proceedings until their 

acquittal or their conviction and

transfer to the Federal Bureau of 

Prisons to serve their sentence. USMS 

provides housing, clothing, food, 

transportation, and medical care. The 

USMS does not own or manage any of 

its own facilities and instead relies on a 

combination of federal, state, local, and 

privately-managed facilities to house 

and care for these prisoners. Senate 

Report 113-78 of the Continuing 

Appropriations Act of 2014 included a 

provision for GAO to assess the costs 

of housing federal inmates and 

detainees.

This report (1) identifies the primary 

costs associated with USMS prisoner 

operations, and the trends in spending 

from fiscal years 2010 through 2015; 

(2) assesses recent actions USMS has 

taken to reduce its prisoner operations 

costs and how much has been saved; 

and (3) determines systems USMS has 

to identify additional opportunities to 

save costs. GAO analyzed USMS’s 

financial and operational data related 

to its prisoner operations costs from 

fiscal year 2010 through 2015, 

analyzed USMS documentation, and 

interviewed USMS officials. 

What GAO Recommends

GAO recommends that USMS develop

reliable methods for estimating cost 

savings and validating reported 

savings achieved, and establish a 

mechanism to aggregate and analyze 

the results of annual district selfassessments. USMS concurred with 

the recommendations.

What GAO Found

From fiscal years 2010 through 2015, the U.S. Marshals Service’s (USMS) 

largest prisoner costs were housing payments to state, local, and private prisons.

For example, in fiscal year 2015 USMS spent 86 percent of its $1.4 billion in 

prisoner operation costs on housing. While total prisoner costs and prisoner 

populations decreased since fiscal year 2012, per prisoner costs increased. 

USMS officials attributed the increase in part to lower than expected prisoner 

populations, resulting in USMS not filling guaranteed bed space at certain 

facilities. Also, prisoner costs generally were higher in districts with larger 

populations and limited use of federal facilities, for which USMS does not pay. 

Both population and costs were highest in 5 districts along the southwest border 

(see figure).

United States Marshals Service District Prisoner Costs in Fiscal Year 2015

USMS has implemented actions that it reports have continued to save prisonerrelated costs from fiscal years 2010 through 2015, such as the alternatives to 

pre-trial detention program to reduce prisoners in USMS’s custody. However, for 

actions with identified savings over this time period, GAO found that about $654

million of USMS’s estimated $858 million in total savings is not reliable. For 

example, USMS identified $375 million in savings from the alternatives to pre-trial 

detention program for fiscal years 2010 through 2015, but did not verify the data 

or methodology used to develop the estimate or provide documentation 

supporting its reported savings for fiscal years 2012 onward. By developing 

reliable methods for estimating costs and validating savings, USMS would be 

better positioned to assess the effectiveness of its cost savings efforts.

USMS has designed systems to identify opportunities for cost efficiencies, 

including savings. For example, the agency requires districts to conduct annual 

self-assessments of their procedures to identify any deficiencies which could lead 

to cost savings. However, USMS cannot aggregate and analyze the results of the 

assessments across districts. Developing a mechanism to do so would better 

position USMS to identify deficiencies or develop corrective actions that could 

result in additional cost savings opportunities.

View GAO-16-472. For more information, 

contact Diana Maurer at (202) 512-8777 or 

maurerd@gao.gov.
Page i GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

Letter 1

Background 5

USMS Facility Payments Are the Primary Prisoner Operations 

Cost, and Total Prisoner Operations Costs Have Decreased 

Since Fiscal Year 2012 9

USMS Has Taken Steps to Reduce Prison Costs, but Could 

Improve the Reliability of Its Cost Savings Estimates 18

USMS Has Designed Systems to Identify Opportunities for 

Additional Cost Efficiencies, but Could Improve its Monitoring of 

Internal Control 32

Conclusions 39

Recommendations for Executive Action 39

Agency Comments 40

Appendix I Objectives, Scope, and Methodology 42

Appendix II United States Marshals Service Districts Average Daily Population

and Costs by Major Cost Category, Fiscal Year 2015 49

Appendix III Trends in United States Marshals Service Prisoner Costs 53

Appendix IV GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 62

Tables

Table 1: United States Marshals Service (USMS) Districts with 

Highest Average Daily Costs and the Percentage of the 

Prisoner Population Housed in Private, State, Local, and 

Federal Facilities, FY 2015 17

Table 2: Key United States Marshals Service (USMS) Cost 

Savings Actions and Estimated Total Savings 19

Table 3: Reliability and Limitations of the United States Marshals 

Service’s (USMS) Cost Savings Estimates 22

Table 4: Comparison of the Effect of a Changing Baseline vs. a 

Constant Baseline on United States Marshals Service’s 

Contents
Page ii GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

(USMS) Decrease in Post-Sentencing Detention Time and 

Costs Savings, Fiscal Years 2011 – 2015 25

Table 5: United States Marshals Service (USMS) Internal Control 

Processes That Are Designed To Provide Opportunities to 

Identify Cost Efficiencies by Internal Control Standard 36

Table 6: United States Marshals Service (USMS) District Average 

Daily Population (ADP) and Related Costs, Fiscal Year 

2015 49

Table 7: United States Marshals Service (USMS) Use of State and 

Local Law Enforcement Prisoner Facilities and Costs, 

Fiscal Years 2010 – 2015 53

Table 8: United States Marshals Service (USMS) Use of Private 

Prisoner Facilities and Costs, Fiscal Years 2010 – 2015 54

Table 9: United States Marshals Service (USMS) Costs for Prison 

Guard Support by District, Fiscal Year 2015 59

Figures

Figure 1: United States Marshals Service (USMS) Average Daily 

Detention Population by District, Fiscal Year 2015 7

Figure 2: United States Marshals Service (USMS) Average Daily 

Detention Population, Fiscal Years 2010 – 2015 8

Figure 3: United States Marshals Service (USMS) Federal 

Prisoner Detention Expenditures as a Percentage of Cost 

Categories, Fiscal Year 2015 11

Figure 4: United States Marshals (USMS) Service Federal 

Prisoner Detention Expenditures, Fiscal Years 2010 –

2015 12

Figure 5: Inflation-Adjusted Federal Prisoner Detention 

Expenditures per Annual Average Prisoners Detained 

Each Day, Fiscal Years 2010 – 2015 13

Figure 6: United States Marshals Service (USMS) Total Prisoner 

Housing, Medical, and Transportation Costs by District, 

Fiscal Year 2015 15

Figure 7: Percentage of Prisoner Population Housed in Federal, 

State, Local, and Private Facilities among 10 United 

States Marshals Service (USMS) Districts with the 

Highest Average Daily Population, Fiscal Year 2015 16

Figure 8: Processing of United States Marshals Service 

Sentenced Prisoners Using eDesignate 23

Figure 9: United States Marshals Service (USMS) Medical Costs 

by Cost Category, Fiscal Years 2010 – 2015 56
Page iii GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

Figure 10: United States Marshals Service (USMS) Transportation 

Costs by Category, Fiscal Years 2010 – 2015 58

Abbreviations

ADP Average Daily Population

AOUSC Administrative Office of the United States Courts

BOP Federal Bureau of Prisons

CAP Cooperative Agreement Program

CIP Capital Improvement Program

DOJ Department of Justice

eIGA electronic Intergovernmental Agreement

ePMR electronic Prisoner Medical Request

eSAG electronic Self-Assessment Guide

FPD Federal Prisoner Detention

FTE full-time equivalent 

IGA Intergovernmental Agreement

JDIS Justice Detainee Information System

JPATS Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System

OMB Office of Management and Budget

OPR-CR Office of Professional Responsibility, Compliance Review

POD Prisoner Operations Division

SAG Self-Assessment Guide

SAT Senior Assessment Team

S&E Salaries and Expenses

USMS United States Marshals Service

USSC United States Sentencing Commission

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Page 1 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

441 G St. N.W.

Washington, DC 20548

May 23, 2016

Congressional Committees

The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) United States Marshals Service 

(USMS) is responsible for managing more than 50,000 federal 

prisoners—providing for their housing, clothing, food, transportation, 

medical care, and presenting prisoners for court appearances during 

criminal proceedings.1 According to DOJ’s budget documentation, in 

fiscal year 2015, USMS allocated approximately $1.65 billion to provide 

housing, transportation, and medical care for its prisoners, and for USMS 

salaries and expenses involved in prisoner security and transportation. 

The USMS does not own or manage any of its own facilities and instead 

relies on a combination of federal, state, local, and privately-managed 

facilities to house and care for these prisoners. Presidentially-appointed 

U.S. Marshals lead USMS’s multi-missioned operations within the 94 

geographical districts, which align with U.S. Court judicial districts 

throughout the states and territories.

Senate Report 113-78 of the Continuing Appropriations Act of 2014 

included a provision for GAO to, among other things, assess the costs of 

housing federal prisoners and opportunities to offset those costs.2 This 

report focuses on USMS’s prisoner operations responsibilities and costs. 

Specifically, this report (1) describes the primary costs associated with 

USMS prisoner operations, and the trends in spending from fiscal years 

2010 through 2015; (2) assesses recent actions USMS has taken to 

reduce its prisoner operations costs and how much has been saved; and 

 1

Under 28 C.F.R. § 0.111, the USMS is responsible for the custody of federal prisoners 

from the time of their arrest by a marshal or their remand to a marshal by a court, until the 

prisoner is committed by order of the court to the custody of the Attorney General for the 

service of sentence, otherwise released from custody by the court, or returned to the 

custody of the U.S. Parole Commission or the Bureau of Prisons (BOP). The USMS is 

also responsible for maintaining custody of prisoners until their acquittal or their conviction 

and transfer to BOP to serve their sentence, and coordinating their transportation anytime 

movement is required post-incarceration, such as for transfers among BOP facilities.

2

S. Rep. No. 113-78 (2013). Also in response to Senate Report 113-78, we conducted a 

review of DOJ’s recent initiatives to address the growing federal prison population. See 

GAO, Federal Prison System: Justice Could Better Measure Progress Addressing 

Incarceration Challenges, GAO-15-454 (Washington, D.C.: June 19, 2015).

Letter
Page 2 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

(3) determines what systems USMS has to identify additional 

opportunities to save costs.

To identify costs and trends, we reviewed USMS’s congressional budget 

justifications for activities from fiscal years 2010 through 2015 to identify 

USMS-reported cost drivers.3 We selected this time period because we 

believe that 6 years is sufficient time to identify trends in prisoner 

operations costs. We focused our review on the USMS Federal Prisoner 

Detention appropriation (FPD) because it pays for about 85 percent of 

total USMS prisoner operations costs.4 We also obtained and analyzed 

data for USMS’s financial and operational activities related to prisoner 

operations from fiscal years 2010 through 2015, including obtaining 

underlying cost data for housing, medical, and transportation costs, which 

we then aggregated at the district level.

We have assessed the reliability of these data and, though we found 

some inconsistencies, determined them reliable for the purposes of 

identifying and describing the primary cost drivers and the districts’

relative prisoner operation costs from the FPD. This reliability assessment 

included conducting checks for completeness and logical consistency, 

obtaining documentation on systems end-user capabilities and data 

control, interviewing data users and managers, and comparing data to 

previous USMS reported data. The inconsistencies we identified included 

receiving different total costs for state and local prison facility usage, 

missing fewer than 5 days of population counts at private facilities, and 

missing or inconsistent facility designations. The largest discrepancy 

between our calculated costs and USMS reported total costs appeared in 

 3

In support of the President’s budget request, departments submit congressional budget 

justifications to the appropriate appropriations committees, typically to provide additional 

information regarding the changes between the current appropriation and the amounts 

requested for the next fiscal year. 

4

This report focuses on FPD costs because it is the largest appropriation related to 

prisoner-related costs, and all funds paid through the FPD are for prisoner detention 

services only. The USMS salaries and expenses appropriation (S&E) pays for all USMS 

district personnel conducting its multiple missions, of which prisoner security & 

transportation is one mission. In 2015, USMS allocated approximately 20 percent of its 

S&E account for Prisoner Security & Transportation. The allocation provided salaries to 

USMS officials in the field to conduct activities associated with securing and transporting 

prisoners. This allocation provides an additional 15 percent through the S&E appropriation 

for total prisoner-related costs. USMS salaries are generally not a cost associated with the 

FPD appropriation.
Page 3 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

fiscal year 2012 at less than 2 percent. In addition, we interviewed 

officials from the Prisoner Operations Division (POD) in headquarters to 

obtain USMS’s views on identified cost drivers and trends. POD is 

responsible for developing policy and working with district U.S. Marshals 

to, among other things, identify cost efficient methods for detaining 

prisoners. We corroborated POD officials’ views by conducting interviews 

with USMS officials in 3 selected districts—the Southern District of 

California, the Northern District of Georgia, and the District of Maryland. 

We chose these districts because of geographical disparity, size of prison 

populations, and unique actions taken or ancillary missions conducted. 

While not generalizable to all USMS districts, these views provide insights 

into costs and trends in prisoner operations.

To assess the recent actions USMS has taken to reduce its prisoner 

operations costs, we reviewed USMS’s congressional budget justification 

and interviewed officials to compile a list of prisoner-related actions that 

had monetized cost savings for fiscal years 2010 through 2015. We 

chose this time period to align with our review of USMS’s prisoner 

operations cost trends. To determine the extent to which USMS’s 

estimated savings are reliable, we analyzed USMS documents and data, 

where available, such as documentation of the methodology and resulting 

dollar figures from each initiative’s savings estimate. We compared each 

of USMS’s cost savings estimates against Office of Management and 

Budget’s Guidelines and Discount Rates for Benefit-Cost Analysis of 

Federal Programs and best practices outlined in Assessing the Reliability 

of Computer-Processed Data to determine the extent to which the 

estimates were sufficiently comprehensive, accurate, consistent, and 

transparent.5 For each savings estimate for which we were able to obtain 

documentation of assumptions and methodologies, we assessed whether 

major assumptions were reasonable by conducting or evaluating 

sensitivity analyses, and reviewed estimates to ensure that assumptions 

were consistently and accurately applied. Further, we interviewed agency 

officials to corroborate initiatives we had identified; identify any 

unreported cost savings actions; and obtain an explanation of the 

 5

The Office of Management and Budget, Guidelines and Discount Rates for Benefit-Cost 

Analysis of Federal Programs, OMB Circular No. A-94, (Washington D.C.: Oct. 29, 1992); 

GAO, Assessing the Reliability of Computer-Processed Data, GAO-09-680G (Washington, 

D.C.: July 1, 2009).
Page 4 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

methodologies behind cost savings estimates, clarify discrepancies, and 

obtain information in support of the estimates.

To determine USMS’s systems to identify additional cost savings 

opportunities, we reviewed the processes and tools that USMS used in 

fiscal years 2010 through 2015 to identify, implement, and promote costefficiency and savings, such as its Strategic Plan and scorecards it uses 

to track facility use in its districts. To address how USMS identifies 

additional cost savings opportunities, we analyzed elements of USMS’s 

internal control system related to achieving operational efficiencies and 

interviewed cognizant USMS officials responsible for programming and 

internal controls to determine whether USMS has designed a 

management structure and processes to routinely assess its 

administrative and operational activities for possible corrective actions. 

We did not independently test USMS’s internal controls to determine 

whether they mitigate all possible risks and are operating as intended. We 

reviewed USMS’s mechanisms and processes leading to its internal 

review of operational and administrative functions, including its process 

for taking corrective action related to high-cost areas, such as 

procurement and human resources, and compared those characteristics 

with those called for in Standards for Internal Control in the Federal 

Government and in implementing the guidance in the OMB Circular No. 

A-123, Management’s Responsibility for Internal Control, which defines 

management’s responsibility for internal control in federal agencies.6 For 

more information about our scope and methodology, see appendix I.

We conducted this performance audit from March 2015 to May 2016 in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 

sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 

 6

GAO, Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, GAO/AIMD-00.21.3.1

(Washington, D.C.: November 1999). Internal control is an integral component of an 

organization’s management that provides reasonable assurance that the following 

objectives are being achieved: effectiveness and efficiency of operations, reliability of 

financial reporting, and compliance with applicable laws and regulations. Office of 

Management and Budget, Management’s Responsibility for Internal Control, OMB Circular 

No. A-123 (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 21, 2004). This circular provides guidance to federal 

managers on improving the accountability and effectiveness of federal programs and 

operations by establishing, assessing, correcting, and reporting on internal control. The 

circular provides internal control standards and specific requirements for conducting 

management’s assessment of the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting.
Page 5 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that 

the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and 

conclusions based on our audit objectives.

USMS operations cover five broad mission areas, including prisoner 

security and transportation, which is overseen by its Prisoner Operations 

Division (POD). The POD at USMS headquarters is responsible for 

managing the prison-related expenses, developing policy for district 

personnel when conducting prisoner-related operations, and supporting 

district activities to, among other things, identify cost-effective measures 

to house and care for prisoners. U.S. Marshals direct operations in 94 

districts, and generally operate autonomously from headquarters.7

USMS’s prisoner operations activities are funded through two separate 

appropriations: the Federal Prisoner Detention (FPD) appropriation, and 

the Salaries and Expenses (S&E) appropriation. USMS uses FPD funding 

for the housing and care of federal prisoners in private, state, and local 

facilities. This appropriation also includes expenses related to prisoner 

transportation and medical care. The POD allocates funding from the 

FPD to district U.S. Marshals for their related prisoner costs, and is 

responsible for tracking the financial management of the FPD 

appropriation and monitoring district prisoner-related expenditures.

USMS’s Office of Professional Responsibility, Compliance Review 

(OPR-CR) oversees the internal compliance review of USMS staff, 

division and district offices; the implementation of OMB Circular A-123; 

and ensures the integrity of the agency’s internal controls and the 

reliability of its financial reporting. OPR-CR is responsible for coordinating 

USMS’s assessments under the Federal Managers’ Financial Integrity Act 

(FMFIA), as well as planning and executing the A-123 assessments in 

 7

USMS mission responsibilities include fugitive apprehension, witness and court 

protection and security, federal prisoner security and transportation, custody and

management of property and money administered under the Department of Justice Asset 

Forfeiture Fund, and special missions. In general, a cadre of Deputy U.S. Marshals in the 

district conducts these various activities collectively.

Background

USMS’s Organization and 

Funding
Page 6 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

support of management’s annual assertions of the organization’s internal 

controls effectiveness.8

The primary drivers of USMS’s detention expenditures are the number of 

prisoners in USMS custody, and the length of time they are held in 

detention. The average number of prisoners in USMS custody per day—

the average daily population (ADP)—is directly influenced, among other 

things, by the activities and decisions of federal law enforcement, U.S. 

Attorneys, and the federal judiciary. For instance, as figure 1 

demonstrates, USMS’s ADP in fiscal year 2015 was concentrated along 

the southwest border, reflecting law enforcement and prosecutorial 

priorities related to immigration. For a complete list of ADP by district for 

fiscal year 2015, see appendix II.

 8

FMFIA, Pub. L. No. 97-255, 96 Stat. 814 (1982), was enacted to strengthen internal 

controls and accounting systems in the federal government and requires the Comptroller 

General to issue standards for internal control in the federal government.

USMS Detention 

Expenditures
Page 7 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

Figure 1: United States Marshals Service (USMS) Average Daily Detention Population by District, Fiscal Year 2015

Further, as figure 2 shows, USMS’s ADP peaked in fiscal year 2011 at 

61,469, but fell to 51,670 in fiscal year 2015, a 16 percent decrease. 

According to USMS, this may be the result of factors such as reduced 

funding for federal law enforcement agencies, hiring freezes resulting 

from the sequestration that occurred in fiscal year 2013, and changes in 

prosecutorial practices and priorities stemming from the Attorney 

General’s Smart on Crime initiative, which is a set of actions directed at 

addressing DOJ’s ongoing issues related to prison overcrowding, costs, 

and recidivism.
Page 8 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

Figure 2: United States Marshals Service (USMS) Average Daily Detention 

Population, Fiscal Years 2010 – 2015

USMS does not own or operate its own detention facilities. Instead it 

relies on existing federal, state, and local infrastructure, and to some 

extent on private contract facilities, to house USMS prisoners. As such, 

USMS acquires bed space for prisoners through (1) use of beds at 

Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) facilities, for which USMS does not pay; 

(2) intergovernmental agreements (IGA) with state and local jurisdictions 

that have excess prison or jail bed capacity and with which USMS 

negotiates a daily rate for the use of a bed, and (3) private jail facilities 

Prisoner Housing
Page 9 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

with which USMS enters a fixed price contract based on a minimum 

number of prisoners it guarantees to house at a facility.9

In fiscal year 2015, USMS expended about $1.20 billion in payments to 

state and local government and private detention facilities. As illustrated 

in figure 3, this accounted for about 86 percent of the total $1.40 billion 

USMS expended through its FPD appropriation.10 Such payments cover 

prisoner housing, including meals, clothes and linens, and other 

 9

USMS’s IGA facilities are fixed rate facilities, where USMS pays an amount for 

guaranteed capacity at each facility. However, one of the facilities, the Chesapeake 

Detention Facility, is the result of a program called the Capital Improvement Program 

(CIP). The CIP is a program used to address USMS detention space needs that offers 

various contractual vehicles to provide federal funding to state and local authorities for the 

expansion, renovation, and construction of jails or the acquisition of related materials in 

exchange for detention beds. As such, in fiscal year 2010, USMS used the CIP to provide 

the state of Maryland funding to keep a facility scheduled to be closed open for sole 

USMS use. The funding for this facility served to have the facility renovated to meet 

USMS federal detention standards, and to provide USMS with guaranteed detention 

space.

10The $1.40 billion for FPD expenditures does not represent all USMS prisoner-related 

costs. The USMS salaries and expenses appropriation pays for USMS district personnel 

to conduct multiple missions, including prisoner security and transportation. This report 

focuses on FPD costs for prisoner security and transportation because they are solely for 

prisoner detention services and constitute about 85 percent of total prisoner operations 

costs. 

USMS Facility 

Payments Are the 

Primary Prisoner 

Operations Cost, and 

Total Prisoner 

Operations Costs 

Have Decreased 

Since Fiscal Year 

2012

Facility Payments 

Comprise About 86 

Percent of USMS’s 

Prisoner Operations Costs
Page 10 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

incidentals associated with providing care for prisoners in USMS 

custody.11 In addition to prisoner housing payments, USMS expended 

about $115 million on medical care in fiscal year 2015—about 8 percent 

of spending during the fiscal year. Such expenses include health care 

services, transportation costs for moving prisoners to offsite medical 

facilities and the cost of external guards securing prisoners at these 

facilities. Transportation services was the third largest cost category, 

comprising an additional $53 million—4 percent of total costs in fiscal 

year 2015. The prisoner transportation category includes transportation 

services and guard costs associated with securing the prisoners during 

transportation.12 In addition, USMS spent about $24 million—or 2 percent 

of total costs in fiscal year 2015—on system-wide detention program 

expenditures, which include headquarters operations and information 

technology systems support. For more details on the trends in each of 

these cost areas, see appendix III.

 11In certain cases, USMS housing contracts and agreements also include medical care, 

guard services, and transportation services to courthouses. According to USMS officials, 

such costs are built in to the contract or intergovernmental agreement and are not billed or 

tracked separately from the monthly payments provided for housing prisoners. For the 

purposes of this report, these built-in medical and transportation costs are therefore 

included in housing costs, rather than with medical and transportation costs, because 

USMS was unable to identify these specific costs and, thus, we were unable to remove 

them from housing costs and include them with medical and transportation costs. About 6 

percent of IGA facilities provided transportation or medical services built in to the 

negotiated per prisoner costs.

12Transportation costs do not include (1) transportation for medical purposes, which 

USMS categorizes as a medical cost; and (2) transportation costs that would be paid 

through the USMS S&E allocation, which pays for the salaries of the USMS deputy U.S. 

Marshals to conduct their multiple missions in the districts, of which prisoner security and 

transportation is one.
Page 11 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

Figure 3: United States Marshals Service (USMS) Federal Prisoner Detention 

Expenditures as a Percentage of Cost Categories, Fiscal Year 2015

As figure 4 illustrates, from fiscal years 2010 through 2012, FPD nominal 

costs increased from $1.41 billion to nearly $1.54 billion, an increase of 

about 9 percent over the two-year period.13 By fiscal year 2015, costs 

dropped slightly below fiscal year 2010 nominal costs, with expenditures 

at about $1.40 billion. USMS officials attribute the decrease in costs to the 

decrease of ADP, indicating fewer prisoners to house from fiscal year 

2012 through fiscal year 2015.

 13Nominal costs refer to costs for activities conducted during respective fiscal years 

without adjusting these costs for inflation. 

Federal Prisoner 

Population and Detention 

Costs Have Decreased 

Since Fiscal Year 2012, 

but Per Prisoner Costs 

Have Increased
Page 12 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

Figure 4: United States Marshals (USMS) Service Federal Prisoner Detention 

Expenditures, Fiscal Years 2010 – 2015

To show changes in cost per prisoner, we adjusted the expenditures data 

to account for inflation changes for all 6 years. As figure 5 shows, our 

analysis of the inflation-adjusted FPD costs per prisoner—FPD costs 

divided by annual ADP—found that FPD per prisoner costs were highest 

in fiscal year 2015. USMS data show that ADP reached its peak in fiscal 

year 2011 at about 61,500, and has since dropped.14

 14Costs per prisoner ADP included housing costs, medical costs, and transportation costs. 

The sum of these costs was divided by the annual ADP. 
Page 13 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

Figure 5: Inflation-Adjusted Federal Prisoner Detention Expenditures per Annual 

Average Prisoners Detained Each Day, Fiscal Years 2010 – 2015

Note: Average daily population (ADP) refers to the average number of prisoners held in United States 

Marshals Service (USMS) custody during each day in the given year. “Costs per prisoner ADP” refers 

to the yearly cost of housing, transportation, and medical care per ADP paid through the Federal 

Prisoner Detention Appropriation. Costs exclude USMS operation costs like headquarters personnel 

and information technology costs. Total costs for each year have been adjusted to fiscal year 2015 

dollars.

USMS officials stated that per prisoner detention costs fluctuate for 

various reasons. For instance, USMS makes agreements with facilities 

based on future-year forecasts of ADP, including providing monthly 

minimum guaranteed costs for guaranteed space at certain facilities, 

where there is an anticipated need for additional prisoner housing in the 

future. In years when ADP did not meet forecasted amounts, USMS paid 

guaranteed minimum amounts for fewer prisoners than projected, leading 

to higher costs per prisoner. Additionally, USMS officials stated that in 

some circumstances, USMS continued to use some of these facilities 

even though it might not have been the most cost effective approach. 

USMS officials stated that they continue to use state and local 

government facilities in some districts to maintain relationships with law 

enforcement. This helps ensure that USMS can rely on these jurisdictions 

in future years for both prisoner operations and other operations requiring 

state and local cooperation, such as leveraging state and local law 

enforcement officials and resources to help capture fugitives. Specifically, 
Page 14 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

the USMS officials explained that, if USMS does not help the jurisdictions 

to maintain their prisoner infrastructure, then some facilities in these 

jurisdictions would likely close. As a result, USMS would have fewer 

facilities available to detain federal prisoners in these jurisdictions, and 

fewer state and local personnel available to aid USMS with its other 

missions.

USMS’s total medical costs also rose from fiscal years 2010 to 2015. 

While the USMS annual ADP decreased during this time period, nominal 

medical expenditures increased by 30 percent from $88 million to $115 

million. USMS’s medical costs as a percentage of total prisoner costs also 

increased from about 6 percent to 8 percent. USMS officials stated that 

medical costs can fluctuate widely regardless of the number of prisoners 

based on the number and type of procedures, which can affect the total 

costs expended in the FPD. USMS officials stated that it had more 

expensive medical procedures, such as more heart, diabetic, and optical 

procedures, to cover in 2015 than in 2010.

In general, districts with larger prisoner populations have more costs than 

districts with lower prisoner populations. Specifically, the 10 districts with 

the highest average ADP for fiscal year 2015 accounted for about 50 

percent of the average daily detention population for USMS.15 These 10 

districts also accounted for about 49 percent of total expenditures among 

all districts.16 In addition, we found that the 5 districts along the Southwest 

border with Mexico had both the highest ADP and the highest attributed 

costs among the districts. See figure 6 for a breakout of costs attributed to 

district operations. For a list of district costs for housing, medical, and 

transportation costs, see appendix II.

 15These 10 districts include (1) Southern District of Texas, (2) Western District of Texas, 

(3) District of Arizona, (4) Southern District of California, (5) District of New Mexico, (6) 

Southern District of New York, (7) District of Puerto Rico, (8) Southern District of Florida, 

(9) Central District of California, and (10) Western District of Missouri. 

16Such costs included all housing, medical, and transportation costs attributable to the 

districts. It excluded costs for JPATS housing or air transportation, or costs attributable to 

USMS headquarters components from the FPD, including health care costs attributed to 

USMS headquarters. In fiscal year 2015, JPATS ADP accounted for about 1 percent of 

total ADP and, when compared to district prisoner housing, would be the thirteenth largest 

“district” and spent almost $20 million to house prisoners.

Costs Are Higher in 

Districts Where Prisoner 

Population Is 

Concentrated and the 

Districts Cannot Rely on 

BOP Facilities to House 

Most Prisoners
Page 15 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

Figure 6: United States Marshals Service (USMS) Total Prisoner Housing, Medical, and Transportation Costs by District, 

Fiscal Year 2015

Our analysis shows that ADP does not entirely explain the cost trends 

among districts. For instance, among the 10 districts with the highest 

ADP, 4 of them account for only about 4 percent of total district costs 

among all 94 districts, while the other 6 districts account for almost 45 

percent of the remaining total district costs. As figure 7 shows, this is in 

large degree because these 4 districts—the Southern District of New 

York, the District of Puerto Rico, the Southern District of Florida, and the 

Central District of California—rely heavily on federal facilities operated 

and paid for by BOP, not USMS, placing between 73 and 87 percent of 

the ADP in a BOP facility in a given year. The remaining 6 districts, 

however, rely less heavily on federal facilities—for which USMS does not 
Page 16 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

pay—and more heavily on a mixture of IGA, and private infrastructure to 

house its prisoners.

Figure 7: Percentage of Prisoner Population Housed in Federal, State, Local, and 

Private Facilities among 10 United States Marshals Service (USMS) Districts with 

the Highest Average Daily Population, Fiscal Year 2015

Moreover, 5 of the 6 districts with the highest ADP that rely more heavily 

on state and local or private facilities are also located along the southwest 

border.17 USMS officials stated that bed space in locations with the 

 17In figure 7, the top 6 districts listed rely on state and local or private facilities for more 

than 50 percent of their ADP, whereas the bottom 4 rely on federal facilities for more than 

50 percent of ADP. The 6 districts that rely more on state, local, or private facilities are (1) 

New Mexico, (2) Western Texas, (3) Western Missouri, (4) Arizona, (5) Southern Texas, 

and (6) Southern California. Of the 6, only Western Missouri is not adjacent to the 

southwest border.
Page 17 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

highest ADP—such as along the southwest border—often overtake the 

federal, state, and local facilities’ capacity. In response, USMS has 

entered into contracts with private facilities to meet the demand. 

According to USMS officials, while private facilities appear to be more 

expensive overall, most are located in districts where the costs of bed 

space are already more expensive than average because the demand 

outstripped capacity. Thus, paying for private facility capacity requires 

paying higher costs.

In addition to identifying the 10 districts with the highest ADP for fiscal 

year 2015, we also identified the 10 districts with the highest costs per 

day—that is, prisoner housing, medical, and transportation costs directly 

attributable to each district divided by the average daily detention 

population—which are listed in table 1.

Table 1: United States Marshals Service (USMS) Districts with Highest Average Daily Costs and the Percentage of the 

Prisoner Population Housed in Private, State, Local, and Federal Facilities, FY 2015

District ADP

ADP Rank among 

Districts (94) Cost per daya

Percentage of Prisoners in Type of Facilityb

Federal State and Local Private

Maryland 500 24 $147.89 0 100 0

Alaska 105 81 $143.66 4 96 0

Nevada 438 26 $131.76 0 17 83

Maine 124 76 $113.57 0 100 0

Massachusetts 404 30 $110.45 0 100 0

Northern California 511 23 $107.44 1 92 6

Western New York 480 25 $105.73 0 80 19

Northern

New York 265 50 $104.98 4 95 0

Western North 

Carolina 593 20 $104.71 0 100 0

Eastern California 696 17 $104.70 0 92 8

Legend: ADP = Average Daily Population; FY = Fiscal Year.

Source: GAO analysis of USMS cost and detention information | GAO-16-472.

a

Cost per day is calculated by identifying total prisoner housing, medical, and transportation costs 

attributed to the districts and dividing the cost by the ADP for each district. Costs are then divided by 

the number of days in the year. Cost per day does not include any costs incurred through district 

operations that are paid through USMS headquarters, such as air transportation costs or health care 

costs not attributed to specific districts.

b

Percentages do not necessarily equal to 100 percent because of rounding.

Similar to our analysis of the districts with highest ADP, districts with the 

highest costs per day is likely affected by whether they can use a BOP 
Page 18 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

facility to offset housing costs. In particular, as table 1 shows, of the 10 

districts with the highest costs per day, none rely on BOP facilities to 

house more than 4 percent of their prisoner populations. Further, only 2 of 

the 10 districts rely on private facilities to house more than 10 percent of 

their prisoner populations. USMS officials stated that other factors affect 

the variation of costs. For instance, officials explained that variations in 

the prevailing wage rates in the district impact housing costs greatly. 

USMS officials stated that wage rates in northeast districts and Alaska 

are higher than in other districts such as in the southeast districts. 

Further, officials noted that real estate costs in different areas of the 

country can greatly affect how much USMS must pay. For instance, 

USMS officials stated that districts with large metropolitan areas, such as 

Massachusetts and Maryland, pay higher real estate costs than in 

locations that are more rural. Lastly, USMS officials stated that lower ADP 

in districts in more remote locations results in higher costs per ADP 

because there are some structural costs that then are shared among 

fewer prisoners. For instance, Alaska and Maine rank among the lowest 

ADPs on average, and the per day jail costs include higher indirect costs 

such as maintenance of the prisoner facilities. Such variations may affect 

jail costs per day among all the districts to some extent; therefore, it is 

difficult to compare costs among the districts without considering such 

pressures on cost.

USMS has implemented a number of actions to manage costs and meet 

its strategic goal of optimizing detention operations, which it estimates 

have achieved costs savings in fiscal years 2010 through 2015. 

Specifically, USMS automated its detention management services, 

developed housing options intended to reduce costs, invested in 

alternatives to pre-trial detention to help reduce housing and medical 

expenditures, and improved its management of medical claims. Table 2 

USMS Has Taken 

Steps to Reduce 

Prison Costs, but 

Could Improve the 

Reliability of Its Cost 

Savings Estimates

USMS Implemented 

Several Initiatives and 

Other Actions to Reduce 

Prison Operations Costs
Page 19 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

provides detail on the key cost saving initiatives that USMS has identified 

and USMS’s estimated total cost savings.18

Table 2: Key United States Marshals Service (USMS) Cost Savings Actions and Estimated Total Savings

Category Initiative

USMS-Estimated Total 

Savings

Automated Detention 

Management Services

Electronic Intergovernmental Agreement (eIGA) system - eliminates the former 

paper-based application and review process for state and local facility providers 

offering detention services to federal agencies. It also provides a structure for 

price negotiation for detention services. $204 milliona

eDesignate/eMove system - automates the post sentencing process by 

enabling multiple entitiesb to electronically transfer data and documents to 

reduce processing time, resulting in the reduction of average detention time in 

USMS custody. $222 million

Electronic Prisoner Medical Request (ePMR) system - automates the approval 

process for requests for detainee medical services from USMS districts to 

USMS headquarters. $935,000

Capital Improvement 

Program (Chesapeake)

USMS addressed the need for detention space in Maryland by entering into a 

cooperative agreement with the state of Maryland. USMS provided $20 million 

for additional construction of the Chesapeake Detention Facility and the use of 

500 beds for its prisoners, from FY 2010 through FY 2025. $53.6 millionc

Alternatives to Pre-Trial 

Detention 

USMS annually provides $4 million to the Administrative Office of the U.S. 

Court’s (AOUSC)d to supplement its funding for alternatives to pre-trial detention 

program to reduce the potential number of USMS detainees. $375 million

Improved management 

of medical claims and 

care

USMS reviews approximately 50 percent of districts’ requests for prisoners’

outside medical care and manages prisoners’ care for those approved requests. 

This management resulted in denied claims as well as the cost-effective 

management of prisoners’ medical needs. $2.4 million

Source: GAO analysis and USMS congressional budget justification. | GAO-16-472.

a

This total estimate includes savings for fiscal years 2007 through 2015.

b

These entities include the federal judiciary, USMS, Bureau of Prisons, and Justice Prisoner and Alien 

Transportation System.

c

This total estimate includes actual and projected savings for fiscal year 2011 through 2025.

d

The AOUSC serves the federal judiciary in carrying out its constitutional mission to provide equal 

justice under the law through a wide range of administrative, legal, financial, management, program, 

and information technology services to the federal courts.

 18For the purpose of this analysis, we defined cost savings to include cost avoidance. 

OMB A-131 defines cost savings as a reduction in actual expenditures below the 

projected level of costs to achieve a specific objective. A “cost avoidance” is an action 

taken in the immediate time frame that will decrease costs in the future. “Cost savings” is

a reduction in actual expenditures below the projected level of costs to achieve a specific 

objective.
Page 20 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

In addition to the above initiatives, officials explained that USMS has 

sought to avoid costs by increasing USMS’s use of federal facilities. 

Doing so allows USMS to decrease costs because, according to a USMSBOP memorandum of understanding, BOP allocates and maintains 

detention bed space to house USMS’s prisoners, and USMS does not 

incur housing related costs for the use of these federal spaces.19 USMS 

officials explained that they have not developed a cost savings estimate 

for the BOP bed space USMS uses because USMS does not consider its 

use of BOP facilities as a cost saving action. Officials, however, noted 

that USMS monitors unused federal bed space and calculates additional 

costs USMS could avoid if districts were to use those unoccupied spaces. 

For example, USMS estimated it could have avoided an additional $21.6 

million in costs if districts had utilized the unused BOP-allocated spaces 

in the Brooklyn federal detention facility in fiscal year 2015. However, 

according to USMS officials, operational limitations such as a federal 

facility’s distance from assigned courthouses hinders USMS ability to fully 

use all allocated spaces.

From fiscal years 2010 through 2015, USMS increased the percentage of 

its prisoner population that used BOP facilities from about 18 percent of 

total ADP in fiscal year 2010 to about 19 percent in fiscal year 2015. 

Further, our analysis shows that USMS avoided costs ranging from $321 

million to $392 million for fiscal years 2010 through 2015, if USMS had to 

pay for bed space it used at BOP federal facilities. In addition, our 

analysis found that the Department of Justice potentially saved $73

million in fiscal year 2015 by having USMS use allocated space at BOP 

facilities to house its prisoners instead of housing those prisoners at 

private facilities.

 19United States Marshals Service and the Federal Bureau of Prisons: Memorandum of 

Understanding Regarding the Detention of Federal Prisoners (Oct. 10, 2007). BOP 

receives funding for housing USMS prisoners in federal facilities directly through the 

annual appropriations process. BOP’s budget requests include all prisoners and detainees 

and do not differentiate between USMS and BOP prisoners. However, USMS is 

responsible for the costs of outside medical care for USMS’s prisoners housed at BOP 

facilities.
Page 21 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

According to USMS’s congressional budget justification and USMS 

officials, the agency has realized approximately $858 million in total costs 

savings through the cost savings initiatives identified in table 2. However, 

based on our analysis of USMS’s cost savings estimates, discussions 

with USMS officials, and comparison of the estimates against Office of 

Management and Budget (OMB) and GAO guidance related to cost 

estimation, we found that approximately $654 million of USMS’s total cost 

savings estimate has limited reliability because five of USMS’s six cost 

savings estimates were not sufficiently comprehensive, accurate, 

consistent, or well-documented.

Specifically, based on guidance from OMB and GAO guidance for 

assessing the reliability of computer processed data, reliable cost 

estimates—such as USMS’s $858 million estimate—should be 

comprehensive, accurate, consistent, and well-documented. In particular, 

OMB guidance on conducting a cost-benefit analysis states that the 

analysis should include a comprehensive estimate of different types of 

benefits (such as cost savings) minus costs.20 OMB guidance further 

states that the analysis should be explicit about the underlying 

assumptions and key sources of uncertainty used to arrive at the 

estimates of future benefits and costs. Key data, models used in the 

analysis, and results of benefits and costs should be reported and welldocumented to promote independent review and analysis. Further, 

according to guidance for assessing the reliability of computer processed 

data, including estimates and projections, data are reliable when data are 

reasonably complete, accurate, and consistent—a subcategory of 

accuracy.21 Table 3 shows the extent to which USMS’s estimates were 

reliable and, if appropriate, limitations of the estimates, and details of our 

analysis of the estimates by cost saving action follow.

 20OMB Circular No. A-94.

21GAO, Assessing the Reliability of Computer-Processed Data, GAO-09-680G 

(Washington, D.C.: July 1, 2009).

USMS Could Better 

Develop, Document, and 

Validate Some Estimates 

to Improve Reliability 

When Determining Cost 

Savings
Page 22 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

Table 3: Reliability and Limitations of the United States Marshals Service’s (USMS) Cost Savings Estimates 

If not reliable, what are the GAO-assessed limitations?

Initiative Is the estimate reliable? Comprehensiveness Accuracy Well-documented

eIGA Yes

ePMR No ●

eDesignate No ●

Chesapeake Detention 

Facility No ●

Alternatives to Pre-trial 

Detention No ● ●

Improved management of 

medical claims No ●

Legend: ● = GAO-assessed limitation of the costs savings estimate.

Source: GAO analysis of USMS information | GAO-16-472.

• eIGA: Based on our analysis, USMS applied reasonable assumptions 

and used a reasonable methodology to reliably estimate $204.3 

million in savings from the implementation of eIGA. Specifically, 

USMS calculated the difference in the “proposed” versus “negotiated”

per diem rate for each intergovernmental agreement which was 

negotiated using this system. Additionally, savings identified can be 

solely attributed to the implementation of the system because, prior to 

eIGA, USMS did not negotiate the per diem rate for housing 

prisoners.

• ePMR: Based on our analysis, we found that USMS applied 

reasonable assumptions, but its estimate of $935,000 in cost savings 

during fiscal years 2011 through 2015 from the implementation of 

ePMR is not comprehensive. Officials said that as a result of 

implementing ePMR, USMS has avoided $187,000 in costs per year 

by not having to hire additional staff to manage the increased number 

of medical claims, which have increased since then. They based this 

estimate on the number of cases USMS headquarters managed in 

fiscal year 2011. However, we found that the number of medical 

cases USMS headquarters managed has increased since fiscal year 

2011. As a result, USMS would have needed approximately 6 

additional staff to manage the average number of medical claims in 

fiscal years 2011 through 2015. Further, USMS costs avoided over 
Page 23 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

the five fiscal years would equal approximately $2.7 million, not 

$935,000.22

We found that USMS underestimated its ePMR costs savings 

because it excluded efficiencies and savings realized in subsequent 

years. OMB guidance recommends agencies include a 

comprehensive analysis of benefits and costs.23 A savings estimate 

that includes savings realized in all 5 fiscal years could help USMS 

identify the full range of the program’s effect.

• eDesignate: Based on our analysis, the cost savings estimate of 

$222 million for the implementation of eDesignate is not 

comprehensive because USMS may have double counted savings 

associated with the use of the system over time and included savings

not attributable to the system.24 Specifically, USMS officials told us 

that eDesignate reduced the post-sentencing processing time for 

prisoners in USMS’s custody, decreasing prisoner average detention 

time, and, thereby, USMS’s housing costs. Figure 8 illustrates the 

processing of sentenced prisoners using eDesignate.

Figure 8: Processing of United States Marshals Service Sentenced Prisoners Using eDesignate

 22We, similar to USMS, excluded fiscal year 2010 from our analysis because it was the 

year in which the program was implemented. 

23OMB Circular No. A-94.

24GAO, Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide, GAO-09-3SP (Washington, D.C.: March 

2009). Cost estimating, including cost savings estimates, best practices states that a 

comprehensive estimate ensures that cost elements are neither omitted nor double 

counted.
Page 24 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

To capture cost savings achieved after the use of eDesignate, USMS

• derived a baseline detention time using the average detention 

time from fiscal years 2008 through 2010—73.4 days—to which 

post-implementation average detention time could be compared;

• calculated the difference in average detention times between the 

baseline and monthly average detention time from FY 2011 

through 2015; and

• multiplied this difference by the average daily costs of housing its 

prisoners.

OMB guidance states that benefits and costs analysis should be 

based on incremental benefits and costs. Specifically, all sunk costs 

and benefits already realized should be ignored.25 However, our 

analysis shows that USMS may have double counted the time 

reductions and cost savings achieved over time by continuing to use 

the same 73.4 days baseline to calculate change in detention time 

and cost savings achieved each year after the implementation of 

eDesignate. Specifically, as shown in table 4 the estimated amount of 

cost savings is greater when USMS continues to measure against the 

73.4 days baseline instead of revising the baseline each year to 

account for reduced detention time achieved in the preceding years. 

For instance, if USMS used the change in annual average detention 

time to calculate costs savings for fiscal years 2011 through 2015, it 

would have estimated approximately $52 million versus $222 million. 

Thus, using this baseline may overstate the savings achieved from 

reduced detention time. Further, USMS did not take into account any 

other factors which might also have affected a change in average 

detention time and, ultimately, savings estimates related to the 

system. For example, officials said that a BOP contract closure at a 

facility impacted USMS housing of its prisoners and resulted in the 

high average detention time for fiscal year 2011.

 25OMB Circular No. A-94.
Page 25 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

Table 4: Comparison of the Effect of a Changing Baseline vs. a Constant Baseline on United States Marshals Service’s 

(USMS) Decrease in Post-Sentencing Detention Time and Costs Savings, Fiscal Years 2011 – 2015

Fiscal Year

Yearly Average

Post-Sentenced

Detention Time

Change in Detention Time 

Compared to USMS’s 

Derived Baseline

(number of days) 

Calculated Savings 

Using Baseline

($ million)

Change in Detention 

Time Compared to 

Previous Year’s 

(number of days)

Calculated 

Savings Using 

Annual Change

($ million)

2011 71.8 - 1.6 $ 7.9 1.6 -($ 4.7) 

2012 58.8 - 14.6 $ 53.9 -13 $ 47.9 

2013 58.8 - 14.6 $ 53.3 0 $ 30 

2014 53.8 - 19.6 $ 67.6 -5 $ 16.8 

2015a 57.2 - 16.2 $ 39.4 3.4 -($ 8.5) 

Legend: ($) = Amounts in parentheses indicate that USMS did not have costs savings in comparison.

Source: GAO analysis of USMS information | GAO-16-472.

a

Based on information provided through the third quarter of fiscal year 2015.

In addition to double counting savings in its cost estimating 

methodology, USMS included savings not attributable to the 

implementation of the eDesignate system. Specifically, USMS 

calculated detention costs avoided for the total number of USMS’s 

prisoners instead of prisoners housed in non-BOP facilities. As 

discussed above, USMS derived a costs savings estimate for 

eDesignate by multiplying the reduction in prisoners’ detention time by 

the daily costs of housing the prisoners. However, USMS does not 

incur costs for USMS prisoners housed in BOP facilities, so 

calculating costs avoided for all prisoners in its savings estimate 

resulted in an overestimation.

USMS officials stated that they do not think that the $222 million in 

savings is overestimated. They said that USMS did not need to adjust 

the baseline to reflect incremental yearly changes in detention time 

and costs savings because it was estimating the costs USMS would 

have incurred without the implementation of eDesignate, not the 

impact of the system on prisoner processing time. OMB guidance, 

however, states that benefit-cost analyses should measure the 

incremental benefits and costs by omitting costs or benefits already 

realized. A baseline which adjusts to capture the actual change in 

average detention time would better capture incremental benefits and 

could help USMS identify events that affected detention time and 

more accurately estimate eDesignate’s effects and costs savings.

• Chesapeake Detention Facility: USMS’s cost savings estimate of 

$53.6 million for the Chesapeake Detention Facility includes $13.6 
Page 26 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

million in transportation and medical costs avoided and $40 million in 

housing costs avoided as a result of USMS having guaranteed use of 

the Chesapeake detention facility. Though USMS conducted 

sensitivity analyses for its housing cost savings estimate, our analysis 

found that the estimate has limited reliability because it is not 

accurate.26

First, USMS may have overestimated the cost savings associated 

with transportation and medical costs because it did not account for 

the fixed costs for medical and transportation already included in its 

payments for the Chesapeake Detention Facility. In particular, USMS 

used the local average transportation costs for transporting USMS 

prisoners and the average daily medical costs per prisoners to 

estimate that it would have had to pay $13.6 million in transportation 

and medical costs if such costs were not included in the agreement 

with the facility. It identified the entire estimated transportation and 

medical costs avoided as the savings. 

However, this estimate may overstate the cost savings because 

USMS’s methodology did not account for an estimate of how much of 

the fixed costs it currently pays for the Chesapeake Detention Facility 

are attributable to transportation and medical costs. As previously 

noted, USMS pays a fixed cost for housing its prisoners at the 

Chesapeake Detention Facility, which includes medical and 

transportation services for USMS’s prisoners housed at the facility. If 

such costs were not included in the fixed costs USMS paid for the 

facility, USMS may have been able to negotiate a lower cost. 

However, USMS’s methodology does not account for how the 

negotiated fixed costs for the facility would have changed if medical 

and transportation services were not included. Accounting for how the 

fixed costs would have changed would provide a more accurate 

estimate of the actual medical and transportation costs it did not have 

to pay as a result of the agreement. For example, if the fixed costs 

including medical and transportation USMS pays for the Chesapeake 

Detention Facility are $20 million and USMS estimates that it could 

have negotiated a fixed rate without medical and transportation of $18 

million, then the estimate of fixed costs USMS currently pays that are 

attributable to medical and transportation costs is $2 million. If this 

 26A sensitivity analysis varies major assumptions in an estimate to determine how 

sensitive outcomes are to changes in the assumption.
Page 27 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

were the case, then, after accounting for the $2 million currently 

attributable to medical and transportation costs, the costs savings 

would have equaled $11.6 million ($13.6 million less the $2 million) 

versus the entire $13.6 million estimate of costs avoided.

Second, USMS’s housing cost savings estimate for the Chesapeake 

Detention Facility is inaccurate because USMS inconsistently applied 

the inflation rate in its $40 million savings estimate. Specifically, 

USMS calculated savings using the difference between the cost of 

operating Chesapeake and the costs of not having the guaranteed 

use of the facility. To calculate the growth in costs over time for each 

scenario, USMS assumed a 3 percent inflation rate, but applied the 

rate inconsistently. Specifically, it applied a 3 percent inflation rate 

once every three years for the change in costs to operate 

Chesapeake, but applied a 3 percent inflation rate every year for the 

change in housing costs if USMS did not have the guaranteed use of 

the facility. As a result of this inconsistency, USMS generally 

projected that the costs for operating the Chesapeake facility would 

be lower when compared to the costs of housing their prisoners if they 

did not have the guaranteed use of the facility, and this overestimated 

costs savings achieved. Further, USMS assumed a 3 percent inflation 

rate every 3 years instead of using the general inflation rate, as is 

recommended by OMB guidance.27

We found that USMS inaccurately estimated the medical and 

transportation costs avoided as a result of its guaranteed use of the 

Chesapeake facility because USMS did not prioritize the development 

of the estimate. Specifically, officials said USMS developed its 

housing estimate to show that acquiring the guaranteed use of 

Chesapeake was an economically sound housing decision, and any 

additional savings were secondary. As such, USMS did not focus on 

the medical and transportation costs that it avoided and developed the 

estimate in response to our inquiry. Additionally, USMS officials 

acknowledged that they mistakenly applied an inconsistent inflation 

 27OMB Circular No. A-94 states that analysts should avoid having to make an assumption 

about the general rate of inflation whenever possible and when a general inflation 

assumption is needed, the rate of increase in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) deflator 

from the Administration’s economic assumptions for the period of the analysis is 

recommended. GDP deflator is approximately 2 percent every year for the time period 

USMS uses in its estimate.
Page 28 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

rate, potentially resulting in an overestimation. They noted, however, 

that USMS assumed a 3 percent inflation rate instead of the general 

inflation rate in its estimate because that is the average rate officials 

have observed over time.

• Improved Management of Medical Claims: We found that the $2.4 

million in costs savings related to the improved management of 

medical claims and costs has limited reliability because it is not 

accurate or comprehensive. USMS’s reported savings is comprised of 

three categories: (1) $1.4 million in savings from effectively managing 

costs for prisoners receiving medical care; (2) $740,962 from denied 

claims; and (3) $279,360 from medical transport costs avoided. We 

found that USMS’s costs savings related to effective management of 

prisoners’ medical care and denied claims may be inaccurate 

because USMS used the upper bound of costs ranges and average 

costs, respectively, to estimate the savings for each category. For 

savings related to effective management of prisoner medical care, in 

at least one quarter of its estimated savings, USMS reported a range 

of cost savings rather than a single estimate. For example, USMS 

estimated a range of $20,000 to $50,000 for costs avoided for a 

surgery. Because USMS used the upper bound of each range to

estimate total costs avoided for the effective management of 

prisoners’ care, USMS may have overestimated its savings.28

Similarly, USMS savings for denied claims may be inaccurate 

because it used average costs per approved claim instead of the 

actual costs of denied claims to estimate costs avoided. Specifically, 

USMS multiplied the number of denied claims by the average costs 

per medical claim they had approved to determine total costs avoided. 

However, we found that average costs per claim approved may not be 

a good proxy for costs per denied claim. According to officials, 

medical costs can vary widely according to each individual case. Such 

variations in costs can affect the average costs per claim and thus 

USMS’s calculated cost savings. For instance, USMS calculated that

average costs per claim in two quarters in fiscal year 2015 ranged

from $220 per claim to $503 per claim for each quarter. Applying 

these two different averages to 300 denied claims, we found that 

 28We estimated a difference of $123,000 between an estimate using the lower bound of 

the range and an estimate using the upper bound of the range.
Page 29 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

there is a large difference in estimated savings—approximately 

$66,000 and $150,900, respectively, or over 1.25 times difference 

between the low and high calculated savings. As a result, using 

average costs per approved medical claim may not be representative 

of the actual costs for each claim denied and may under- or over-state 

actual savings.

Additionally, a review of the documents USMS provided us shows that 

USMS calculated savings for the actions that overlapped two of the 

saving categories, thus potentially double counting some savings.29

For example, USMS claimed approximately $90,000 in cost avoided 

for effectively managing a prisoner medical case. However, this cost 

avoidance resulted from a denied claim. As a result, this singular 

action would also be counted as savings in the denied claims 

category.

USMS officials noted that it would be work intensive for USMS to 

calculate costs avoided for denied claims by using actual costs given 

the volume of medical claims they receive and the average cost per 

claim can be quickly calculated and multiplied by the number of 

prisoner medical claims denied to facilitate cost savings reporting. We 

recognize that calculating actual costs may be challenging; however, 

USMS already uses actual costs to estimate the costs savings related 

to the effective management of prisoners’ medical care. Thus, USMS 

may use the same method to estimate savings for denied claims. 

Further, data reliability guidance states estimates are accurate when 

recorded data reflects the actual underlying information.30 A more 

accurate and comprehensive savings estimate—calculating both the 

lower and upper bound of cost estimates, using actual costs for claims 

denied, and ensuring that savings are not double counted—could help 

USMS better determine the full impact of its action on its rising

medical care costs.

 29GAO-09-3SP. Cost estimating, including cost savings estimates, best practices states

that a comprehensive estimate ensures that cost elements are neither omitted nor double 

counted.

30GAO-09-680G.
Page 30 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

• Alternatives to Pre-Trial Detention: We also found that USMS’s 

cost savings estimate of approximately $375 million from the 

alternatives to pre-trial detention program—for fiscal years 2010 

through 2015—had limited reliability because USMS lacked adequate 

documentation to support the estimates, did not validate estimates, 

and reported inconsistent savings estimates. As described earlier, the 

Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AOUSC) administers the 

alternatives to pre-trial detention program which helps to divert 

defendants from detention in USMS’s custody. According to the 

agreement between AOUSC and USMS, AOUSC is to provide USMS 

with a report that includes the number of prisoners who otherwise 

would have been detained, describes the types of services provided, 

and includes the total expenditure from USMS’s allocated funds. 

USMS officials reported that AOUSC had provided such reports, 

which also estimated the housing costs USMS avoided as a result of 

the program.

However, USMS officials stated that they have not received reports 

with this information from AOUSC for fiscal years 2012 onward to 

support or corroborate USMS’s reported estimate of $67 million per 

year in savings for fiscal years 2012 onward. Our review of the fiscal 

years 2010 and 2011 reports that included estimates of housing costs 

avoided that we received from USMS found that AOUSC aggregated 

some of the data to determine USMS detention costs avoided as a 

result of the program, but did not specify the methodology for 

aggregating the data or the assumptions used to derive different 

factors in the estimate, as recommended by OMB guidance.31As 

such, we cannot determine if the method for estimating USMS cost 

savings is reasonable.

Additionally, USMS officials said that USMS did not verify AOUSC’s 

calculation of fiscal years 2010 and 2011 savings. USMS, however, 

reported savings for those and subsequent fiscal years in its 

congressional budget justifications. USMS officials told us that USMS 

extrapolated AOUSC’s estimations from fiscal year 2011 to report on 

more recent savings. Officials said that, generally, USMS gets a 

savings of $10 for every dollar AOUSC expends from USMS-allocated 

 31OMB Circular No. A-94 states that key data and results of benefits and costs should be 

reported to promote independent review.
Page 31 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

funds for the program. However, we found that since fiscal year 2011, 

AOUSC expended less than $3 million of USMS-allocated funds, but 

USMS continued to report a $67 million per year cost savings, which 

was estimated based on AOUSC fiscal year 2011 expenditures of 

approximately $3 million. Further, USMS reported different savings for 

fiscal year 2011, $44 million in fiscal year 2011 versus the $67 million 

it reported in its fiscal year 2013 and 2014 congressional budget 

justification, indicating that the estimates are inaccurate. It is likely that 

USMS’s costs savings for the program have decreased from $67 

million, given the decrease in use of allocated funds by AOUSC.

AOUSC acknowledged that, since a change in its staff in 2012, the 

reports it provided to USMS did not include information such as the 

number of prisoners who otherwise would have been detained, which 

would have been required to estimate USMS’s cost avoided, but 

instead provided detailed program expenditures to USMS for fiscal 

years 2012 onward in order to seek reimbursement. Similarly, USMS 

staff acknowledged that they had not sought reports from AOUSC that 

would have allowed them to calculate costs avoided, and had not 

verified any of AOUSC’s prior calculations. Both AOUSC and USMS 

officials stated that they intend to communicate with each other to 

obtain the information detailed in the agreement, and USMS officials 

indicated that they plan to validate the cost savings in the future. 

However, USMS officials did not provide documentation or a 

timeframe in which they will do so. Further, OMB guidance states that 

it is potentially valuable for agencies to verify and determine whether 

anticipated benefits and costs for the program have been realized. 

This verification can be used to determine necessary corrections in 

the program, and to improve future estimates of benefit and costs.32

Also, by ensuring that it has complete and validated information 

necessary to estimate costs avoided, documenting its methodology, 

and assuring that its estimates are consistent over time, USMS would 

be better able to report reliable costs avoided for the alternatives to 

detention program.

As described above, five of USMS’s costs savings estimates have limited 

reliability because the estimates were not sufficiently comprehensive, 

 32OMB Circular No. A-94.
Page 32 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

accurate, consistent, or well-documented. By developing reliable methods 

for estimating and validating cost savings—such as ensuring estimates 

are comprehensive, accurate, consistent, and adequately documented—

USMS would be better positioned to assess the effectiveness of its cost 

savings actions and inform decision makers—including Congress—about 

these efforts.

USMS has several systems it uses to help it identify cost savings 

opportunities, including:

Strategic Plan. USMS’s 2012-2016 Strategic Plan helps guide the 

agency in fulfilling its mission and achieving its strategic goals. One such 

strategic objective is to provide for the safe, secure, humane, and costeffective containment of its prisoners, and one of the performance goals it 

uses to achieve this objective is to hold detention and transportation costs 

at or below inflation. According to the strategic plan, one of the ways it 

seeks to meet this goal is by enabling effective and equitable allocation of 

district resources for transportation expenditures. For example, according 

to USMS POD officials, they have implemented a process as a result of 

guidance in the strategic plan which allows them to reallocate resources 

at the district level for guard and transportation costs when unexpected 

costs are incurred by the districts. USMS initially allocates money each 

fiscal year across the 94 USMS districts, but in addition it sets aside 

separate funding to cover unexpected costs such as transporting ill 

prisoners outside of facilities where they are housed for further medical 

care. While USMS can anticipate that these events will occur, it cannot 

foresee which districts will incur these costs. Districts’ requests for 

additional funding beyond their fiscal year allocations are submitted via a 

supplemental funding request that is reviewed by POD, which then grants 

USMS Has Designed 

Systems to Identify 

Opportunities for 

Additional Cost 

Efficiencies, but 

Could Improve its 

Monitoring of Internal 

Control

USMS has Systems to 

Help Identify Opportunities 

for Cost Efficiencies and 

Savings
Page 33 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

the request and provides the additional funding to the district. In addition, 

POD is currently developing a policy which will allow it to determine a 

methodology to more effectively and equitably distribute transportation 

resources across the districts. This initiative is expected to be rolled out in 

October 2017, according to USMS officials.

USMS guidance to districts. USMS’s Policy Directive 9.2 establishes 

how USMS districts will house prisoners in different types of facilities.

Specifically, it states that districts must first use a BOP federal facility 

where there is space available, as USMS does not have to pay for these 

spaces. In 2007, USMS signed a memorandum of understanding in which 

BOP allocated a certain amount of bed space to USMS prisoners at more 

than a dozen of its federal facilities. In fiscal year 2015, BOP housed 

approximately 10,000, or 19 percent, of USMS’s prisoners in BOP 

facilities.

Next, USMS districts must, according to the directive, use space available 

in state and local facilities for which USMS has established IGAs and a 

per diem amount to pay for each prisoner. Third, the guidance directs 

districts to use private facilities. In addition to this guidance, however, 

POD officials noted that they guide districts to consider private facilities 

with space where USMS has a “guaranteed minimum” number of spaces 

it is paying for, before the districts consider state and local facilities (the 

IGAs). This is because, if USMS exceeds the guaranteed minimum in the 

contract, the contractor provides a dramatically reduced per diem cost per 

detainee above the guaranteed minimum contract amount. The officials 

noted that fewer than 30 of USMS’s districts use private facilities, and that 

private facilities account for the smallest percentage of facilities that 

USMS uses to house its prisoners. Our analysis confirmed this 

assessment, finding that there were only 21 districts using private 

facilities from fiscal years 2010 through 2015 to house at least a half of 1 

ADP during each fiscal year.

However, our analysis of USMS detention data also found that some 

districts appeared to select private detention space over less costly 

federal spaces, in seeming contradiction with USMS guidance. For 

example, several districts that have access to one federal facility place a 

large number of prisoners in other private facilities at a higher cost to their 

districts. POD officials stated that based on the number of factors U.S. 

Marshals must consider in placing prisoners in available bed spaces, it is 

not always feasible to use the available federal detention spaces. POD 

officials also told us that they provide additional guidance to U.S. 

Marshals in those districts that have access to or are the home district for 
Page 34 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

private facilities. For example, according to the officials, the U.S. Marshal 

in each district must consider issues like the security risk the prisoner 

poses, the prisoner’s medical condition, the need to separate defendants 

on a particular case, and the need to keep prisoners close to the 

courthouse where they are making their appearances. In addition, even if 

USMS presents a prisoner to a BOP federal facility, BOP has the right to 

refuse to accept a prisoner at one of its facilities. According to BOP, this 

is only done in cases where the facility cannot accommodate a particular 

prisoner due to medical or security issues. Overall, BOP officials told us 

they try to accommodate USMS, even in facilities where USMS has 

exceeded its allocation at a particular facility. Thus, while some districts 

make placement decisions that do not comport with the policy directive as 

written, these occurrences are infrequent, and are practiced by a minority 

of districts that have both private and federal prison spaces available to 

them, and are following additional guidance provided to them by POD in 

making their determinations on where to place specific prisoners.

Scorecards. POD tracks district utilization of federal and private bed 

spaces through quarterly scorecards. According to USMS officials, they 

encourage districts to utilize federal and private bed space, and the 

quarterly scorecard system is their way of checking on the district’s 

performance in cost-efficient bed space allocation. These scorecards 

reflect which private and federal facilities are being underutilized, and at 

what percent or rate. The scorecard lists each federal and private facility, 

the USMS allocation or number of bed spaces for each facility, and the 

actual amount of ADP in that facility (USMS’s use). Scorecards are color 

coded green, yellow, and red based on whether the district is meeting the 

USMS allocated amount of ADP in the facility. If a facility on the score 

card is under its allocation, or “in the red,” POD does an assessment of 

which facilities that district is using to house prisoners. While POD 

officials stated they cannot dictate to a U.S. Marshal which facility to use 

for a specific prisoner, they noted that if they find, for example, that a 

district is using an IGA or a higher priced facility rather than a facility with 

guaranteed minimum bed spaces, then POD officials call the district to 

provide coaching on utilizing allocated bed space.

In addition to monitoring utilization levels at detention facilities, USMS 

also calculates a cost avoidance amount based on the amount of space it 

should be using at these facilities, and the amount of space currently 

being occupied by its prisoners. According to USMS officials, it performs 

calculations to determine its potential cost avoidance numbers for private 

and federal facilities as part of its ongoing monitoring and prisoner 

reassignment efforts.
Page 35 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

USMS officials noted that their current monitoring and prisoner 

reassignment efforts are ad hoc, but the agency is currently working to 

formalize its use of the scorecards and its facility utilization review 

process. USMS officials stated that they are currently working to formalize 

the scorecard system and monitoring, and expect to be able to begin 

monthly reviews in June 2016.33

Internal control. We reviewed the elements of USMS’s internal control 

system that are designed to specifically provide USMS with opportunities 

to identify cost efficiencies and generally found that its internal control 

processes align with Standards for Internal Control in the Federal 

Government and the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Circular 

No. A-123, Management’s Responsibility for Internal Control, which 

defines management’s responsibility for internal control in federal 

agencies.34 Internal control is an integral component of an organization’s 

management that is to provide reasonable assurance that objectives are 

achieved, including the efficiency of operations. We focused our review 

on USMS’s internal control objective related to achieving operational 

efficiencies.

Table 5 provides examples of USMS’s specific internal control processes, 

organized by standard. We did not independently test USMS’s internal 

controls to determine whether they mitigate all possible risks and are 

operating as intended.

 33In addition to the efforts discussed in this section, USMS officials also recently 

discussed with us its efforts to assess the sentencing to commitment timeline to look at 

where there might be possible bottlenecks in the system. USMS told us they expect this 

will help the agency reduce the amount of time that prisoners remain in USMS custody 

before being sentenced to prison and BOP custody. USMS officials stated that they 

expect this to also be completed in June 2016. Because this is a new effort in its early 

assessment stages, GAO did not perform further assessments on USMS’s activities 

related to this effort.

34GAO, Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, GAO/AIMD-00.21.3.1

(Washington, D.C.: Nov. 1, 1999). Internal control is an integral component of an 

organization’s management that provides reasonable assurance that the following 

objectives are being achieved: effectiveness and efficiency of operations, reliability of 

financial reporting, and compliance with applicable laws and regulations. Office of 

Management and Budget, Management’s Responsibility for Internal Control, OMB Circular 

No. A-123 (Dec. 21, 2004).
Page 36 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

Table 5: United States Marshals Service (USMS) Internal Control Processes That Are Designed To Provide Opportunities to 

Identify Cost Efficiencies by Internal Control Standard

Internal Control Standard USMS Process

USMS’s use in identifying opportunities 

for cost efficiencies

Environment - Management and 

employees should establish and maintain 

an environment throughout the organization 

that sets a positive and supportive attitude 

toward internal control and conscientious

management. It provides discipline and 

structure as well as the climate which 

influences the quality of internal control.

Senior Assessment Team (SAT)

Internal Review and Evaluations

Office of Professional Responsibility,

Compliance Review (OPR-CR)

Internal Policy (Self-Assessment and 

Compliance Review)

USMS’s SAT is responsible for overseeing 

the assessment process in compliance with 

OMB Circular A-123 and conducting review of 

operational functions agency-wide.

Risk assessment - Internal control should 

provide for an assessment of the risks the 

agency faces from both external and 

internal sources.

Focus on high cost areas

2013 Risk Assessment study

Risk-based reporting

USMS focused its risk assessment activities 

on its high cost areas of contract 

administration and human resource 

administration prior to 2013. In 2013, USMS 

undertook a significant risk assessment study 

to improve on its risk assessment activities to 

expand its risk assessments across all of its 

operations.

Control activities - Control activities help 

ensure that management’s directives are 

carried out. The control activities should be 

effective and efficient in accomplishing the 

agency’s control objectives, including 

achieving efficiencies.

Self-Assessment Process USMS’s self-assessment process is designed 

to test control activities in a number of areas, 

including contract administration and human 

resources administration. USMS is to confirm 

whether its districts are performing certain 

control activities through on-site district 

compliance reviews, which serve to, among 

other things, validate the results from 

corresponding self-assessments.

Information and communication -

Information should be recorded and 

communicated to management and others 

within the entity who need it and in a form 

and within a time frame that enables them 

to carry out their internal control and other 

responsibilities.

Self-Assessment Guide (SAG)

District and division SAG results 

published to respective districts, 

divisions, and staff offices

Compliance review results reported to 

SAT

Compliance review training

The SAG management tool is designed to 

allow USMS leadership to annually selfassess USMS performance and compliance, 

and the results of the self-assessments are to 

be assessed by the OPR-CR.

Districts and divisions are to annually 

coordinate with OPR-CR to update SAG 

questions.

Monitoring - Internal control monitoring 

should assess the quality of performance 

over time and ensure that the findings of 

audits and other reviews are promptly 

resolved.

Corrective Action Plans

Compliance Reviews

OPR-CR is to issue a Compliance Review 

Final Report and provide it to management 

within 30 days of the review. Components 

have 60 days from issuance of the final report 

to implement remediation efforts. Divisions 

and Staff Offices with program oversight 

responsibilities for sections of the review 

should examine each final report to assess 

for corrective action. Also, with regard to A123, OPR-CR is to identify, assess, and 

report findings to the SAT.

Source: GAO analysis of USMS information and Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government | GAO-16-472.
Page 37 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

a

The Self-Assessment Guide and its accompanying electronic version (eSAG) is a USMS 

management tool which enables USMS leadership to annually self-assess compliance with applicable 

laws, regulations, policy and procedures; assess effectiveness of internal controls; mitigate risks; and 

promote effective and efficient operations throughout the agency.

We found that USMS has designed an internal control system which 

could help it to identify opportunities to achieve operational efficiencies, 

including on-site compliance reviews where each district is assessed 

every 6 to 7 years. In addition, each district is to test its internal control 

over the efficiency of its operations through a standardized, annual selfassessment process. However, agency officials reported that USMS does 

not have a way to aggregate or analyze the results of these selfassessments, which are the only reviews available for each district each 

year.

According to USMS officials, their current process includes tools such as 

Sharepoint that are not able to aggregate the self-assessment data, or 

run any type of data analytics. They also stated that they completed a 

business process analysis in fiscal year 2015 that may help them compile 

the findings of the reviews, but they are still unable to aggregate the 

results. The officials said that they recognize the need for an integrated 

system that would allow them to compile the self-assessments, corrective 

action plans, and compliance reviews. Officials also stated that currently, 

they have four different systems in which they have to manually input 

information. They stated that integrating these into one overall system 

would increase productivity, accountability, and USMS’s overall 

compliance rate. In addition, according to these officials, having a data 

analysis capability would allow USMS to detect deficiency trends and 

patterns, which could increase and enhance its reporting capabilities. For 

example, USMS could report on a quarterly basis which would enable it to 

more closely monitor district compliance rates.

Because USMS cannot aggregate or analyze the annual SAG selfassessment results, which it relies on for those districts not being 

assessed during USMS’s district review cycle, it cannot identify whether 

the same control deficiencies are occurring across districts or in the same 

districts over time, hindering its ability to promptly resolve these issues or 

to identify agency-wide deficiencies and develop corrective actions in key 

risk areas. For example, one control activity that is to be tested regularly 

is whether the district reviews purchase cardholder statements to ensure 

that only authorized goods and services are purchased, and that no 

purchase exceeds a set threshold. With no ability to aggregate selfassessment results to identify whether a deficiency in an area such as 

USMS Lacks a 

Mechanism to Analyze 

Deficiencies Identified 

Annually
Page 38 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

this is occurring across many districts in a given year, or across the same 

district over a number of years, USMS may not be able to promptly 

resolve inaccurate purchases, potentially resulting in issuing payments 

that are higher or lower than they should be.

A 2012 DOJ Office of Inspector General (OIG) audit of USMS also 

similarly commented on USMS’s on-site review timeline, finding that 

USMS had not ensured that district and division procurement officials 

were complying with federal, DOJ, and USMS policies, and that these 

noncompliance problems resulted from an inability to effectively manage 

and oversee those procurement activities at the district and division 

level.35 As such, the OIG recommended that USMS strengthen its 

inspection and review of certain activities by shortening the length 

between on-site reviews of operations in the district and division offices. 

USMS officials told us that they are continuing to work on implementing 

the recommendation to ensure that they are performing their on-site 

reviews closer to a 3 to 4 year cycle, which is standard among other 

agencies.36 USMS has already improved its on-site compliance review 

cycle from past years. Currently, officials stated that USMS reviews each 

district every 6 to 7 years as compared to every 12 years in 2012, and it 

increased the number of on-site reviews from 11 to 14 per year in 2012 to 

18 per year now. According to USMS officials, they are on track to 

perform 16 on-site reviews in fiscal year 2016, and are continuing to 

increase the number of on-site reviews in response to the 2012 OIG 

recommendation.

However, in the years between the on-site reviews, USMS relies on 

information from the annual self-assessments for each district to identify 

deficiencies and develop needed corrective actions. According to 

Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, internal control 

monitoring assesses the quality of performance over time and promptly 

 35Office of the Inspector General, Department of Justice: Audit of the United States 

Marshals Service’s Procurement Activities, 2012, 

https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2012/a1305.pdf. 

36In its congressional budget justification for fiscal year 2017, USMS requested $2.5 

million and six additional positions to increase its professional responsibility staff in order 

to more effectively manage its projected workload. USMS notes in its justification that this 

funding would help it respond to the OIG’s recommendation and better align itself with 

other DOJ agencies which perform more on-site reviews.
Page 39 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

resolves the findings of audits and other reviews. Corrective actions are a 

necessary complement to control activities in order to achieve objectives. 

By developing a mechanism that would allow them to aggregate and 

analyze results from the annual self-assessments, USMS would be better 

positioned to more consistently and comprehensively identify deficiencies 

and monitor corrective actions across districts and over time that could 

result in additional opportunities to achieve cost savings and efficiencies.

USMS provided for the care of over 50,000 federal prisoners daily at a 

cost of about $1.4 billion in fiscal year 2015. In managing these funds, 

USMS has taken steps to leverage and identify opportunities to achieve 

cost savings and efficiencies. Such actions include the implementation of 

detention management systems, the support of AOUSC’s Alternative to 

pre-trial detention, and the implementation of a scorecard system to track 

district use of private and federal facilities in order to identify opportunities 

for cost efficiencies.

However, USMS does not fully know how much its actions have saved 

because it has not developed reliable and transparent methods for 

estimating costs savings. In addition, it has not established a consistent 

and reliable mechanism for reviewing results of various operational 

assessments at the district level, which hinders its ability to consistently 

and comprehensively identify deficiencies and monitor corrective actions 

across districts and over time. Establishing such mechanisms and 

developing more reliable methods to estimate cost savings could help 

USMS to resolve its noted deficiencies more promptly, more accurately 

report savings it has achieved to the Congress, and ultimately allow it to 

operate more efficiently and effectively.

To ensure that costs savings estimates are reliable, we recommend that 

the Director of the USMS direct its Prisoner Operations Division to 

develop reliable methods for estimating cost savings and validating 

reported savings achieved.

To enable USMS to more consistently identify deficiencies and monitor 

corrective actions, we recommend that the Director of the USMS 

establish a mechanism to aggregate and analyze the results of annual 

district self-assessments.

Conclusions

Recommendations for 

Executive Action
Page 40 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

We provided a draft of this report to DOJ and the Administrative Office of 

the U.S. Courts (AOUSC) for review and comment. Liaisons from DOJ 

and USMS responded in an email that DOJ had no formal comments on 

the report, and concurred with the recommendations. The AOUSC liaison 

also responded in an email that AOUSC had no written comments on the 

report. The USMS liaison provided technical comments, which we 

incorporated as appropriate.

We are sending copies of this report to DOJ, AOUSC, appropriate 

congressional committees and members, and other interested parties. In 

addition, this report is available at no charge on GAO’s website at 

http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff have any questions, please contact Diana Maurer at 

(202) 512-8777 or maurerd@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of 

Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page 

of this report. GAO staff that made significant contributions to this report 

are listed in appendix IV.

Diana C. Maurer

Director, Homeland Security and Justice Issues 

Agency Comments
Page 41 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

List of Committees

The Honorable Richard C. Shelby

Chairman

The Honorable Barbara Mikulski

Ranking Member

Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies

Committee on Appropriations

United States Senate

The Honorable John Culberson

Chairman

The Honorable Mike Honda

Acting Ranking Member

Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies

Committee on Appropriations

House of Representatives
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 42 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

We addressed the following questions as part of this review:

(1) What are the primary costs associated with United States Marshals 

Service (USMS) prisoner operations, and what have been the trends in 

spending from fiscal years 2010 through 2015?

(2) What recent actions has USMS taken to reduce its prisoner operations 

costs and how much has been saved?

(3) To what extent does USMS have systems in place to identify 

additional opportunities to save costs?

To identify costs and trends, we reviewed USMS’s congressional budget 

justifications covering fiscal years 2010 through 2015 to identify USMSreported cost drivers.1 We selected this time period because we believe 

that 6 years is sufficient time to identify trends in prisoner operations 

costs, and GAO last reported on USMS prisoner costs in fiscal year 

2010.2 We focused our review on the USMS Federal Prisoner Detention 

(FPD) appropriation, which pays for about 85 percent of total prisonerrelated costs.3 We obtained underlying data from USMS and aggregated 

it at the district level. In particular, we obtained operational data for 

USMS’s prisoner activities from fiscal years 2010 through 2015, 

 1

In support of the President’s budget request, departments submit congressional budget 

justifications to the appropriate appropriations committees, typically to provide additional 

information regarding the changes between the current appropriation and the amounts 

requested for the next fiscal year. OMB provides general guidance to federal agencies 

and ensures that budget requests are consistent with relevant statutes and presidential 

objectives.

2

GAO, Office of the Federal Detention Trustee’s (OFDT) Cost Estimation Methods Reflect 

Features of Best Practices, but Processes Could Be Enhanced, GAO-10-1037R 

(Washington, D.C.: Sept. 30, 2010). The OFDT was the primary office responsible for 

managing USMS prison costs and forecasting USMS prisoner-related budgets, among 

other things. Beginning in fiscal year 2013, the OFDT was subsumed into the USMS 

Prisoner Operations Division and no longer receives a separate appropriation. For the 

purposes of this report, we refer to OFDT operations occurring within the timeframe of this 

scope to be USMS operations.

3

This report focuses on FPD costs because it is the largest appropriation related to 

prisoner-related costs, and all funds paid through the FPD are for prisoner detention 

services only. The USMS salaries and expenses appropriation (S&E) pays for all USMS 

district personnel conducting its multiple missions, of which prisoner security & 

transportation is one mission. 

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 43 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

specifically obtaining detention population counts per year for all prisoner 

facilities by USMS district and daily detention population counts for 

private and fixed rate facilities. We also obtained financial data that 

pertained to housing, medical, and transportation costs, which we then 

aggregated at the district level. This included the housing costs for each 

facility, including per diem agreements for applicable state and locallymanaged facilities and contract rates for facilities with guaranteed 

minimum terms. While USMS districts do not manage private prison 

facility contracts, we prorated the cost of private prison usage by district 

by determining the proportion of the total annual average daily detention 

population in private facilities associated with the district and dividing the 

total private facility costs by that proportion.

To determine medical costs, we obtained district-level medical services 

information, medical guard services costs per district, and medical-related 

transportation costs per district, which we summed to obtain district level 

costs. To determine transportation costs, we obtained and summed costs 

per district for in-district transportation guard support and costs for other 

contract-rate guards.4 We also obtained Justice Prisoner and Alien 

Transportation System (JPATS) air and ground transportation cost 

information from USMS for JPATS’s USMS prisoner operations, and 

attributed ground transportation costs to the respective district 

responsible for the prisoners moved. However, we were unable to 

determine the costs of JPATS air support by district, as the agency does 

not collect information or manage the JPATS air program to attribute such 

costs by district.

We assessed the reliability of these data and, and we found some 

inconsistencies with the data. This reliability assessment included 

conducting checks for completeness and logical consistency, obtaining 

documentation on systems end-user capabilities and data control, 

interviewing data users and managers responsible for maintaining data, 

and comparing data to previous USMS reported data. The 

inconsistencies we identified included inconsistencies in reported costs by 

facility managed by state and local facilities and calculated costs based 

on the reported per diem costs and the average daily population 

 4

Transportation costs include transportation to courthouses or movements between 

facilities. They also include final prisoner movements from USMS custody to designated 

BOP custody to serve their sentences.
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 44 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

attributed to the facilities. Further, we identified missing or inconsistent 

facility designations that led to differing costs by facility. However, we 

were able to address these inconsistencies and determined that they did 

not greatly impact cost data for district prisoner operations. We also found 

detention population data were missing for less than five days for each 

fixed-rate facility (including private facilities and two state and local fixedrate facilities). We found that the missing data did not severely impact our 

calculation of costs and were able to account for the missing data in our 

cost calculation. Because of these inconsistencies, USMS deobligations 

in prisoner operations-related funding in later years, and differences due 

to rounding, USMS-reported costs and annual average daily population 

differ slightly from the calculated costs and populations in this report. We 

found these differences to be minimal, affecting total costs by less than 2 

percent in fiscal year 2012 and less than 1 percent in all other years 

except for in fiscal year 2015, where USMS had made obligations for 

costs to be incurred in fiscal year 2016. However, these obligations have 

been removed from the data as they were not in the scope of the review. 

The result was a difference in total costs of less than 1 percent in fiscal 

year 2015. Therefore, we found the data to be reliable for the purposes of 

identifying and describing the primary cost drivers and the districts’

relative prisoner operation costs from the FPD.

In addition, we interviewed USMS Prisoner Operations officials to obtain 

USMS’s views on identified cost drivers and trends. We corroborated 

USMS headquarters officials’ views by conducting interviews with USMS 

officials in selected districts. Specifically, we conducted interviews with 3 

different USMS districts—the Southern District of California, the Northern 

District of Georgia, and the District of Maryland—to obtain field office 

views on the costs and trends occurring over the past 6 years. We chose 

these districts because of geographical disparity, size of prison 

populations, and unique actions taken or ancillary missions conducted at 

the district. Specifically, the Southern District of California has on average 

one of the largest prison populations of any district and works with 

numerous types of facilities to house prisoners. The Northern District of 

Georgia has one large private facility and also serves as a transportation 

center in the southeast for neighboring districts to transfer prisoners to 

different facilities throughout the country. The District of Maryland is the 

only district to have a state-owned facility currently participating in the 

capital improvement program, a program where USMS provides funding 

for improvements to state and local facility infrastructure. While the 

information we obtained from our site visits is not generalizable to all 

USMS districts, it provides insights into costs and trends in prisoner 

operations.
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 45 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

To determine the recent actions USMS has taken to reduce its prisoner 

operations costs, we reviewed USMS’s congressional budget 

justifications and interviewed officials to compile a list of prisoner-related 

actions that had monetized cost savings for fiscal years 2010 through 

2015. We limited our analysis to those identified initiatives or actions that 

had any monetized cost savings associated with them for fiscal years 

2010 through 2015. We chose this time period to align our review of 

USMS’s costs savings efforts with our review of USMS’s prisoners 

operations cost trends for those 6 years. To determine the extent to which 

USMS’s estimated savings are reliable, we analyzed USMS documents 

and data, where available, such as documentation of the methodology 

and resulting dollar figures from each initiative’s savings estimate, and 

housing costs data. We compared each of USMS’s cost savings 

estimates against guidance for developing and documenting reliable cost 

savings estimates, including the Office of Management and Budget’s 

Guidelines and Discount Rates for Benefit-Cost Analysis of Federal 

Programs, Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, and 

GAO’s guidance for Assessing the Reliability of Computer-Processed 

Data to determine the extent to which the estimates were sufficiently 

comprehensive, accurate, consistent, and documented.

5 Additionally, for 

each well-documented savings estimate, we assessed whether major 

assumptions were reasonable by conducting or evaluating sensitivity 

analyses. We also reviewed estimates to ensure that reasonable 

assumptions were consistently and accurately applied. Additionally, we 

used USMS’s housing data on facilities’ per diem costs per prisoner and 

average daily population to determine the percentage of USMS prisoners 

housed in federal Bureau of Prisons’ (BOP) facilities for fiscal years 2010 

through 2015—for which USMS does not pay—and to monetize any 

potential cost savings resulting from USMS housing some of its prisoners 

in BOP facilities.

To monetize potential costs savings, we developed two estimates: (1) an 

estimate of USMS’s potential costs avoided by using BOP facilities for 

fiscal years 2010 through 2015; and (2) an estimate of the potential cost 

 5

The Office of Management and Budget, Guidelines and Discount Rates for Benefit-Cost 

Analysis of Federal Programs, OMB Circular No. A-94, (Washington D.C.: Oct. 29, 1992);

GAO, Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, GAO/AIMD-00.21.3.1

(Washington, D.C.: November 1999); and GAO, Assessing the Reliability of ComputerProcessed Data, GAO-09-680G (Washington, D.C.: July 1, 2009).
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 46 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

savings to the Department of Justice’s (DOJ)—of which both USMS and 

BOP are component agencies—in fiscal year 2015 due to USMS housing 

its prisoners in BOP facilities versus in potentially more costly non-federal 

facilities. To estimate the costs avoided by USMS, we used BOPidentified daily per capita costs for housing prisoners to calculate USMS’s 

potential costs avoided by housing its prisoners in BOP facilities from 

fiscal years 2010 through 2015. To develop this cost avoidance estimate, 

we assumed that USMS would pay BOP to house USMS prisoners at 

BOP’s daily per capita cost. These daily per capita costs are determined 

and published by BOP for each type of federal facility on an annual basis. 

We classified, confirmed, and applied the respective BOP daily per capita 

rates to each BOP facility in which USMS prisoners were housed. Then, 

we multiplied the total number of prisoners USMS housed in these BOP 

facilities by the appropriate daily per capita cost, using USMS’s data on 

its average daily population for these facilities. Finally, we summed total 

costs for each facility for fiscal years 2010 through 2015 to determine the 

total costs avoided for each of these fiscal years.

To estimate the potential cost savings to DOJ, we used USMS’s fiscal 

year 2015 prisoner population and costs data and BOP’s per capita costs

to compare the costs of housing USMS’s prisoners in BOP facilities 

versus the costs to house those prisoners in private or state and local 

facilities. We made the following assumptions: (1) if USMS were to pay 

for housing its prisoners at BOP facilities, USMS’ rate would be the daily 

per capita cost per prisoner, as published by BOP, (2) the existing private 

or state and local facilities would meet the demand of housing USMS 

prisoners housed in BOP facilities if USMS did not have the use of BOP 

facilities, and (3) the current private or state and local facilities would 

meet USMS’s housing demand at the same costs per day as they did in 

fiscal year 2015. To develop the estimate, we first identified the USMS 

districts that primarily used BOP facilities in fiscal year 2015. These 22

districts housed at least 2.5 percent of their total average daily population 

in BOP facilities. We then determined the costs these districts would have 

paid to BOP to house their prisoners, using BOP facilities’ total daily per 

capita rates and the districts average daily population for each BOP 

facility. We then determined the difference in costs (i.e., potential cost 

savings) between these districts housing their prisoners in BOP facilities 

and these districts housing those same prisoners in private or state and 

local facilities. Because USMS has the potential to use either private 

facilities or state and local facilities to house its prisoners, we developed 

two estimates to compare with the costs of housing prisoners in BOP 

facilities—one assuming prisoners were housed in private facilities, and 

one assuming prisoners were housed in state and local facilities.
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 47 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

To determine the costs to house the prisoners in private facilities, we 

identified the private facilities that each district used in fiscal year 2015, 

determined the private facilities’ effective per diem costs, and derived a 

weighted private facility per diem cost for each district. The weighted per 

diem cost took into account USMS’s average daily population for each 

facility compared to USMS’s total average daily population for private 

facilities in each district. We applied weighted per diem costs for each 

district to the average daily population the districts placed in BOP 

facilities. We then summed the estimated total costs for using BOP 

facilities and the estimated total costs of housing these prisoners in 

private facilities for these districts, and compared the two to determine 

cost savings, if any. We repeated the above methodology for state and 

local facilities. Further, we interviewed agency officials to corroborate 

initiatives we had identified as well as to identify any other unreported 

cost savings actions. We also interviewed officials who estimated the 

savings to explain the methodologies, clarify any discrepancies, and 

provide any additional information in support of the estimates.

To determine the extent to which USMS has systems designed to identify 

additional opportunities to save costs, we reviewed the processes and 

tools at USMS from fiscal years 2010 through 2015 that identify, 

implement, and promote cost-efficiency and savings initiatives throughout 

its institutions, such as USMS’s use of score cards to determine district 

utilization of private and federal facilities, and the agency’s strategic plan. 

We also spoke with USMS officials to discuss how its districts implement 

USMS policy directive guidance, and in what instances the districts may 

deviate from the stated guidance, as well as USMS’s oversight of district 

adherence to and deviation from internal policy guidance. We chose this 

time period to align with our review of USMS’s prisoner operations cost 

trends for those 6 years.

With respect to identifying additional opportunities to realize cost 

efficiencies or reduce costs, using our financial analysis as context, we 

analyzed elements of USMS’s internal control system related to the 

control objective of achieving operational efficiencies and interviewed 

relevant officials to assess whether USMS has designed a management 

structure and processes to routinely assess its administrative and 

operational activities for possible corrective action. We did not 

independently test USMS’s internal controls to determine whether they 

mitigate all possible risks and are operating as intended. Specifically, we 

reviewed USMS’s mechanisms and processes leading to its internal 

review of operational and administrative functions, including its process 

for taking corrective action related to high-cost areas, such as 
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 48 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

procurement and human resources, and compared these characteristics

with those called for in Standards for Internal Control in the Federal 

Government and in implementing the guidance in the OMB Circular No. 

A-123, Management’s Responsibility for Internal Control, which defines 

management’s responsibility for internal control in federal agencies.6 We 

interviewed relevant officials to discuss current actions USMS internal 

control officials have taken and are taking to include processes to identify 

and implement corrective actions in high cost areas, and agency 

oversight of these actions.

We conducted this performance audit from March 2015 to May 2016 in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 

sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 

findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that 

the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and 

conclusions based on our audit objectives.

 6

GAO/AIMD-00.21.3.1. Internal control is an integral component of an organization’s 

management that provides reasonable assurance that the following objectives are being 

achieved: effectiveness and efficiency of operations, reliability of financial reporting, and 

compliance with applicable laws and regulations. Office of Management and Budget, 

Management’s Responsibility for Internal Control, OMB Circular No. A-123 (Washington, 

D.C.: Dec. 21, 2004). This circular provides guidance to federal managers on improving 

the accountability and effectiveness of federal programs and operations by establishing, 

assessing, correcting, and reporting on internal control. The circular provides internal 

control standards and specific requirements for conducting management’s assessment of 

the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting.
Appendix II: United States Marshals Service 

Districts Average Daily Population and Costs 

by Major Cost Category, Fiscal Year 2015

Page 49 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

Table 6 provides the average daily detention population (ADP) and the 

respective housing, medical, and transportation costs for each district in 

fiscal year 2015. Additionally, the table provides housing costs associated 

with prisoners under the custody of the United States Marshals Service 

(USMS) Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System (JPATS). 

Housing costs include costs both paid for by the districts as well as costs 

for private facility usage, where USMS headquarters administers 

payment. Medical costs include national managed care contract 

payments for health services attributed to the districts, additional district 

payments for health services, as well as payments for guard and 

transportation support by district. A portion of medical payments are not 

attributable to the districts and appear as a USMS headquarters cost. 

Transportation costs include in-district support for services to move 

prisoners from state, local, and private facilities as well from JPATS. 

Further, the transportation costs associated with JPATS are for 

nationwide air carrier costs that could not be attributed to the districts.

Table 6: United States Marshals Service (USMS) District Average Daily Population (ADP) and Related Costs, Fiscal Year 2015

District ADP

Cost Categories

Housing Medical Transportation Totala

Middle Alabama 98 $ 1,699,503 $ 361,285 $ 10,229 $ 2,071,017 

Northern Alabama 130 $ 1,947,763 $ 216,403 $ 121,386 $ 2,285,552 

Southern Alabama 133 $ 2,347,709 $ 148,535 $ 34,040 $ 2,530,285 

Alaska 105 $ 5,413,244 $ 84,666 $ 11,731 $ 5,509,642 

Arizona 4,569 $ 158,535,506 $ 3,568,678 $ 313,522 $ 162,417,706 

Eastern Arkansas 286 $ 6,396,862 $ 252,432 $ 28,544 $ 6,677,838 

Western Arkansas 164 $ 3,075,125 $ 324,697 $ 76,687 $ 3,476,509 

Central California 983 $ 9,036,864 $ 7,577,111 $ 464,903 $ 17,078,877 

Eastern California 696 $ 24,760,422 $ 1,679,376 $ 141,625 $ 26,581,423 

Northern California 511 $ 19,924,385 $ 112,662 $ 1,987 $ 20,039,034 

Southern California 2,372 $ 72,457,552 $ 8,089,775 $ 309,438 $ 80,856,765 

Colorado 374 $ 4,932,977 $ 575,915 $ 198,542 $ 5,707,435 

Connecticut 219 $ 7,779,628 $ 226,891 $ 233,012 $ 8,239,532 

Delaware 76 $ 512,955 $ 68,046 $ 8,197 $ 589,198 

District of Columbiab 813 $ 11,256,669 $ 3,288,672 $ 273,460 $ 15,548,222 

Middle Florida 781 $ 21,740,360 $ 1,218,421 $ 496,378 $ 23,455,158 

Northern Florida 136 $ 1,838,654 $ 179,855 $ 78,352 $ 2,096,861 

Southern Florida 1,171 $ 11,343,611 $ 486,346 $ 309,062 $ 12,139,019 

Middle Georgia 193 $ 2,954,897 $ 228,521 $ 4,117 $ 3,187,534 

Appendix II: United States Marshals Service 

Districts Average Daily Population and Costs 

by Major Cost Category, Fiscal Year 2015
Appendix II: United States Marshals Service 

Districts Average Daily Population and Costs 

by Major Cost Category, Fiscal Year 2015

Page 50 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

District ADP

Cost Categories

Housing Medical Transportation Totala

Northern Georgia 422 $ 14,333,248 $ 717,038 $ 791,631 $ 15,841,916 

Southern Georgia 169 $ 3,270,385 $ 469,009 $ 249,102 $ 3,988,497 

Hawaii 114 $ 7,996 $ 338,214 $ 357,599 $ 703,808 

Idaho 146 $ 3,111,016 $ 129,631 $ 78,285 $ 3,318,932 

Central Illinois 242 $ 5,389,139 $ 377,693 $ 347,452 $ 6,114,285 

Northern Illinois 703 $ 6,868,302 $ 3,012,879 $ 376,834 $ 10,258,015 

Southern Illinois 239 $ 5,090,485 $ 636,425 $ 246,411 $ 6,007,373 

Northern Indiana 254 $ 4,190,936 $ 206,159 $ 83,228 $ 4,480,323 

Southern Indiana 332 $ 6,308,377 $ 195,386 $ 25,158 $ 6,528,921 

Northern Iowa 227 $ 5,220,737 $ 498,979 $ 59,756 $ 5,779,473 

Southern Iowa 212 $ 6,588,665 $ 250,690 $ 796 $ 6,840,151 

Kansas 420 $ 13,768,396 $ 1,307,881 $ 535,084 $ 15,611,360 

Eastern Kentucky 321 $ 5,350,784 $ 1,050,084 $ 321,893 $ 6,722,762 

Western Kentucky 195 $ 3,046,456 $ 243,453 $ 147,609 $ 3,437,517 

Eastern Louisiana 381 $ 4,749,434 $ 419,292 $ 36,354 $ 6,722,762 

Middle Louisiana 95 $ 1,386,266 $ 197,627 $ 11,500 $ 1,595,393 

Western Louisiana 148 $ 2,481,775 $ 113,338 $ 56,279 $ 2,651,392 

Maine 124 $ 4,740,603 $ 275,940 $ 106,345 $ 5,122,887 

Maryland 500 $ 26,580,267 $ 219,286 $ 190,976 $ 26,990,529 

Massachusetts 404 $ 14,481,944 $ 1,403,385 $ 396,098 $ 16,281,427 

Eastern Michigan 535 $ 9,259,781 $ 833,641 $ 593,900 $ 10,687,322 

Western Michigan 187 $ 4,278,008 $ 260,014 $ 181,199 $ 4,719,221 

Minnesota 354 $ 10,277,338 $ 931,796 $ 172,098 $ 11,381,232 

Northern Mississippi 94 $ 1,571,802 $ 196,801 $ 34,429 $ 1,803,031 

Southern Mississippi 186 $ 2,594,674 $ 518,427 $ 95,445 $ 3,208,546 

Eastern Missouri 375 $ 8,876,343 $ 538,713 $ 442,468 $ 9,857,525 

Western Missouri 981 $ 28,286,704 $ 1,504,394 $ 174,858 $ 29,965,956 

Montana 194 $ 5,418,216 $ 330,187 $ 33,294 $ 5,781,698 

Nebraska 370 $ 11,221,708 $ 737,959 $ 62,812 $ 12,022,479 

Nevada 438 $ 16,616,002 $ 1,060,147 $ 3,372,539 $ 21,048,689 

New Hampshire 104 $ 3,203,252 $ 282,178 $ 127,522 $ 3,612,952 

New Jersey 536 $ 13,958,628 $ 298,623 $ 242,547 $ 14,499,798 

New Mexico 1,625 $ 40,350,346 $ 2,018,346 $ 926,670 $ 43,295,362 

Eastern New York 933 $ 11,237,819 $ 316,244 $ 609,010 $ 12,163,073 

Northern New York 265 $ 9,408,883 $ 463,497 $ 292,219 $ 10,164,598 

Southern New York 1,499 $ 12,004,911 $ 2,941,164 $ 23,789 $ 14,969,864 
Appendix II: United States Marshals Service 

Districts Average Daily Population and Costs 

by Major Cost Category, Fiscal Year 2015

Page 51 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

District ADP

Cost Categories

Housing Medical Transportation Totala

Western New York 480 $ 16,968,137 $ 925,291 $ 613,870 $ 18,507,298 

Eastern North Carolina 390 $ 8,994,054 $ 614,385 $ 13,597 $ 9,622,036 

Middle North Carolina 258 $ 5,978,201 $ 479,937 $ 180,463 $ 6,638,600 

Western North Carolina 593 $ 21,962,805 $ 494,419 $ 199,597 $ 23,656,820 

North Dakota 237 $ 6,147,553 $ 547,415 $ 218,494 $ 6,913,462 

Northern Ohio 313 $ 10,018,840 $ 294,024 $ 106,706 $ 10,419,570 

Southern Ohio 353 $ 8,031,714 $ 693,611 $ 58,701 $ 8,784,026 

Eastern Oklahoma 56 $ 842,099 $ 140,147 $ 10,632 $ 1,024,736 

Northern Oklahoma 102 $ 2,248,068 $ 38,319 $ 10,128 $ 2,296,516 

Western Oklahoma 147 $ 3,301,044 $ 1,465,857 $ 333,868 $ 5,100,769 

Oregon 386 $ 7,609,179 $ 471,843 $ 42,549 $ 8,123,571 

Eastern Pennsylvania 653 $ 2,592,682 $ 959,235 $ 26,500 $ 3,578,417 

Middle Pennsylvania 273 $ 7,338,019 $ 331,233 $ 70,311 $ 7,739,564 

Western Pennsylvania 347 $ 10,305,657 $ 188,511 $ 48,240 $ 10,542,408 

Rhode Island 82 $ 2,089,902 $ 144,073 $ 60,679 $ 2,294,653 

South Carolina 429 $ 8,384,652 $ 441,800 $ 106,657 $ 8,933,108 

South Dakota 268 $ 7,239,533 $ 550,850 $ 29,154 $ 7,819,537 

Eastern Tennessee 612 $ 12,552,423 $ 1,029,107 $ 104,581 $ 13,686,112 

Middle Tennessee 272 $ 4,943,708 $ 413,514 $ 369,452 $ 5,726,674 

Western Tennessee 263 $ 7,544,332 $ 305,105 $ 59,607 $ 7,909,044 

Eastern Texas 795 $ 16,634,419 $ 1,173,372 $ 219,463 $ 18,027,254 

Northern Texas 923 $ 11,047,281 $ 666,912 $ 172,546 $ 11,886,738 

Southern Texas 6,311 $ 143,122,797 $ 7,614,164 $ 1,584,429 $ 152,321,390 

Western Texas 4,677 $ 105,140,171 $ 7,265,070 $ 1,051,233 $ 113,456,473 

Utah 330 $ 7,894,706 $ 347,780 $ 233,830 $ 8,476,316 

Vermont 121 $ 4,119,573 $ 156,050 $ 207,902 $ 4,483,525 

Eastern Virginia 393 $ 11,013,395 $ 899,385 $ 33,942 $ 11,946,722 

Western Virginia 193 $ 4,143,657 $ 406,472 $ 175,336 $ 4,725,465 

Eastern Washington 232 $ 6,758,203 $ 283,801 $ 14,364 $ 7,056,369 

Western Washington 289 $113,772 $ 209,478 $ 40,976 $ 364,226 

Northern West Virginia 109 $ 2,634,506 $ 102,258 $ 27,691 $ 2,764,456 

Southern West Virginia 117 $ 2,625,725 $ 246,140 $ 125,740 $ 2,997,605 

Eastern Wisconsin 185 $ 4,975,980 $ 204,275 $ 206,295 $ 5,386,550 

Western Wisconsin 56 $ 1,441,891 $ 42,588 $ 1,602 $ 1,486,081 

Wyoming 94 $ 1,482,553 $ 214,778 $ 232,258 $ 1,929,590 

Guam 47 $ 1,307,400 $ 3,185 $ 171,860 $ 1,482,445 
Appendix II: United States Marshals Service 

Districts Average Daily Population and Costs 

by Major Cost Category, Fiscal Year 2015

Page 52 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

District ADP

Cost Categories

Housing Medical Transportation Totala

Northern Mariana Islands - $ - $ 6,628 $ - $ 6,628 

Puerto Rico 1,411 $ 9,075,737 $ 54,773 $ 95,072 $ 9,225,582 

U.S. Virgin Islands 44 $ 187,016 $ - $ 8,102 $ 195,118 

Justice Prisoner and Alien 

Transportation Systemc 698 $ 19,912,909 $ - $ 29,727,000d $ 49,639,909 

USMS Headquarterse N/A $ - $ 30,474,258 $ 866,654 $ 31,340,913 

Total for all districts and 

divisions 51,670 $ 1,202,240,462 $ 114,977,694 $ 53,413,054 $ 1,370,631,210 

Legend: N/A = Not applicable.

Source: GAO analysis of USMS cost and detention population information | GAO-16-472.

Notes: All district costs are costs attributed to the district for housing, medical, and transportation 

operations, regardless of whether the districts were responsible for the bill. For instance, USMS 

headquarters is responsible for paying private prison facility receipts. However, we attributed costs 

based on districts’ usage of those facilities. Similarly, USMS headquarters pays for JPATS through a 

reimbursable agreement. However, we attributed all ground transportation costs to the districts as 

identified by USMS.

a

The calculated totals for housing, medical, and transportation costs may not always equal the total 

cost because of rounding to the nearest dollar.

b

The District of Columbia is one USMS district; however, it is managed by two U.S. Marshals. One 

Marshal manages the U.S. district court, and one manages the U.S. Superior court. The totals here 

are from prisoners associated with both U.S. Marshals.

c

The Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System (JPATS) is a division within USMS 

responsible for prisoner air transportation and all transportation of more than 50 miles outside a 

prisoner’s original district. As a part of its duties, JPATS assumes custody of prisoners during 

transportation. ADP and housing costs associated with JPATS represent the prisoners under the 

responsibility of JPATS and the associated cost for housing those prisoners while in travel status.

d

JPATS air operations costs for moving prisoners could not be broken down by district, thus all air 

operations have been associated with JPATS for the purposes of this table.

e

In fiscal year 2015, USMS headquarters assumed some medical and ground transportation costs 

that could not be broken out by district operations. In addition to these totals, USMS Headquarters 

spent about $24 million in detention program expenditures such as headquarters personnel salaries 

and information technology maintenance, among other things, that do not appear in this table.
Appendix III: Trends in United States Marshals 

Service Prisoner Costs

Page 53 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

From fiscal years 2010 through 2015, the United States Marshals Service 

(USMS) expended at least $1.40 billion annually on prisoner housing, 

medical care, and transportation.1 The information that follows describes 

trends in these cost areas from fiscal years 2010 through 2015.

To house federal prisoners, USMS paid for bed space through 

intergovernmental agreements (IGA) with state and locally owned 

prisoner facilities or through direct contracts with private facilities.2 Trends 

in facility usage and costs show that while the majority of USMS prisoners 

are housed in IGA facilities each year, the agency has used fewer IGA 

facilities as the overall average daily population (ADP) has fallen, and the 

percentage of ADP held in IGA facilities has dropped slightly over the 6-

year timeframe. As a result, the nominal cost for using IGA facilities has 

decreased by over $80 million from fiscal year 2010 to 2015. See table 7.

Table 7: United States Marshals Service (USMS) Use of State and Local Law 

Enforcement Prisoner Facilities and Costs, Fiscal Years 2010 – 2015

Fiscal Year

Number of 

prison 

facilities 

used 

Facilities 

with fewer 

than 5 ADP

ADP in 

state and 

local 

facilities

Percent of 

total 

annual 

ADP Costa

2010 1,068 517 37,873 64 $882,305,558

2011 1,048 495 39,038 64 $938,069,312

2012 1,013 474 37,138 62 $912,046,784

2013 1,022 468 36,248 61 $903,808,825

 1

The costs associated with these totals are currently appropriated through the Federal 

Prisoner Detention (FPD) appropriation. However, prior to fiscal year 2013, The Office of 

the Federal Detention Trustee (OFDT) was the primary office responsible for managing 

USMS prison costs, and received its own appropriation. Beginning in fiscal year 2013, the 

OFDT was subsumed into the USMS Prisoner Operations Division, and the responsibility 

of payments for USMS prisoner costs were assumed by the FPD. For the purposes of this 

report, we refer to OFDT operations occurring within the timeframe of this scope as USMS 

operations. 

2

In addition to direct-contract private facilities, USMS uses private facilities that are 

managed through state and local governments. Costs and trends associated for these 

facilities are calculated with other IGA facilities and not with the direct-contract private 

facilities. Further, USMS uses federal facilities managed by the U.S. Federal Bureau of 

Prisons. USMS does not pay for using these facilities and therefore are not considered 

when determining housing costs. 

Appendix III: Trends in United States 

Marshals Service Prisoner Costs

Housing Costs
Appendix III: Trends in United States Marshals 

Service Prisoner Costs

Page 54 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

Fiscal Year

Number of 

prison 

facilities 

used 

Facilities 

with fewer 

than 5 ADP

ADP in 

state and 

local 

facilities

Percent of 

total 

annual 

ADP Costa

2014 971 440 32,956 60 $825,930,819

2015 957 434 31,454 61 $797,887,339

Legend: ADP = Average daily detention population.

Source: GAO analysis of USMS per diem and detention population information | GAO-16-472.

a

Costs are calculated using USMS-provided detention populations for each year times facility per 

diem costs. Due to rounding and possible adjustments made to facility costs, the calculated costs and 

ADP may not match USMS-reported numbers.

USMS’s costs of using private facilities from fiscal years 2010 through 

2015 generally has followed the trend of increasing and decreasing with 

ADP. USMS officials stated that once the agency has developed contract 

terms with guaranteed minimum bed spaces and costs, the agency has 

an incentive to ensure prisoner populations in private facilities do not fall 

below the guaranteed daily bed space. Otherwise, USMS would be 

paying for bed space it has not filled. As a result, while ADP has dropped 

in private facilities, the percentage of annual ADP in private facilities has 

slightly increased. Further, nominal costs have increased by about $50 

million from fiscal year 2010 to 2015. See table 8.

Table 8: United States Marshals Service (USMS) Use of Private Prisoner Facilities 

and Costs, Fiscal Years 2010 – 2015

Fiscal Year

Number of 

private 

facilities used

ADP in private 

facilities

Percent of 

total annual 

ADP Costa

2010 13 10,798 18 $353,153,010

2011 14 11,673 19 $402,049,766

2012 14 11,683 19 $422,982,481

2013 15 10,995 19 $402,837,987

2014 15 11,160 20 $414,347,956

2015 15 10,246 20 $404,353,123

Legend: ADP = Annual average daily detention population.

Source: GAO analysis of USMS per diem and detention population information | GAO-16-472.

a

Costs are calculated using USMS-provided daily detention populations for each day during the time 

frames in conjunction with the contract terms such as guaranteed minimum bed spaces and per diem 

rates for additional bed spaces. Due to rounding and possible adjustments made to facility costs and 

ADP, the calculated costs and ADP may not match USMS-reported numbers.
Appendix III: Trends in United States Marshals 

Service Prisoner Costs

Page 55 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

USMS medical costs generally comprise the second largest cost driver for 

USMS prisoner costs, although medical costs were less than 10 percent 

of total prisoner costs for each fiscal year from 2010 through 2015. 

According to USMS officials, USMS has historically managed medical 

care through the districts, though USMS began a nationally managed 

program to better control costs beginning in fiscal year 2013. USMS 

medical costs generally fall into three categories: (1) health care services, 

such as payments to health care providers, and for supplies and 

equipment; (2) USMS medical program costs including system-wide costs 

such as USMS-employed practitioner review of medical records and 

nationally-managed contracts; and (3) transportation and guard services 

for medical care requiring outside services.3 However, beginning in fiscal 

year 2013, USMS’s Prisoner Operations Division (POD) initiated a 

nationally managed care contract to pay for districts’ health services. By 

fiscal year 2014, USMS was paying for a substantial portion of the 

districts’ health care services through the nationwide contract. As a result, 

costs shifted from districts paying for individual health services to POD 

paying for most medical costs through a nationally managed contract as a 

medical program expenditure.4 However, medical guard and 

transportation costs are still paid by the districts and not through a 

nationally managed program. As illustrated in figure 9, while total medical 

costs have grown from about $88 million to about $115 million, costs for 

individual district-managed health services have decreased and

transportation and guard service costs have remained relatively the 

same, increasing slightly from almost $20 million to about $22 million over 

the 6-year time period.

 3

In some instances, transportation and outside care were incorporated into the per diem 

costs of the IGA or contract for the facility where the prisoner was detained. Because of 

the nature of the costs being part of the housing agreement or contract, built-in medical 

costs cannot be segregated from housing costs. As a result, a portion of reported housing 

costs cover medical transportation and guard services and medical care.

4

According to USMS data, headquarters components paid a smaller share for some 

health services from fiscal years 2010 through 2013, but the majority of health services 

costs were through individual districts. 

Medical Costs
Appendix III: Trends in United States Marshals 

Service Prisoner Costs

Page 56 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

Figure 9: United States Marshals Service (USMS) Medical Costs by Cost Category, 

Fiscal Years 2010 – 2015

Transportation costs include all support costs related to moving prisoners 

between prison facilities or for court appearances and other court ordered 

movements. Such costs include the cost for moving prisoners as well as 

the labor costs associated with guarding and securing prisoners during 

movement if a guard is not provided by district officials.5 Transportation 

support costs generally comprise about 5 percent or less of total USMS 

prisoner costs. Transportation support costs fall into two broad 

categories: (1) in-district support for movements occurring within or 

otherwise managed by district U.S. Marshals and (2) support provided by 

the USMS Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System (JPATS) for 

prisoner movements of more than 50 miles outside the originating district. 

JPATS is a separate division of USMS that conducts major prisoner 

movements for both USMS prisoners and for BOP inmates. JPATS can 

move prisoners through both ground and air services and owns and 

 5

Costs associated with prisoner movements for medical procedures or care are 

considered medical costs and not transportation costs. 

Transportation Costs
Appendix III: Trends in United States Marshals 

Service Prisoner Costs

Page 57 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

leases a number of aircraft for its prisoner movements. District U.S. 

Marshals are responsible for managing and paying for in-district 

transportation support, which generally constitute prison officers from the 

facilities in which prisoners are housed.

6 For JPATS support, POD has a 

reimbursable agreement in place with JPATS to reimburse the division for 

its transportation and labor costs.7 As illustrated in figure 10, the majority 

of transportation costs are costs associated with JPATS air travel each 

year. Specifically, air travel costs comprised between 52 and 61 percent 

of total transportation support costs, with in-district support comprising the 

second largest category, between 30 and 38 percent of annual 

transportation costs.

 6

In some cases, prisoner movements may be included in the housing agreement or 

contract. In those cases, there would be no additional cost beyond the housing per diem 

cost for the prisoner. All transportation costs included in this category are for movements 

or terms not included in the per diem or contractual housing terms of the prison facilities.

7

While JPATS is a division of USMS, it is financed through a revolving fund and bills 

USMS and BOP for their respective prisoner movements. For the purposes of this report, 

we focus only on JPATS support of USMS prisoners. 
Appendix III: Trends in United States Marshals 

Service Prisoner Costs

Page 58 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

Figure 10: United States Marshals Service (USMS) Transportation Costs by 

Category, Fiscal Years 2010 – 2015

As discussed above, USMS uses the assistance of state and local 

officers and contracted private guards to supplement deputy U.S. 

Marshals to, for example, facilitate prisoner movements within a district 

and to provide guard services for medical procedures. U.S. Marshals 

contract with IGA facilities or private facilities to move prisoners with the 

facility-provided guards. In addition, districts may employ sworn officers 

on an individual basis to conduct these activities. These officers are 

referred to as district security officers. Further, JPATS employs state and 

local officers and contract guards to augment its force when conducting 

ground movements. Guard costs are captured as part of the medical cost 

guard and transportation costs in figure 9, and the in-district and JPATS 

support costs in figure 10. However, given that guard costs are reported 

separately for medical and transportation costs above, table 9 provides a 

breakout of guard costs by district for each of the three major types of 

guard forces, as well as total guard costs, for fiscal year 2015.

Prisoner Guard Support 

Costs
Appendix III: Trends in United States Marshals 

Service Prisoner Costs

Page 59 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

Table 9: United States Marshals Service (USMS) Costs for Prison Guard Support by District, Fiscal Year 2015

District Name

Guards from 

Contracted Private 

Facilities 

Guards from State and 

Local Prison Facilities 

District Security 

Officers 

Total District 

Guard Costsa

Middle Alabama $ - $ 129,498 $ 2,624 $ 132,122 

Northern Alabama $ 9,442 $ 115,523 $ 4,212 $ 129,177 

Southern Alabama $ - $ 67,311 $ - $ 67,311 

Alaska $ - $ 1,235 $ 2,081 $ 3,316 

Arizona $ 1,755,799 $ 30,588 $ 2 $ 1,786,389 

Eastern Arkansas $ 33,276 $ 21,679 $ 2,749 $ 57,703 

Western Arkansas $ - $ 84,462 $ 16,265 $ 100,727 

Central California $ 3,187,572 $ 442,768 $ (59) $ 3,630,281 

Eastern California $ - $ 357,368 $ - $ 357,368 

Northern California $ - $ - $ 9,580 $ 9,580 

Southern California $ 3,200,197 $ 111,898 $ 1,914 $ 3,314,009 

Colorado $ 32,092 $ 192,192 $ 18,390 $ 242,673 

Connecticut $ - $ 267,092 $ - $ 267,092 

Delaware $37,790 $ 8,197 $ - $ 45,987 

District Court of the District 

of Columbia $ - $ 294,046 $ - $ 294,046 

Superior Court of the 

District of Columbia $ - $632,296 $ - $ 632,296 

Middle Florida $ - $ 637,999 $ 17,567 $ 655,566 

Northern Florida $ - $ 78,032 $ 20,423 $ 98,455 

Southern Florida $ 351,502 $ 153,420 $ - $ 504,922 

Middle Georgia $ 4,035 $ 4,435 $ 7,853 $ 16,323 

Northern Georgia $ 1,032,631 $ 35,824 $ 12,319 $ 1,080,774 

Southern Georgia $ - $ 351,515 $ 836 $ 352,351 

Hawaii $ - $ - $ 86,608 $ 86,608 

Idaho $ - $ 71,739 $ 9,072 $ 80,811 

Central Illinois $ - $ 421,721 $ 215 $ 421,937 

Northern Illinois $ 922,012 $ 622,623 $ - $ 1,544,635 

Southern Illinois $ 8,569 $ 355,865 $ - $ 364,434 

Northern Indiana $ 34,000 $ 83,831 $ 2,892 $ 120,723 

Southern Indiana $ 1,750 $ 29,072 $ 720 $ 31,542 

Northern Iowa $ - $ 109,852 $ 11,130 $ 120,982 

Southern Iowa $ - $ 14,571 $ 928 $ 15,499 

Kansas $ 1,346,033 $ 85,527 $ 188 $ 1,431,747 

Eastern Kentucky $ - $ 450,590 $ - $ 450,590 
Appendix III: Trends in United States Marshals 

Service Prisoner Costs

Page 60 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

District Name

Guards from 

Contracted Private 

Facilities 

Guards from State and 

Local Prison Facilities 

District Security 

Officers 

Total District 

Guard Costsa

Western Kentucky $ 40,577 $ 116,348 $ - $ 156,925 

Eastern Louisiana $ 24,734 $ 50,979 $ 240 $ 75,953 

Middle Louisiana $ - $ 35,422 $ - $ 35,422 

Western Louisiana $ - $ 68,503 $ 405 $ 68,908 

Maine $ - $ 118,840 $ 264 $ 119,104 

Maryland $ - $ 226,929 $ - $ 226,929 

Massachusetts $ - $ 791,018 $ - $ 791,018 

Eastern Michigan $ - $ 827,756 $ 57,280 $ 885,036 

Western Michigan $ - $ 177,765 $ 19,856 $ 197,621 

Minnesota $ - $ 283,622 $ 19,436 $ 303,058 

Northern Mississippi $ - $ 67,557 $ 3,744 $ 71,301 

Southern Mississippi $ 7,807 $ 138,141 $ 1,030 $ 146,978 

Eastern Missouri $ 32,138 $ 452,054 $ 6,608 $ 490,800 

Western Missouri $ - $ 233,170 $ 5,870 $ 239,040 

Montana $ - $ 37,953 $ 14,390 $ 52,343 

Nebraska $ 155,009 $ 66,731 $ 5,265 $ 227,005 

Nevada $ 3,828,849 $ 47 $ 61,717 $ 3,890,612 

New Hampshire $ - $ 159,502 $ 6,840 $ 166,342 

New Jersey $ 39,304 $ 241,684 $ - $ 280,989 

New Mexico $ - $ 1,253,286 $ 3,281 $ 1,256,567 

Eastern New York $ 708,642 $ - $ 2,240 $ 710,882 

Northern New York $ - $ 326,771 $ - $ 326,771 

Southern New York $ 1,595,236 $ - $ 6,448 $ 1,601,684 

Western New York $ - $ 733,846 $ 74,309 $ 808,155 

Eastern North Carolina $ 3,456 $ 62,983 $ 7,345 $ 73,784 

Middle North Carolina $ 28,637 $ 215,224 $ 500 $ 244,361 

Western North Carolina $ - $ 246,437 $ 96.00 $ 246,533 

North Dakota $ - $ 268,115 $ 24,558 $ 292,673 

Northern Ohio $ 65,556 $ 118,216 $ 5,638 $ 189,410 

Southern Ohio $ - $ 77,082 $ 56,329 $ 133,411 

Eastern Oklahoma $ - $ 32,170 $ 6,328 $ 38,498 

Northern Oklahoma $ 6,300 $ 3,828 $ - $ 10,128 

Western Oklahoma $ - $ 567,379 $ 200 $ 567,579 

Oregon $ - $ 114,573 $ 21,651 $ 136,224 

Eastern Pennsylvania $ 298,862 $ 12,681 $ 42 $ 311,586 

Middle Pennsylvania $ - $ 89,706 $ 17,707 $ 107,413 
Appendix III: Trends in United States Marshals 

Service Prisoner Costs

Page 61 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

District Name

Guards from 

Contracted Private 

Facilities 

Guards from State and 

Local Prison Facilities 

District Security 

Officers 

Total District 

Guard Costsa

Western Pennsylvania $ 81,385 $ 45,020 $ 2,788 $ 129,193

Rhode Island $ - $ 48,154 $ 1,313 $ 49,467 

South Carolina $ - $ 145,084 $ 5,527 $ 150,610 

South Dakota $ 2,514 $ 31,930 $ 19,822 $ 54,266 

Eastern Tennessee $ - $ 214,351 $ - $ 214,351 

Middle Tennessee $ 53,886 $ 391,827 $ - $ 445,713 

Western Tennessee $ 166,012 $ 47,941 $ - $ 213,953 

Eastern Texas $ 23,483 $ 305,528 $ (1) $ 329,010 

Northern Texas $ - $ 321,966 $ 840 $ 322,806 

Southern Texas $ 1,441,332 $ 2,598,313 $ 4,851 $ 4,044,496 

Western Texas $ 91,084 $ 2,226,715 $ - $ 2,317,799 

Utah $ - $ 237,344 $ 9,703 $ 247,048 

Vermont $ 219,000 $ 16,241 $ (2) $ 235,239 

Eastern Virginia $ 134,651 $ 17,076 $ 12,081 $ 163,808 

Western Virginia $ - $ 259,235 $ 2,221 $ 261,457 

Eastern Washington $ 57,775 $ 583 $ 41,091 $ 99,449 

Western Washington $ 112,462 $ 13,031 $ 958 $ 126,451 

Northern West Virginia $ 17,231 $ - $ 4,372 $ 21,603 

Southern West Virginia $ - $ 154,524 $ 27,691 $ 182,216 

Eastern Wisconsin $ - $ 269,205 $ - $ 269,205 

Western Wisconsin $ - $ 6,782 $ 495 $ 7,277 

Wyoming $ - $ 240,850 $ 6,236 $ 247,086 

Guam $ 20,662 $ - $ 4,998 $ 25,660 

Northern Mariana Islands $ - $ - $ - $ -

Puerto Rico $ - $ 350 $ 116,195 $ 116,545 

U.S. Virgin Islands $ - $ - $ 7,526 $ 7,526 

Grand Total $ 21,213,287 $22,071,135 $ 926,829 $ 44,211,250 

Source: GAO analysis of USMS district and Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System financial information | GAO-16-472.

a

Guard costs may not add to total costs because of rounding.
Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments

Page 62 GAO-16-472 Prisoner Operations

Diana Maurer, (202) 512-8777 or maurerd@gao.gov

In addition to the contact named above, Jill Verret (Assistant Director), 

Pedro Almoguera, Willie Commons, III, Tonnye’ Conner-White, Dominick 

Dale, Kathleen Donovan, Jamarla Edwards, Eric Hauswirth, Scott 

Hiromoto, Jeremy Manion, Amanda Miller, John Mingus, Caroline 

Neidhold, Wade Tanner, and Michael Tropauer made key contributions to 

this report.

Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Staff 

Acknowledgments

(441284)
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