4 Home Democrats demanded the highest Federal Bureau of Prisons official clarify how he plans to deal with the company’s “persistent, unsafe situations” and “pervasive scarcity of essential workers,” pushed partially by corrections officers fleeing the bureau for extra profitable jobs at Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Outlined in a six-page letter despatched Friday to BOP Director William Marshall III, the lawmakers’ questions come after a ProPublica investigation discovered that employees at federal lockups from Florida to California had been lured away by the $50,000 beginning bonus and better pay at ICE, which greater than doubled its variety of officers and brokers final yr in the course of the Trump administration’s monthslong recruiting blitz. The prisons bureau, in the meantime, misplaced a web of greater than 1,800 employees final yr.
“We’re deeply involved that these developments compromise the protection and safety of each inmates and workers,” Reps. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Lucy McBath of Georgia, Jasmine Crockett of Texas and Joe Neguse of Colorado wrote of their letter. “The shrinking current workforce has been left to deal with an ever-growing use of additional time, which results in fatigue, burnout, and elevated attrition.”
The representatives mentioned that quick staffing, in flip, has led to extra lockdowns, extra violence and fewer entry to recidivism-reducing packages for prisoners. Their letter additionally raised questions concerning the cancellation of the union contract, which they famous critics have mentioned “seems retaliatory,” and the continuing reliance on “augmentation” — the apply of forcing nurses, academics and plumbers who work within the prisons to fill in as corrections officers — to plug staffing gaps.
“We imagine these deeply troubling points require concrete solutions,” the lawmakers wrote. They set a 30-day deadline for the bureau to reply in writing.
Jail union officers have additionally pressed the case, urging lawmakers to insist that Marshall and his deputy, Josh Smith, testify earlier than Congress on the problem.
The jail company declined to reply questions from ProPublica concerning the lawmakers’ letter, saying it could reply on to Congress.
In an announcement, a spokesperson mentioned that the BOP “continues to prioritize efforts” to extend staffing, including that some workers will at all times need to step in as corrections officers “for the protection and safety of workers, inmates and the general public.”
The BOP has lengthy struggled to rent and retain sufficient employees to workers its services, the place roughly 34,700 staff are chargeable for greater than 138,000 prisoners. As of 2023, union officers mentioned some 40% of corrections officer jobs remained vacant. That very same yr, the shortage of workers helped land the jail system on a authorities checklist of high-risk companies with critical vulnerabilities.
As a part of a long-term hiring push, the bureau turned to signing bonuses, retention pay and a fast-tracked hiring course of. Though these efforts drew in a web of greater than 1,200 folks in 2024 — the bureau’s largest workforce improve in a decade — the price of hiring incentives, together with raises, additional time and inflation, strained an already-stagnant finances.
Early final yr, the company paused hiring and retention incentives to save cash, a transfer that threatened to undermine the prior yr’s staffing features. Nonetheless, the monetary pressure continued and, by the autumn, dozens of workers and prisoners had been telling ProPublica about uncommon scarcities in services throughout the nation. Some prisons fell behind on utility and trash payments, whereas others ran out of staple meals together with eggs and beef. At one level, a jail in Louisiana got here inside days of operating out of meals for inmates earlier than union officers intervened and urged company leaders to repair the issue.
Of their letter final week, the representatives mentioned they had been “alarmed” by the monetary shortfalls ProPublica reported, in addition to by the worsening staffing figures. Final yr, the bureau’s web lack of staff was bigger than in another yr since 2017, in accordance with information ProPublica obtained via an open information request.
With a dwindling workforce, the bureau’s additional time prices have soared. Based on a latest Congressional Analysis Service report, in 2025 the federal jail system spent greater than $387 million on additional time, a quantity surpassed solely as soon as up to now decade.
A number of jail officers who requested to stay nameless informed ProPublica this month that officers at some services are sometimes compelled to work two to 4 double shifts per week, typically placing in so many additional time hours that prisoners have expressed concern.
“The one ones who prefer it are the predatory inmates,” one corrections officer informed ProPublica. “Inmates don’t like tremendous cops, however they at the least need to really feel like if they’re attacked, somebody will see it and cease it as shortly as they will. You ain’t getting that with a CO on a double who can barely hold his eyes open.”
In the meantime, the lawmakers mentioned they had been “gravely involved” about a few of the methods BOP leaders have tried to save cash and decrease using additional time, together with by locking down services and skimping on workers, which, lawmakers mentioned, the bureau then tried to cowl up.
When the Workplace of Inspector Normal visited one facility final yr, the housing items had been all properly staffed, “a trick” the lawmakers mentioned was achieved solely by excessive use of augmentation. “Reportedly, after the go to, the ability instantly resumed short-staffing items,” the lawmakers wrote. “Committee workers have reviewed housing unit staffing and augmentation rosters documenting this obvious effort to mislead the OIG.”
Final yr, jail staff labored greater than 700,000 augmentation hours, essentially the most in any single yr for at the least a decade, in accordance with the Congressional Analysis Service report.
“That’s why I left,” one former jail official informed ProPublica final yr, explaining that he selected to retire as a substitute of being compelled to desert his duties resolving discrimination complaints to as a substitute work as an officer on a housing unit two days every week.
