Among the most important challenges facing the U.S. Department of Justice (the Department or DOJ) is the long-standing crisis facing the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). As Inspector General Michael Horowitz detailed in congressional testimony earlier this year, these recurring, chronic problems have been well over a decade in the making. Indeed, over the past 20 years, the OIG has issued over 100 reports detailing these serious systemic issues facing the BOP. The Office of the Inspector General’s (OIG) oversight reports have identified recurring issues that impede the BOP’s efforts to consistently ensure the health, safety, and security of all staff and inmates within its custody. Last year, the Comptroller General for the first time added the BOP to the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s high-risk list due to its “long-standing challenges with managing staff and resources, and planning and evaluating programs that help incarcerated people successfully return to the community.” Addressing these challenges at the BOP will not only require the sustained and serious attention of the BOP Director and the Department leadership, but also of the Office of Management and Budget and Congress.
Among the many challenges facing the BOP is its persistent inability to address staffing shortages in key positions, lack of sufficient funding to repair its crumbling infrastructure, and the introduction of contraband at its prisons. These staffing, infrastructure, and contraband issues have seriously compromised the safety and security of staff and inmates. The BOP has undertaken BOP-wide efforts to determine the staffing needs of its facilities, how its salary structure impacts its ability to recruit and retain employees, and the amount of funding it needs to repair and maintain its facilities.
Another particularly serious challenge facing the BOP, and the Department, is the continuing problem of sexual assault of inmates by BOP personnel. The OIG continues to dedicate significant investigative resources to these cases, as evidenced by our ongoing investigative efforts at Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Dublin, where the Warden, Chaplain, and other staff have been convicted on sex abuse charges.
The OIG’s investigation at FCI Dublin demonstrates what can happen when misconduct is not timely identified and addressed, and instead spirals and poisons the culture of an institution. The Department has taken several important and positive actions in an effort to address these issues, including the Deputy Attorney General’s convening of a working group to review the BOP’s and DOJ’s response to sexual misconduct by DOJ personnel; in November 2022, the Working Group issued a report that contained numerous recommendations and reforms, which the OIG supports. Further, the Deputy Attorney General has repeatedly emphasized to U.S. Attorneys and federal prosecutors the importance of prosecuting sexual assault cases, as well as other criminal actions by BOP employees, including contraband smuggling. This has led to an increase in the number of OIG investigations being accepted for prosecution—which both ensures accountability for those BOP employees who engage in wrongdoing and sends an important deterrent message to BOP staff that engaging in criminal activity can result in a felony conviction and sentence of incarceration.
In FY 2024, the OIG focused its non-investigative resources on oversight of the BOP through unannounced inspections of nine institutions, as well as audits and evaluations of institutional safety, BOP programs, contracts, and facilities. The OIG’s unannounced inspections program conducted inspections at FCI Sheridan, FCI Lewisburg, and Federal Medical Center Devens, as well as the food services operations at six BOP institutions.
Additionally, the OIG published an Evaluation of Issues Surrounding Inmate Deaths in Federal Bureau of Prisons Institutions, which detailed the serious contributory risks that contribute to suicides of inmates and need to be addressed, including poor communication, contraband, and lack of information, and issued a Management Advisory Memorandum (MAM) in which we highlighted concerns about the BOP’s use of temporary secure enclosures with limited space for long periods of time. Other oversight of the BOP that the OIG conducted this past year included a review of the BOP’s contract with the American Correctional Association to obtain reaccreditation, which we found did not add value or improve the BOP’s operations and programs.
The BOP has since ended its contractual relationship with the American Correctional Association for accreditation and reaccreditation services.
OIG Ongoing Work: Inspections of Six BOP Facilities–Food Service Operations
Following up on our findings during an unannounced inspection last year at FCI Tallahassee, in June 2024, we conducted six unannounced, concurrent inspections of food services operations at the following BOP institutions:
- U.S. Penitentiary McCreary, Kentucky;
- Metropolitan Correctional Center Chicago, Illinois;
- Federal Correctional Complex Allenwood, Pennsylvania;
- Federal Correctional Complex Pollock, Louisiana;
- FCI Marianna, Florida; and
- FCI Mendota, California.
We expect to report on those inspections during the first quarter of fiscal year (FY) 2025.
Source: OIG May 2023 and June 2024
On July 25, 2024, the Federal Prison Oversight Act was signed into law. The Act, which the OIG supports, seeks to improve BOP oversight by expanding the OIG’s risk-based inspections of the BOP’s correctional facilities and establishing an independent BOP Ombudsman to receive and investigate complaints.
As we have consistently seen through our oversight work, understaffed prisons with overburdened employees create security and safety issues. We have repeatedly found, including during our unannounced inspections at FCI Waseca, FCI Tallahassee, FCI Sheridan, and FCI Lewisburg, that significant Correctional Officer (CO) staffing shortages have a cascading effect on institution operations, often requiring substantial use of overtime, including mandatory overtime, and the temporary reassignment of non-CO staff to work in CO posts (a practice known as augmentation). This use of augmentation affects the ability of these non-COs to conduct their routine duties, which include performing maintenance and teaching inmate programs, including First Step Act programs. Moreover, the routine use of overtime—whether voluntary or mandatory—can negatively affect staff morale and attentiveness and, therefore, institution safety and security.
In February 2024, the OIG issued a report evaluating inmate deaths in BOP institutions and found that one particularly serious consequence of the BOP’s staffing shortages was an impairment of its ability to reduce the risk of inmate deaths. In particular, the report detailed how the understaffing of Health and Psychology Services positions limited an institution’s ability to provide treatment and programs that can help mitigate the risk of inmate deaths. The OIG found that the use of augmentation or overtime to compensate for staff shortages overburdened existing staff and potentially contributed to staff fatigue, sleep deprivation, decreased vigilance, and inattentiveness to duty. Similarly, the OIG’s unannounced inspection of FCI Tallahassee detailed how healthcare staffing shortages at that facility negatively affected inmate healthcare treatment. Similarly, the OIG’s unannounced inspection of FCI Sheridan in November and December 2023, identified glaring healthcare staffing shortages that resulted in a substantial backlog of healthcare treatment.
In a report issued by the BOP in April 2023, the BOP described strategies to address staffing issues, including its reliance on augmentation and overtime. Among other things, the report described a contract awarded by the BOP in June 2021 to produce a system-wide staffing assessment, as well as targeted hiring campaigns and recruitment incentives. The BOP reported that the contractor was scheduled to complete the first phase of implementation of an automated staffing tool for Correctional Services in July 2023. The U.S. Government Accountability Office reported that, as of March 2024, the BOP estimated the tool would be fully implemented by October 2024. However, the OIG has identified through its inspections program, concerns expressed by BOP institutional managers with the preliminary staffing levels projected by the contractor’s staffing tool.
Moreover, we observed significant variations between institutions’ currently authorized staffing levels as supplemented by the use of overtime and the projected staffing levels provided by the contractor’s staffing tool during our inspection in February 2024; our FCI Lewisburg inspection report discusses these variations. The BOP’s ability to effectively address its staffing issues in corrections, healthcare, education, training, facilities, and other areas will continue to be impaired unless and until it can determine how much staff it actually needs at each of its facilities. Similarly, the BOP’s ability to recruit and retain staff will be impaired until it can determine the salary scale that is needed to attract talented individuals to work in its institutions.
Evidence of water intrusion from the roof, with plastic covering a single-level housing unit ceiling during FCI Tallahassee inspection.
Source: OIG, May 2023
The BOP continues to struggle with management and oversight of its facilities. As of February 2024, the BOP estimated that the major repairs needed across its facilities would cost $3 billion. During an OIG audit, we determined that all 123 of the BOP’s institutions required maintenance—finding, among other things, multiple facilities with seriously damaged and leaking roofs—and that conditions at three of its facilities had so substantially deteriorated that the BOP determined they had to be partially or fully closed. Further, we found that the BOP lacks a well-defined and comprehensive infrastructure strategy, which impacts its ability to plan for repairs and communicate needs to Executive Branch leadership and to Congress. The BOP does not have adequate funds to maintain its facilities because each year the Executive Branch requests a facilities budget for the BOP that is grossly inadequate to meet the BOP’s needs.
For example, the total budget DOJ requested for the BOP in FY 2025 was $8.809 billion, which was comprised of $8.549 billion for Salaries and Expenses and $260 million for Buildings and Facilities expenses. The request for Buildings and Facilities expenses, which includes funds for both new construction and for modernization and repair, is woefully lacking in view of the BOP’s estimate that it needs $3 billion for major infrastructure repairs. Moreover, we determined that this amount is well below the recommendation by the Federal Facilities Council to fund federal facilities maintenance programs at a minimum of 2 to 4 percent of their current replacement value on an annual basis, estimated to be $675 million to $1.3 billion in FY 2022.
Following our reporting last year as a result of inspections, audits, and evaluations on the crisis presented by the crumbling infrastructure at BOP institutions, the OIG has continued to find serious infrastructure and facilities issues during inspections at FCI Tallahassee, FCI Sheridan, and FCI Lewisburg that negatively affect the conditions of confinement. Specifically, the OIG found at FCI Tallahassee that some inmates in the female prison lived in housing units in which water frequently leaked from ceilings and windows on or near their living spaces. The OIG also observed poor conditions inside communal inmate bathrooms. According to Facilities Department staff, roofs covering inmate housing units at the female prison routinely leak and roofs covering all five of the general population inmate housing units needed to be replaced. At the time of the OIG inspection, FCI Tallahassee had requested and received approximately $3.6 million to replace windows in two of its housing units and to replace the roofs covering its administration building, education building, and Special Housing Unit building at the female prison. While these are necessary repairs, FCI Tallahassee had not yet requested or received funding to replace roofs covering the five general population housing units at the female prison. The OIG’s inspection of FCI Lewisburg also found infrastructure issues at the institution, including significant damage to the institution’s food service area as well as the need to replace much of the institution’s fire alarm system. BOP officials estimated the cost to address infrastructure issues at Lewisburg is more than $28 million.
At the time of the OIG inspection of FCI Sheridan, Facilities Department staff told us that many of the institution’s systems, including its heating and cooling systems, are approaching the end of their projected lifespan and need to be updated. They estimated the cost of this work to be $21.6 million. FCI Sheridan requested funds from the Western Regional Office to address these issues, however, due to the BOP’s limited budgetary resources for infrastructure repair and replacement, the request was unfunded at the time of the OIG inspection.
As identified in the OIG’s report on inmate deaths in federal custody, contraband drugs and weapons pose a significant risk to the health and safety of inmates, appearing to contribute to nearly one-third of the inmate deaths in our scope across the BOP from FYs 2014 through 2021. Common contraband items in BOP institutions include illicit drugs, such as synthetic cannabinoids, buprenorphine, and naloxone. Other contraband may be introduced through inmates who serve on work crews, e.g., sanitation and landscaping, outside the secure perimeter and have greater access to vast areas that abut public roads and lands, as was the case at FCI Tallahassee, where inmates were able to collect contraband from the area around the perimeter fencing while out of view of correctional staff. Additionally, contraband is often introduced into the secure correctional environment via unmanned aerial systems (drones), which can carry payloads up to 35 pounds.
Review of the BOP’s Contraband Interdiction Efforts
Our 2016 review of the BOP's efforts to prevent the introduction of contraband into federal prisons found that the recently implemented staff search policy was not effective enough to be a deterrent for staff introduction of contraband. Accordingly, we recommended that the BOP develop uniform guidelines and criteria for conducting random staff pat searches across all institutions that require a minimum frequency and duration for search events to ensure that appropriate numbers of staff on each shift are searched with appropriate frequency. The BOP concurred but has yet to provide an updated policy sufficient to close this priority recommendation and three other recommendations from the 2016 report to strengthen the staff search policy.
Source: June 2016
The OIG has repeatedly highlighted insufficiencies in BOP staff searches of inmates. The OIG noted that at FCI Tallahassee, a women’s institution, searches are rarely completed in part because the institution does not have enough female staff to conduct searches of female inmates, as required by the Prison Rape Elimination Act. This is just one more example of the cascading effect of the BOP’s ongoing staffing challenges. There also have been numerous additional instances throughout the BOP in which staff did not appear to have followed or fully executed certain correctional policies and procedures to identify and interdict contraband. As a result, the OIG also has a long-standing priority recommendation for the BOP to develop uniform guidelines and criteria for conducting random staff pat searches across all institutions that require a minimum frequency and duration for search events to ensure that appropriate numbers of staff on each shift are searched with appropriate frequency.
The OIG also has long recommended that the BOP upgrade cameras at its facilities for video surveillance. Security camera infrastructure technology in a prison environment is critical for monitoring inmate activities, including unauthorized behaviors, and preventing acts of violence, escape attempts, or the introduction of contraband. The presence of cameras serves as a deterrent to violence and allows for quick intervention should an incident arise. The OIG has found that deficiencies within the BOP’s security camera system have affected the OIG’s ability to secure prosecutions of staff and civilians in BOP contraband introduction cases, and these same problems adversely affect the availability of critical evidence to support administrative or disciplinary action against staff.
MAM: Notification of Needed Upgrades to the BOP’s Security Camera System
In a separate 2021 MAM, the OIG identified critical security lapses with the BOP's security camera system in relation to its coverage, functionality, and storage capabilities. The OIG recommended that the BOP develop a comprehensive strategic plan for transitioning to a fully digital security camera system that, among other things: a. identifies enhancements needed to address camera functionality and coverage deficiencies, b. provides cost projections and the BOP appropriations account to fund the upgrades, and c. includes an estimated timeline for completion of the work. This priority recommendation remains open.
Source: October 2021
For example, the OIG inspections at FCI Tallahassee revealed insufficient numbers of cameras, numerous blind spots, poor night-vision, poor zoom quality, and shortened retention periods for video footage. The OIG also observed that digital video recording equipment would only retain footage for a 14-day period in some instances. A 14-day recording timeframe does not allow for investigative follow-up should an incident occur that requires further examination and investigation. Staff at FCI Tallahassee told us that some allegations are reported more than 14 days after the incident has occurred. In other institutions such as FCI Sheridan, the OIG was able to review video footage that was captured 2 months prior to our inspection. Greater consistency is needed throughout BOP institutions with respect to video recording capabilities.
Congressional passage of the Prison Camera Reform Act of 2021 was an important and positive step in addressing this problem and the BOP is making efforts to upgrade equipment and coverage system-wide; however, progress has been slow.