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TEN MONTHS IN, COLETTE PETERS’ JOB HAS NOT GOTTEN EASIER

Last week, Walter Pavlo – usually a strident critic of the Bureau of Prisons – wrote a somewhat hagiographic report on BOP Director Colette Peters’ efforts to change the direction of the agency.

Pavlo reported on the BOP’s late-April conference in Colorado of every warden and regional director in the BOP for a bi-annual meeting in Aurora, Colorado. “As part of the event,” Pavlo recounted, Peters “had those who were formerly incarcerated address the group to be a part of what Director Peters calls ‘Listening Sessions’. We… were provided a stage to speak to this group of corrections executives to talk about the challenges facing the BOP. In looking at the faces of those in the audience, it was a bit of a shock for them to hear from former inmates about how to better run a prison, but such is the new approach by Director Peters, who also promised a listening session from victims of crime as well. At the conclusion of the presentation, the audience politely applauded and Director Peters then rose from her chair to emphasize the importance of the event. Slowly, but surely, those wardens and regional directors also rose to show their appreciation, or their perceived buy-in of the event. Time will tell.”

Last week, Peters told Federal News Network that her greatest challenge is to be at BOP long enough to change the “we be’s” employed by the agency. “’We be’ here when you got here, ‘we be’ here when you leave,” she said. “And what I tell people is that isn’t what happened in Oregon. I was able to stay for ten years. I hope I’m able to have a significant tenure here in order to make that happen. But you are absolutely right. Real change happens, boots on the ground. It’s the wardens that we need to lean into. It’s the captains we need to lean into. It’s the lieutenants that can really, really establish and set that culture.”

One thing Peters has in abundance is challenges. The DOJ Office of Inspector General reported in May on decaying BOP facilities and just last week told ABC News, “We’re seeing crumbling prisons. We’re seeing buildings that we go into that have actually holes in the ceilings in multiple places, leading to damages to kitchens, to doctor’s offices to gymnasiums. And they’re not being fixed.”

Earlier this month, the Government Accountability Office added the BOP to its ‘H List,’ citing the “BOP’s longstanding challenges managing staff and resources, and planning and evaluating programs that help incarcerated people have a successful return to the community.” The Partnership for Public Service recently issued its annual survey of the best and worst places to work in the government and the BOP ranked dead last among 432 agencies.

The BOP sex abuse scandal continues to fester, but it’s a good sign that the DOJ is being very public about it. Last week, the US Attorney in the Northern District of Florida announced that former recreation CO Lenton Hatten pled guilty to a one-count indictment charging him with sexual abuse of a female inmate at FCI Tallahassee.

Pavlo argues that “Colette Peters is a different leader but she is indeed a leader who is not afraid to establish a new direction for an Agency that is searching for one. Even if those who are in the BOP disagree with Peters’ approach, they all know that the path the Agency is on is not sustainable without change. Director Peters has, for now, the support of Congress, something that her predecessor lacked.”

Forbes, Colette Peters’ Challenge: Change The Culture Of The Bureau Of Prisons (May 22, 2023)

Federal News Network, How BOP Director Colette Peters plans to raise employee engagement (May 26, 2023)

ABC, Inside the crisis of the crumbling federal prison system (May 26, 2023)

US Attorney Northern District, Fla, Former Federal Correctional Officer Pleads Guilty To Sexual Abuse Of An Inmate (May 26, 2023)

– Thomas L. Root