Inmate Request to Staff (cop-out)

By Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., and Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA

Form number	BP-A0148
Title as printed	INMATE REQUEST TO STAFF
Form-face date	JUNE 10
Prescribed by	“Prescribed by P5511”
Replaces	“This form replaces BP-148.070 dated Oct 86 and BP-S148.070 APR 94”
Governing Program Statement	5511.08, Inmate Request to Staff (March 19, 2026)
Governing regulation	None. No section of 28 C.F.R. prescribes this form or names it.
Published by BOP?	Yes — https://www.bop.gov/policy/forms/BP_A0148.pdf
Distribution as printed	“Record Copy – File; Copy – Inmate”
Filing instruction as printed	“FILE IN SECTION 6 UNLESS APPROPRIATE FOR PRIVACY FOLDER SECTION 6”
Privacy Act notice on the form	None
False-statement warning on the form	None
Deadline printed on the form	None

Checked against the BOP form set · 2026-09-07 · How we verify

The BP-A0148 is a one-page paper form on which a person in federal prison writes a question or a request to a named staff member, and on which that staff member writes back in a box marked “DISPOSITION.” Signing it commits nothing and waives nothing — but the completed form is filed in the inmate central file, and in most federal institutions it is the piece of paper that proves the informal-resolution step was attempted before a formal grievance.

Two companion pages carry the policy behind this document: the Bureau’s Inmate Request to Staff policy, which explains Program Statement 5511.08 and the electronic system that has now largely replaced the paper form, and the Administrative Remedy Program, which is the formal grievance track a cop-out usually precedes. This page is about the document itself.

What this form is, and what it is no longer

Inside a federal prison this form is called a “cop-out.” That word appears nowhere on the form and nowhere in Bureau policy; it is prison usage, and staff understand it.

The important thing to know in 2026 is that the paper BP-A0148 is now the exception rather than the rule. Program Statement 5511.08, signed March 19, 2026, rescinded the 1998 policy that had governed requests to staff for nearly three decades and directs staff to route these requests through a computer terminal instead: “In accordance with the Program Statement Trust Fund/Deposit Fund Manual, inmates must submit a request to staff via the electronic Request to Staff Service in the Trust Fund Limited Inmate Communication System (TRULINCS).” PS 5511.08 at pp. 1–2. The Bureau’s own summary of changes, printed on the first page, lists three: it “Adds language to address the Electronic Request to Staff Service,” “Addresses the use of the BP-A0148, Inmate Request to Staff form,” and “Updates the name of the policy from Request to Staff, Inmate to Inmate Request to Staff.” PS 5511.08 at p. 1.

So who still uses the paper form? The Program Statement answers that directly:

“Exempted inmates and inmates housed in a PCU must submit a paper request via the BP-A0148, Inmate Request to Staff.”

Reproduced verbatim from Program Statement 5511.08 at p. 2.

An exemption is a Warden’s decision. The Warden “may exempt inmates from the requirement to submit requests electronically,” and the policy directs that the decision be “based on physical or mental incapacity, other extraordinary circumstances that prevent the inmate from using the TRULINCS terminal, or the inmate poses special security concerns prohibiting regular access to TRULINCS terminals (e.g., Special Housing Unit).” The electronic service also “will not be available to inmates housed in a Protective Custody Unit (PCU).” PS 5511.08 at p. 2. So if your loved one is in the Special Housing Unit or a protective custody unit, paper is what they have; everyone else is ordinarily expected to use the TRULINCS terminal.

Two other numbers from the same policy are worth writing down. Staff are told that “Inmates are limited to submitting one request per department per day,” and that “Ordinarily, if warranted, a response will be completed within 30 calendar days.” PS 5511.08 at p. 2. Read the qualifiers. This is the Bureau instructing its own staff, not a rule a court enforces, and it does not promise that every request gets an answer.

Block by block

The form is one page. Everything below is transcribed from the published PDF. It is a fillable PDF, so the printed labels extract cleanly but the ruled boxes and their positions do not — each block below is described by the label BOP printed on it, never by where it sits on the page.

Header: “BP-A0148 INMATE REQUEST TO STAFF CDFRM”

The top line carries the form number, the title in capitals, the letters “CDFRM,” and immediately beneath the form number a revision stamp reading JUNE 10. That stamp is the edition date of the form, not of the policy behind it — the form has not been reissued since the March 2026 Program Statement that changed how it is used. Under it sits the agency line: “U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE” left, “FEDERAL BUREAU OF PRISONS” right.

“TO:(Name and Title of Staff Member)” and “DATE:”

The first ruled row asks for a named individual and that person’s job title, not a department. This matters more than it looks: a cop-out addressed to “Medical” is addressed to nobody, and there is no one whose failure to answer can later be described. Write the counselor, the case manager, the unit manager, the clinical director — by name and title.

“DATE:” is filled in by the person making the request. It is the only date the requester controls, and it is what later shows when the informal attempt began.

“FROM:” and “REGISTER NO.:”

Name and eight-digit federal register number — the number by which every Bureau record system finds the person.

“WORK ASSIGNMENT:” and “UNIT:”

Detail and housing unit. These route the answer back and identify which unit team owns the issue.

“SUBJECT:” — the instruction block, and the only warning on the form

This is the largest block on the page and the one that decides whether the form does any work. The parenthetical instruction, printed above the writing space, reads in full:

“SUBJECT: (Briefly state your question or concern and the solution you are requesting. Continue on back, if necessary. Your failure to be specific may result in no action being taken. If necessary, you will be interviewed in order to successfully respond to your request.”

Reproduced verbatim from BP-A0148, p. 1. The open parenthesis is unclosed on the form as printed.

Four instructions are packed into those four lines:

1. State the question or concern — what happened, when, and who was involved.
2. State the solution you are requesting. The form asks for a remedy, not just a complaint. A cop-out that describes a problem without naming the fix invites a response that agrees the problem exists and does nothing about it.
3. “Continue on back, if necessary.” The reverse of the sheet is available. No page limit is stated.
4. “Your failure to be specific may result in no action being taken.” This is the closest thing to a warning anywhere on the document, and it is a warning about vagueness, not about honesty.

“(Do not write below this line)”

A centered instruction followed by a heavy rule. Everything above it belongs to the requester; everything below belongs to staff. Writing below the line is how a request gets returned unprocessed.

“DISPOSITION:”

The staff answer, and the block that turns a request into a record. Whatever a staff member says out loud in a hallway, the disposition box is what a Regional Director or a court will later see. A blank disposition box on a returned form is itself evidence: the request was submitted and not answered in writing.

“Signature Staff Member” and “Date”

Two fields at the foot of the disposition block. Note what is not here: there is no signature line for the person making the request. The BP-A0148 carries exactly one signature line, and it belongs to the staff member answering.

“Record Copy – File; Copy – Inmate”

The distribution line, printed verbatim. Two copies: one to the file, one to the requester. The inmate copy is the only proof the request was ever made. Keep it. Send a photocopy home if you can.

“Prescribed by P5511”

The authority line. “P5511” is the Bureau’s shorthand for the Program Statement in the 5511 series — the Inmate Request to Staff policy, currently 5511.08 — and that policy confirms it from the other direction: under the heading “Bureau Forms Prescribed by 5511.08” it lists a single form, “BP-A0148 Inmate Request to Staff.” PS 5511.08 at p. 3. This is a Program Statement number, not a regulation, and not a reference to 28 C.F.R. part 551.

“This form replaces BP-148.070 dated Oct 86 and BP-S148.070 APR 94”

The supersession line, printed verbatim. It records that the current form displaced an October 1986 edition and a separate April 1994 edition — the “S” in “BP-S148.070” marking the Spanish-language version of the old form.

“FILE IN SECTION 6 UNLESS APPROPRIATE FOR PRIVACY FOLDER SECTION 6”

The last line on the page, printed in bold capitals with “SECTION 6” repeated large at the right margin. It is a filing instruction to staff, and it tells you what happens to the paper: the record copy goes into Section 6 of the inmate central file, unless its contents belong in the privacy folder instead — the restricted section that holds medical and other protected material.

The practical consequence is that a cop-out is a permanent record, retrievable later through a FOIA or Privacy Act request and attachable to a grievance or a filing.

One printing oddity, visible on the published PDF: a second, truncated line reading “Prescribed by P” is overprinted across the “FILE IN SECTION 6” text — a leftover layer in the Bureau’s own file. It carries no information and is not a second authority reference.

What the form does not say

This is as important as what it does say, and no competitor page states it.

There is no Privacy Act notice. Most federal forms that collect personal information carry a Privacy Act statement explaining the authority for collection and the routine uses of the data. The BP-A0148 carries none.

There is no false-statement warning. Nothing on the form warns that a false statement is punishable, and nothing invokes 18 U.S.C. § 1001. That does not make lying on a cop-out consequence-free — the Bureau’s discipline program reaches false statements to staff independently — but the warning is not printed on the document.

There is no deadline anywhere on the form. No response time, no filing window, no expiry. The thirty-day figure people quote comes from Program Statement 5511.08 at p. 2, not from the form.

No regulation prescribes this form. No section of 28 C.F.R. names the BP-A0148 or any form number for an informal request. The form exists because a Program Statement prescribes it — and a Program Statement is the Bureau’s instruction to its own staff, not law.

The cop-out and the “BP-8”

In most federal institutions the BP-A0148 is also the vehicle for what staff and prisoners call the “BP-8” — the informal-resolution step that has to happen before a formal BP-9 is accepted.

Here is the honest position. BOP does not publish a form numbered BP-8, and the regulation requiring informal resolution names no form. Program Statement 1330.18 directs that “Each warden shall establish procedures to allow for the informal resolution of inmate complaints.” PS 1330.18 at p. 5. Those procedures are local: some institutions use a locally generated informal-resolution sheet, many use the BP-A0148, and the practice varies by institution and by unit.

Two provisions cushion that variation. The regulation allows an informal resolution attempt to “be waived in individual cases at the Warden or institution Administrative Remedy Coordinator’s discretion when the inmate demonstrates an acceptable reason for bypassing informal resolution,” and it exempts inmates in Community Corrections Centers entirely. 28 C.F.R. § 542.13. And Program Statement 1330.18 tells staff that if an inmate asks for the formal form and “nevertheless refuses to present a request informally, staff should provide the form for a formal Request.” PS 1330.18 at p. 5.

What happens after it is signed

The staff member writes in the disposition box, signs, dates, and returns a copy. The record copy goes to Section 6 of the central file. Nothing else is automatic: a cop-out starts no clock that a court enforces and creates no appealable decision.

What it does create is a dated, written record that a specific person was asked a specific question and gave — or did not give — a specific answer. That record is the raw material for everything that comes next: a formal Request for Administrative Remedy, a records request, a letter from counsel to the Warden, or an exhibit.

Applied Insight — Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, Managing Director: When we review a file, the cop-outs are often the most useful documents in it and almost always the thinnest. What makes one useful is a named recipient with a title, a date, one issue rather than five, a specific requested remedy, and a returned copy with the disposition box filled in — or visibly empty. What makes one useless is a request addressed to a department, a grievance with no ask, and no retained copy.

What to do if it is wrong

If the disposition misstates what you asked. Do not write on the returned form. File a fresh BP-A0148 to the same staff member, quote the disposition, and state the correction. Both forms are then in the file and the discrepancy is on the record.

If it comes back blank, or does not come back. Keep the fact and the date. Silence is not an appealable decision at this stage, but it is a documented informal attempt — which is what the next step needs.

If the issue is time-sensitive. The informal step is not a place to spend weeks, because the formal filing deadline runs from the underlying event rather than from the day a cop-out was answered. 28 C.F.R. § 542.14 sets the deadline for “completion of informal resolution and submission of a formal written Administrative Remedy Request, on the appropriate form (BP-9)” at “20 calendar days following the date on which the basis for the Request occurred.” How that period applies to any particular set of facts is a question for counsel; do not assume.

If the issue is medical, a sentence computation, or staff misconduct. These are where the informal step most often stalls. See medical and dental care in federal prison, reporting staff misconduct, good conduct time and First Step Act time credits.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Cop-Out (BP-A0148)

Reviewed for legal accuracy by Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney·September 2026