“You inherited a mess. I mean, you inherited a mess,” Congressman Kelly Armstrong (R-ND) said to Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters during her testimony Tuesday before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance hearing on Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. For Peters, it was her first testimony since the House and Senate passed the Federal Prison Oversight Act allowing Congress to have more say in addressing the myriad of problems faced by the BOP. The Oversight Act will allow the Office of Inspector General to conduct unannounced and unfettered access to the BOP’s 122 facilities across the country and creates an ombudsmen position to gather information from staff, prisoners and prisoners’ families on issues inside of prisons. Once the issues are identified, the BOP will have to correct it.
Director Peters said she welcomed the oversight and a prepared handout provided a candid and disturbing picture of the condition of the BOP. Peters took over the struggling agency with challenges of recruiting people to address staffing shortages and also addressing improvements to dilapidated facilities, many decades old. The help she needs is money, and a lot of it. The BOP is currently the largest part of the budget for the Department of Justice at $8.8 billion.
Peters said, “... our staffing crisis is very expensive as we rely on overtime, augmentation and incentives to keep our prisons operational. Last year alone, we paid more than $128 million in incentives and more than $345 million in overtime. I also want to note the human cost of overtime and augmentation which we know are incredibly difficult on our corrections professionals’ physical and mental health.” The BOP ranks last in employee satisfaction amount government agencies.
During a 60 Minutes interview earlier this year, Peters was caught off guard when asked about the problem of staff shortages but could not state the number of job openings that needed to be filled. She was armed with more information at this hearing, stating that a new Automated Staffing Tool, developed in response to a Government Accountability Office audit finding, projects that BOP need about 3,000 additional correctional officers (COs), a 21% increase from our current corps of 14,900. The staffing levels are even at a more critical level as the same tool also projects that BOP need about 3,000 addition medical positions, a 72% increase from the current level of 3,600.
According to Director Peters, FCC Butner, which has a men’s medical center, two medium security facilities and a low security facility, has been unable to hire sufficient numbers of COs and medical professionals. In 2023, the BOP began offering a 10% group retention incentive for all eligible positions at FCC Butner. That proved insufficient to substantially increase staffing levels which remain at 80% overall and 75% for COs, and 70% for clinical medical positions. The lack of medical staff and COs go hand in hand. As there are more medical professionals, the need to take prisoners out for medical appointments increase as well, which requires more COs to handle the prisoners in the community when they have those doctor visits.
One way to help reduce the stress the agency is under is by reducing the number of prisoners in prisons, something that could be done with a full implementation of the First Step Act and Second Chance Act. Director Peters noted that the prison population has slightly increased over the past few years despite the legislation. Those two laws, both passed and signed into law under Republican administrations (Donald Trump and George W. Bush respectively), allow many low and minimum security prisoners to reduce their prison term by up to a year and also place them in the community (halfway houses) for longer periods of time.
An NBC News investigation found that the BOP is not placing as many people in the community as it could. The result is that many prisoners stay in correctional institutions far longer than necessary when less restrictive and less expensive prerelease custody (halfway house / home confinement) should be available. However, a noted shortage of halfway house space is preventing the BOP from placing more people in confinement in the community. Retired BOP Acting Director Hugh Hurwitz said, “Since the First Step Act was signed, the BOP knew it needed more capacity but nearly 6 years later, halfway house space continues to be a problem.”
Beyond staffing, the BOP’s aging institutions are a major problem and an expensive one to fix. Director Peters noted that the BOP has 122 facilities that occupy more than 64 million square feet and over a third of these facilities are over 50 years old and over half are over 30 years old. BOP has temporarily closed three institutions and 13 housing units at 11 institutions due to dangerous conditions. Those closings account for a loss of more than 4,000 beds at every security level, which adds to overcrowding at the remaining institutions.
Aaron McGlothin AFGE CPL-33 Local 1237 President FCI Mendota California applauded the Director’s comments but fears it is a little too late. “I think Director Peters sounded the right tone,” McGlothin said, “but this is something she should have started with earlier in her tenure.” McGlothin also said that FCI Mendota was the focus on an unannounced inspection by the Office of Inspector General in June. “McGlothin said, “I spent over 2 hours speaking with them [OIG] and I can tell you that it was not a good look for the BOP.”
McGlothin recently stated that the kitchen at the federal prison camp at Mendota was closed because of a shortage of staff. Meals for the camp inmates are now prepared at the main prison and taken over to the camp. There have also been almost continuous lockdowns at the facility due to both staffing issues and occurrences of contraband that seem out of control (cell phones, alcohol and tobacco are the most confiscated items).
McGlothin stated that the food served at that camp, which houses just over 120 prisoners, is not temperature controlled and the inmates are eating the meals in a camp dormitory where “there has been a big problem with rodents, bugs and unsanitary conditions.” Office of Inspector General is currently looking into food service at Mendota and five other institutions (USP McCreary, MCC Chicago, FCC Allenwood, FCC Pollock and FCI Marianna). McGlothin also stated that there are continued issues with augmentation, a practice implemented to assist in the staffing shortages where administrative and professional staff, such as medical and psychology personnel, are used to fill vacant correction officer positions. “Management wants professionals to man correction officer positions for 8 hours a day,” McGlothin said, “that’s not augmentation, that’s a reassignment.”
It may take time for the BOP to turn things around. The budget for 2024 is set and there is no money appropriated for the new bill.
