Federal Bureau of Prisons

The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) was established in 1930 to provide more progressive and humane care for Federal inmates, to professionalize the prison service, and to ensure consistent and centralized administration of the 11 Federal prisons in operation at that time.  BOP consists of approximately 33,000 employees working at over 105 institutions, 6 regional offices, a Central Office (headquarters), 3 staff training centers, and 29 community corrections offices.

BOP’s Examining Section is one of the largest Delegated Examining Units (DEU) in the Federal government in terms of workload volume.  This section maintains and manages nationwide competitive applicant inventories for a variety of positions within the agency, processes applications from applicants outside of the agency, and issues certificates of eligible applicants to all Bureau of Prisons facilities to fill vacancies for a variety of positions within the agency.

In 2001, BOP sought an online employment application that could operate in a manner consistent with the current guidelines, Federal regulations, and statutory requirements provided and/or referenced in the Delegated Examining Operations Handbook; OPM Qualifications Standards Handbook; Title 5, United States Code; 5 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR); The Department of Justice Orders; and the Federal Bureau of Prisons Program Statement 3000.2.

Velocity Group consultants worked closely with BOP HR staff to understand BOP’s unique challenges, map the existing business process, and define requirements for the new system.  In order to meet these specific requirements, Velocity Group customized its flagship automated staffing product for Federal agencies, QuickHire, to enable BOP to run registers of all correctional officer positions as well as all other DEU positions. 

For the correctional officer positions, applicants would be able to apply one time for up to 5 locations using the A-C-E scoring model.  The system provides the applicants with a score for each grade selected and enables HR staff to audit all job certificates on the web per the DEU handbook.

Along with establishing the online applications, BOP took advantage of Velocity Group’s Scan Data Interface feature to input applications received by paper.  BOP created a customized Optical Mark Reader application form to ensure that they provided reasonable accommodation to applicants who could not access the internet.  In the first year of operation, BOP received over 80,000 applications for employment, of which only 340 were received by paper.  The system is currently in use today, providing BOP with an efficient staffing tool tailored to their specific business process.