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PETERS TAKES BOP HELM
Colette S. Peters was sworn in as the Bureau of Prisons 12th director last week, as the Biden administration looks to reform what the Associated Press called a “beleaguered agency.”
Peters, the former director of the Oregon state prison system, replaced Michael Carvajal, who submitted his resignation in January but stayed in his post until a new director was named. Carvajal announced his retirement amid mounting pressure from Congress, after AP investigations by exposed widespread corruption, misconduct, and sexual abuse of female inmates.
Citing the Benedictine principles of love of neighbor, service, stewardship, justice and peace, Peters said at her investiture that “our mission is twofold: to ensure safe prisons and humane and sound correctional practices so that people reenter society as productive citizens. Our job is not to make good inmates; it is to make good neighbors… I believe in good government, I believe in transparency, and I know we cannot do this work alone. We must come to this work with our arms wide open.”
Peters replaces Carvajal as BOP director only a week after a Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations hearing on BOP mismanagement of USP Atlanta. After being forced by subpoena to appear, Carvajal “refused to accept responsibility for a culture of corruption and misconduct that has plagued his agency for years, angering both Democratic and Republican senators,” AP reported.
Writing in Forbes, Walter Pavlo said, “Often frustrated by Carvajal, the subcommittee insisted that Carvajal stop talking about the organization chart in the BOP that prevented important information from reaching his desk.” Subcommittee chairman Sen Jon Ossoff (D-GA), told Carvajal that issues plaguing the BOP “are deeper than your leadership personally. This is clearly a diseased bureaucracy, and it speaks ill to our national values and our national spirit that we let this persist year after year and decade after decade. And if this country is going to be real about the principles at the core of our founding, and our highest ideals, then it can change at the Bureau of Prisons… And it has to happen right now. And with your departure and the arrival of a new director. I hope that moment has arrived.”
During her 10 years at Oregon DOC director, Peters built a reputation as a reformer, vowing to reduce the use of solitary confinement and even banning the use of the term “inmate” in favor of “adult in custody.” Like her counterparts in California and North Dakota, Peters visited Norway five years ago, hoping tobringing a gentler model of incarceration back to the United States.
But as The Marshall Project observed last week, “American prisons are still a long way from Europe’s, and even the most innovative corrections leaders here have overseen horrific living conditions in their prisons and abuse from their staff. In picking Peters to run the Bureau of Prisons, the Biden administration has brought local and state debates to a national stage: Can this new generation of prison leaders, who use words like “dignity” and “humanity,” actually make lives better for the men and women under their control?”
Kevin Ring, president of FAMM, said last week that worrying about who runs the BOP r may be focusing on the wrong problem. “I’m less concerned about who the BOP director is than whether we have an independent oversight mechanism in place,” Ring told The Marshall Project. Although the BOP has an inspector general to perform audits, FAMM has been pushing for legislation to create an oversight body with the authorization and funding to do regular site visits and unannounced inspections.
“During Carvajal’s tenure, the BOP has been a black box,” Ring said in a news release last month. “When COVID began spreading in federal prisons and families’ fears were at their greatest, Carvajal and the BOP somehow became less transparent. The BOP’s opaqueness felt like cruelty. We hope the incoming secretary is prepared to make significant changes to a system badly in need of them.”
Sen Richard Durbin (D-IL), chairman of the Judiciary Committee and Carvajal’s harshest Senate critic, said after meeting with Peters last week, “I’m more hopeful than ever that with Director Peters, Attorney General Garland and Deputy Attorney General Monaco have chosen the right leader to clear out the rot and reform BOP.”
Fox News, AG Garland swears in new director of the federal Bureau of Prisons, pushes for reform (August 2, 2022)
Forbes, Bureau Of Prisons Director Carvajal Leaves Behind A Tainted Legacy Void Of Accountability (July 31, 2022)
The Marshall Project, She Tried to ‘Humanize’ Prisons in Oregon. Can She Fix the Federal System? (August 4, 2022)
Reason, Biden’s New Bureau of Prisons Director Won’t be Able To Run Away From the Agency’s Corruption (August 1, 2022)
Shaw Local News, Durbin meets with newly sworn-in director of federal prisons (August 3, 2022)
– Thomas L. Root