“You inherited a mess. I mean, you inherited a mess,” Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND) told federal prison director Colette Peters during testimony Tuesday before a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing hearing on oversight of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). For Peters, it was her first testimony since Congress passed the Federal Prison Oversight Act, which was signed Thursday by President Biden. It allows lawmakers to have more say in addressing the myriad of problems faced by the BOP. The law allows the Office of Inspector General to conduct unannounced and unfettered access to the BOP’s 122 facilities across the U.S. and creates an ombudsmen position to gather information from staff, prisoners and prisoners’ families. Peters said she welcomed the oversight and issued a handout providing a candid and disturbing picture of the agency. Peters took over facing challenges of recruiting people to address staffing shortages and addressing improvements to dilapidated facilities, many decades old. The help she needs is money, and a lot of it. BOP is the largest part of the Justice Department budget at $8.8 billion, reports Forbes.
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." She said the personnel issues are "incredibly difficult on our corrections professionals’ physical and mental health.” The BOP ranks last in employee satisfaction among government agencies. During a 60 Minutes interview this year, Peters was caught off guard when asked about the problem of staff shortages and could not state the number of jobs 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 needs about 3,000 additional correctional officers (COs), a 21% increase from the current corps of 14,900. The same tool also projects that BOP needs about 3,000 addition medical positions, a 72% increase from the current 3,600. Peters said the Butner prison in North Carolina, which has a men’s medical center, two medium security facilities and a low security facility, has been unable to hire sufficient numbers of officers and medical professionals. In 2023, the BOP began offering a 10% group retention incentive for all eligible positions at Butner. That proved insufficient to substantially increase staffing levels, which remain at 80%.
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