Tag Archives: BOP

A Short Rocket – Update for January 29, 2026

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

Today, some short takes from last week…

ICYMI…

Money, That’s What I Want – Bipartisan bills have been introduced in the Senate and House (S.3626 and H.R.7033) to address what sponsors called “historic and persistent staffing shortages at federal prisons” by providing a 35% salary increase to Bureau of Prisons correctional staff nationwide.

Sponsors are Sen Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and David McCormick (R-PA) in the Senate and Reps Dan Goldman (D-NY) and Rob Bresnahan (R-PA) in the House.

S.3626, A bill to amend title 5, United States Code, to improve recruitment and retention of Federal correctional officers (January 13, 2026)

H.R.7033 – Federal Correctional Officer Paycheck Protection Act of 2026 (January 13, 2026)

FedWeek, Bills Proposed to Boost Bureau of Prisons Pay by 35% (January 20, 2026)

The Plot Thickens – Last week, I reported on a handful of clemencies issued to some fraudsters, some people with long-forgotten offenses, and a few drug defendants. One was a commutation granted to James Womack, whose 96-month meth distribution sentence was cut short after only a couple of years.

When I wrote the piece last week, Jim’s commutation didn’t seem to me to fit the “clemency for the rich and famous” theme coming from White House in the last year. But it turns out it does. Jimmy’s dad is Rep Steve Womack (R-AR), “a long-time Trump ally who was endorsed by the president during his most recent re-election campaign,” according to Daily Beast.

To make matters more complex, the White House said the commutation was in part due to Jim’s mother’s cancer diagnosis. Jim was released on Jan 15. His mother died three days later. While the circumstances are sad, federal prisoners losing parents, siblings and children while being imprisoned is all too common, while furloughs for final goodbyes and funerals – let alone commutations because of the loss – as rare as hen’s teeth.

Daily Beast, Trump Frees MAGA Rep’s Meth Dealer Son in Pardon Spree (January 17, 2026)

KATV, Terri Womack, wife of Arkansas Congressman Steve Womack, dies at 68 (January 20, 2026)


Justice Jackson Dissents IFP Denials – Last week, the Supreme Court denied Danny Howell, an Indiana state prisoner, leave to proceed in forma pauperis (IFP), holding that because “the petitioner has repeatedly abused this Court’s process,” he could not file any more petitions unless he prepaid the $300 filing fee. The decision is one of hundreds following the Court’s 1992 decision permitting such bans in Martin v DC Court of Appeals.

Martin was an abusive filer, submitting 54 IFP filings in 10 years. But Martin dissenters feared that what started as a rare step would turn out to be “merely the prelude” to a more habitual shutting of the courthouse doors.

Pointing out that Danny Howell had only filed six petitions over 14 years, Justice Jackson last week wrote that “[b]y my count, the Court has now invoked Martin hundreds of times to prospectively bar indigent litigants from filing in forma pauperis. We no longer wait for a petitioner to inundate the Court with frivolous filings. Instead, we reflexively ‘Martinize’ petitioners after only a few petitions… In my view, such a restriction foolishly trades a pound of values for an ounce of convenience… the Court now blocks indigent incarcerated individuals from ever more accessing our courthouse, just to avoid a minor administrative burden.”

Indiana ex rel. Howell v. Circuit Court, Case No 25-5557, 2026 U.S. LEXIS 495 (Jan 20, 2026)

Martin v. District of Columbia Court of Appeals, 506 U.S. 1 (1992) (per curiam).

~ Thomas L. Root

Something for the Ladies – Update for December 26, 2025

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

THE WOMEN ARE RESTLESS…

More Dublin Lawsuits Expected:  Nearly 300 women who were incarcerated at the now-closed FCI Dublin prison are expected to file sexual assault claims against the Bureau of Prisons, after 103 women won an unprecedented $116 million from the agency exactly one year ago. 

AUSA Jevechius Bernardoni told US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers (ED Cal.) last week that the BOP expects a Round 2 “total of 280 cases” to be filed within the next six months against the agency and individual correctional officers, bringing the total of Dublin sex abuse cases to nearly 400.

Deborah Golden, an attorney representing dozens of the women claiming abuse at FCI Dublin, said, “There could even be a Round 3.” Then-BOP Director Colette Peters ordered FCI Dublin closed and the inmates moved to other facilities in April 2024, expressing frustration at the BOP’s inability to change the abusive nature of the facility.

KTVU-TV, FCI Dublin: Nearly 300 more women expected to file sex assault claims vs. BOP (December 17, 2025)

Associated Press, US to pay nearly $116M to settle lawsuits over rampant sexual abuse at California women’s prison (December 17, 2024)

FMC Carswell Prisoners Missing Dialysis, Report Alleges:  Women prisoners at FMC Carswell allege in court filings, medical records, expert reviews and interviews that the Bureau of Prisons is providing inadequate dialysis care, putting their lives and health at risk, according to the Marshall Project. 

Carswell is the BOP’s only women’s medical center and its only facility providing in-patient dialysis for women.

Lawyers, doctors, former prison officials and incarcerated women describe missed or shortened dialysis treatments, broken or poorly maintained machines, water system failures, inadequate patient education and serious infection risks. Medical experts who reviewed the allegations said the conditions described could be preventable and potentially fatal.

Despite these concerns, the complaints allege, the BOP operates with little external oversight of its medical care. The Marshall Project said that judges overseeing compassionate release requests have said they lack authority to intervene broadly even when testimony raises significant concerns.

The Marshall Project, Women Are Sent to This Federal Prison for Dialysis. They Say It’s Killing Them. (December 16, 2025)

~ Thomas  L. Root

Journalist ISO BOP Source – Update for December 12, 2025

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

PROPUBLICA LOOKING FOR BOP WHISTLEBLOWERS

The investigative journalism nonprofit ProPublica is inviting BOP employees and others with “sensitive information” about the agency to provide their stories to ProPublica.

Reporter Keri Blakinger, who has been investigating the federal prison system for several years, wrote that she is “especially interested in tips about the leadership’s priorities, contracting and budget decisions, and concerns about wrongdoing or abuses of power. And I’m always interested in any documents or data you can share to paint a fuller picture of what’s going on inside the bureau.”

Blakinger broke the story several weeks ago that BOP correctional officers were abandoning the agency after bonuses were canceled, the union contract was scrapped, and the staff was deprived of basic needs from toilet paper to food. Many were lured away by better pay at Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Three weeks ago, Blakinger reported that Deputy Director Joshua Smith’s video announcing the return of “significantly enhanced” retention incentives and one-time bonuses, paid for in part from savings from the canceled union contract – angered BOP union officials, who said the video was “designed to create a narrative that the union was the problem” and that canceling the contract somehow “fixed” it.

Blakinger wrote, “If you are a current prison employee or you have particularly sensitive information to share, you can contact me directly through Signal at KeriB.123.”

ProPublica, Do You Work at a Federal Prison? Help ProPublica Investigate the Federal Prison System (November 26, 2025)

BOP, Video Message from the Deputy Director: A Bureau on the Brink (November 19, 2025)

~ Thomas L. Root

BOP To Close Terminal Island – Update for December 1, 2025

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

TERMINAL ISLAND CLOSING AS BOP RAMPS UP INFRASTRUCTURE REPAIR

The Federal Bureau of Prisons is closing FCI Terminal Island – located near Long Beach, California, near Los Angeles – over concerns about crumbling infrastructure, according to an internal memo obtained last week by the Associated Press.

Director William K. Marshall III told BOP staff on Tuesday that the agency is suspending operations at Terminal Island, a low-security prison south of Los Angeles that currently houses 952 inmates. The decision to close the facility “is not easy, but is absolutely necessary,” Marshall wrote, calling it a matter of “safety, common sense, and doing what is right for the people who work and live inside that institution.”

Marshall said if the prison remains open, falling concrete in tunnels that deliver infrastructure could hurt workers or create a prison-wide emergency. “There is a very real risk that falling concrete could strike the steam lines,” he wrote. “If that happens, heat to the institution could be lost instantly, creating an emergency that could require the evacuation of nearly 1,000 inmates in a matter of hours. We are not going to wait for a crisis. We are not going to gamble with lives. And we are not going to expect people to work or live in conditions that we would never accept for ourselves.”

The 87-year-old Terminal Island facility is the latest prison to be targeted for closure as the BOP struggles with mounting staff vacancies, a $4 billion repair backlog, and an expanded mission to support President Trump’s immigration crackdown and to invest billions in a rebuilt Alcatraz prison.

In a statement to Government Executive, a BOP spokeswoman said efforts to protect staff and inmates at the facility will begin immediately. “A strategic and targeted approach will be used to relocate inmates currently housed at FCI Terminal Island to other locations across the agency,” she said. “Several placement options are being evaluated, with a priority on keeping individuals as close as possible to their anticipated release locations.”

BOP said decisions regarding what to do about the facility, including whether and how to repair it, will wait until a “further assessment” of the situation there. News of the planned evacuation came just days after the agency touted $2 billion in funding to address deferred maintenance priorities across the federal prison system from this year’s budget reconciliation law.

According to the Los Angeles Times, an assessment last year revealed that Terminal Island needs $110 million in repairs over the next 20 years, raising questions about whether the BOP will ever be in a position to move inmates back to the facility.

In late 2024, the BOP announced that seven other facilities would be shuttered. The decision to close one, FPC Duluth, was reversed, but the others have been decommissioned.

The report that Terminal Island will close came only a few days after BOP Deputy Director Joshua Smith released a video message to BOP staff reporting that $2 billion had become available for repair of BOP infrastructure. He said the BOP hasn’t

wasted a minute. We began with the simplest most commonsense step imaginable. We looked at how money was actually being spent, and what we found was jaw-dropping. Entire complexes that included two USP’s getting only $1.8 million, while a standalone USP somehow got $2 [million]. No rhyme, no reason, just the same old good old boy system deciding whose friends got taken care of.

Smith said that facilities, functions planning, construction, maintenance, and environmental energy – roughly 2000 positions within the institutions – will report to his office. “This isn’t bureaucracy for bureaucracy’s sake,” Smith said. “That’s how we get things done, centralized oversight, national prioritization, real accountability, and the kind of data-driven decision making that finally lets us attack the backlog instead of just talking about it.”

The infrastructure program will depend on training inmates in skilled trades and having them work on infrastructure repair in positions that pay on a scale with UNICOR.

Associated Press, Federal Bureau of Prisons says falling concrete is forcing it to close a prison near Los Angeles (November 25, 2025)

Government Executive, Bureau of Prisons to ‘suspend operations’ at California penitentiary (November 25, 2025)

KABC-TV, San Pedro prison to suspend operations amid concerns over falling concrete (November 25, 2025)

Los Angeles Times, Crumbling ceilings in underground tunnels force closure of Terminal Island prison (November 26, 2025)

BOP, A New Era For Facilities (November 22, 2025)

~ Thomas L. Root

Bureau of Prisons Slipping on ICE – Update for November 25, 2025

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

THAT GIANT SUCKING SOUND…

Remember H. Ross Perot? During his unsuccessful third-party bid for president in 1992, he warned that the “giant sucking sound” we all heard was the sound of jobs going to Mexico.

It turns out that Bureau of Prisons director William K. Marshall III is hearing one of his own, the sound of BOP correctional officers quitting for the gold-plated working conditions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Last week, Pro Publica reported that “ICE has been on a recruiting blitz, offering $50,000 starting bonuses and tuition reimbursement at an agency that has long offered better pay than the federal prison system. For many corrections officers, it’s been an easy sell.”

By the start of November, the BOP had lost at least 1,400 more staff this year than it had hired, according to ProPublica. “We’re broken and we’re being poached by ICE,” one union official told ProPublica. “It’s unbelievable. People are leaving in droves.”

The exodus comes amid shortages of critical supplies. Staffers told Pro Publica that some facilities had even stopped providing basic hygiene items for officers, such as paper towels, soap and toilet paper.

Fewer corrections officers result in more lockdowns, less programming, fewer health care services for inmates, greater risks to staff, and more grueling hours of mandatory overtime. Prison teachers and medical staff are being forced to step in as corrections officers on a regular basis.

In a video posted last Wednesday afternoon, Deputy Director Josh Smith said that the agency was “left in shambles by the previous administration” and would take years to repair. Staffing levels, he said, were “catastrophic,” which, along with crumbling infrastructure and corruption, had made the prisons less safe.

He also frankly appraised the agency’s approach to the First Step Act:

The First Step Act was sabotaged by the Biden DOJ and BOP.  They have mismanaged millions meant for FSA implementation – building a time credit calculator that has never worked right – and FSA programming required by the law never materialized. Instead, they hired an outside contractor that blocked every outside program submitted by some of the most impactful faith-based organizations. They only approved internal BOP classes, and, despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars, the BOP still only added 100 halfway house beds in six years… all while reentry services division lost over 90 critical positions.

They diverted hundreds of millions of First Step Act funding into non-FSA programming and unrelated projects that they just labeled ‘FSA.’ This mismanagement squandered taxpayer money and undermined public safety. Lockdowns and collective punishment have become knee-jerk reactions… BOP has been consistently voted the worst place to work in all the federal government… This is the hand that we’ve been dealt, a Bureau on the brink scarred by decades of failure…

The so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law on July 4th, could offer some financial support for the agency’s staffing woes, as it will route another $5 billion to the BOP over four years — $3 billion of which is specifically earmarked to improve retention, hiring and training. Yet exactly what the effects of that cash infusion will look like remains to be seen: Pro Publica reported that the “Bureau declined to answer questions about when it will receive the money or how it will be spent.”

Pro Publica, “We’re Broken”: As Federal Prisons Run Low on Food and Toilet Paper, Corrections Officers Are Leaving in Droves for ICE (November 20, 2025)

BOP, Video Message from the Deputy Director: A Bureau on the Brink (November 19, 2025)

~ Thomas L. Root

BOP Union Sues For Its Place At The Table – Update for November 21, 2025

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

EMPLOYEES UNION SUES BOP TO REVERSE CANCELLATION

A lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut challenges the BOP’s termination last September of collective bargaining rights with Council of Prison Locals 33, which represents over 85% of all BOP employees.

The lawsuit asks the court to reverse the termination of collective bargaining.

The decision to terminate collective bargaining came after President Trump signed an executive order to end collective bargaining for agencies whose primary functions involve intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative or national security work.

The lawsuit argues the executive order did not require the BOP to cancel collective bargaining, and was “arbitrary and capricious,” retaliation against union speech and advocacy.  The BOP claimed the union as “an obstacle to progress instead of a partner in it” when announcing the decision to terminate the CBA.

WHBF-TV, Federal lawsuit challenges termination of collective bargaining by U.S. Bureau of Prisons (November 14, 2025)

~ Thomas L. Root

Front-End Loader – Update for October 28, 2025

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

BOP ANNOUNCES IT WILL FRONT-LOAD FSA TIME CREDITS

The government shutdown is entering Day 28 with no end in sight. But not everything at the Bureau of Prisons has ground to a halt. Last week, the agency announced a technical change in how it calculates the end of a prisoner’s sentence that could have a major, beneficial effect on inmates.

The date of a prisoner’s release is significant to the BOP for everything from placement in an appropriate facility to eligibility for programs to the date a prisoner goes to a halfway house or home confinement under 18 USC § 3624(c) (the Second Chance Act). The BOP has always calculated what it calls the “statutory” sentence by assuming that the prisoner will earn every day of good-conduct time (54 days a year) possible under 18 USC § 3624(b).

Of course, prisoners do not always earn every day of good time. They lose it for rule infractions (something that may be epidemic with the number of cellphones in the system, where being caught with one is a high-severity prohibited act).

The fact that inmates may lose good-conduct time during their sentences has never deterred the BOP from its practice of assuming that a prisoner will earn 100% of possible good time. Nothing wrong with that: it’s a rational policy that makes release planning possible. But until now, the BOP has steadfastly refused to make the same reasonable assumption that a prisoner will earn all of the First Step Act credits (FTCs) available to him.

Last week, BOP bowed to common sense, announcing that it will now anchor its inmate management decisions to a new metric called the FSA Conditional Placement Date (FCPD), essentially front-loading FTCs in the same way it front-loads good conduct time.

Up to now, the BOP has only used a Projected Placement Date that reflected the credits earned up to the date of the PPD’s calculation, while not assuming that the prisoner would earn any FTCs after that date. The new FCPD date will assume that an inmate will continue earning FTCs every month, just like good conduct time, and will thus represent the projected point when an inmate — based on earned time credits — should be eligible for placement in halfway house or home confinement, or released. The BOP will now direct staff to use the FCPD date as the foundation for decisions about security/custody classification and facility placement.

“It’s a small technical change on paper but a major cultural shift in practice,” Walter Pavlo wrote last week in Forbes. “By using this date to guide decisions, the Bureau is effectively saying that the earned time credits aren’t just theoretical—they are the organizing principle for how and when people move through the system.”

Use of FCPDs should lead to faster inmate placement at lower custody levels and placement in programs such as the residential drug abuse program.  Pavlo said that one BOP insider estimated that over 1,500 people would be eligible to move from low-security facilities, which are near capacity, to minimum-security camps that have ample space. Additionally, reliance on FCPDs will alleviate last-minute transfers to halfway house or home confinement, which cause delays in paperwork and inmate housing arrangements. As Pavlo put it, “By focusing on the Conditional Placement Date months in advance, everyone gains time to prepare.

The FCPD change should ensure that FTCs have real meaning, connecting prisoner success to the date on an inmate’s worksheet for prerelease planning. “This change reflects our continued commitment to managing the inmate population in a way that is both fair and consistent with the law,” said Rick Stover, Special Assistant to the Director. “By using Conditional Placement Dates, we are improving operational efficiency, supporting our staff, and honoring the intent of the First Step Act.”

Rabbi Moshe Margaretten, President of the prison-reform advocate Tzedek Association, called the development a “truly monumental” moment for prison reform. “This reform will change thousands of lives—allowing men and women who have worked hard to better themselves to move into lower-security settings and reconnect with their families much earlier.” 

BOP, A Win for Staff and Prison Reform (October 21, 2025)

Forbes, Bureau Of Prisons Makes Changes To First Step Act Calc (October 21, 2025)

Belaaz, Major Bureau of Prisons Reform After Years of Advocacy by Tzedek, ‘Monumental Step’ (October 21, 2025)

 

~ Thomas L. Root

‘All Work And No Pay’ For BOP Employees – October 23, 2025

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‘WELCOME TO OUR WORLD,’ BOP EMPLOYEES COULD GREET COURT WORKERS

A Columbia, South Carolina, newspaper spotlighted the state of Federal Bureau of Prisons employees since the shutdown, and the picture was not a pretty one: “As essential workers, employees at federal prisons are still required to show up every day. But with funding frozen due to the government shutdown, employees are facing an uncertain future. With no immediate end in sight for the shutdown, the paycheck they received last week might be the last one they see for a while. ‘Morale is very low,’ said Talmadge Coleman, who recently retired from FCI Edgefield and is president of the Local 0510 at the prison. Staff were ‘very disgruntled’ at the situation…”

The State reported that “many staff members were already living paycheck to paycheck” and last week got only a partial salary check covering time through September 30th. “With the shutdown, that will leave many of these employees who guard federal prisoners unable to pay their mortgages, make car payments or even afford groceries or the gas to get to work. Many staff members are single moms, people looking after their parents and juggling medical bills and the rising cost of living, Coleman said. ‘Creditors don’t want to hear it,’ Coleman said.”

One correctional officer told a Texas TV station that BOP employees are “looking at, ‘OK, I can make it through this month. But if it hits November 1st and we’re not getting paid…’”

President Trump has directed through executive orders that the BOP and other agencies no longer honor the collective bargaining agreements between the agencies and about a half million workers. “The agency doesn’t recognize us anymore, so that’s one less thing that we can help with,” said Brandy Moore White, president of Council of Prison Locals 33, a union that represents federal prison employees. “It’s just disaster upon disaster.”

During the 2019 shutdown, the BOP gave employees a letter that they could show to creditors explaining the situation. This time, the agency has provided no such letter.

The BOP issued an automated response to a media request asking for comment on the shutdown: “Due to the lapse in appropriations, the Office of Public Affairs is not available to respond.”

The State, Federal prisons in SC were already struggling. Then the government shut down (October 14, 2025)

KXXV-TV, Federal prison officers working without pay as shutdown reaches day 6 (October 16, 2025)

 

~ Thomas L. Root

GAO Finds BOP Employee Misconduct Process Flawed – Update for October 7, 2025

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

‘JUSTICE DELAYED’: BOP MISCONDUCT RESOLUTION SYSTEM FLAWED, GAO SAYS


The Government Accountability Office, a congressional agency, issued a report last week criticizing the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ backlog of over 12,000 unresolved employee misconduct complaints.

The BOP received 15,000 employee misconduct allegations last year alone, with beefs ranging from unexcused absences to inmate abuse. The most frequent allegations involved charges of unprofessional conduct or failure to follow policies. Other common allegations claimed employees were absent without leave or failing to follow a supervisor’s instructions. These kinds of accusations have increased during the last 10 years.

Criminal misconduct made up about 14% of allegations lodged in the last decade, allegations of physical and sexual abuse such as those at FCI Dublin, which have resulted in seven convictions so far. But, as of last February, the BOP had more than 12,000 employee misconduct cases awaiting investigation or discipline.

The GAO report noted that the BOP had hired more investigators and taken other steps to reduce the number of open cases. However, the Report found, the BOP “continues to miss its own goals for reducing the backlog of cases and doesn’t have a plan for meeting those goals.”

Bureau officials told GAO that the longer a misconduct case drags on, the more difficult it is to hold employees accountable. As time passes, the employee who is the subject of the complaint “may not remember the details of the incident when investigators question them. Or the employee might leave the bureau before being disciplined.” About 37% of the 12,153 cases open as of February 2025, had been unresolved for three years or longer.

The Report also found that while the BOP collects data on employee misconduct and compares the information from year to year, it doesn’t track misconduct trends across longer periods. “This means the Bureau is missing opportunities to identify trends and address them,” the GAO said.  Also, while the BOP trains employees to prevent misconduct, it doesn’t use their feedback to evaluate the training’s effectiveness.

The BOP was once again on the GAO’s High Risk List for 2025 because of crumbling facilities and threats to prison safety posed by understaffing (which, last week’s Report notes, “can exacerbate employee misconduct. To ensure that incarcerated people are treated humanely and keep its facilities secure, the bureau needs to address these issues and improve its approach to holding employees accountable.”

The Wall Street Journal last week argued that the BOP’s decertification of the 30,000-member employees’ union will help with misconduct allegations. The Journal said, “One of the strongest arguments against prison-guard unions is their role in shielding abusive officers from discipline. In some cases, the unions have ‘frustrated and undermined accountability,’ David Fathi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union National Prison Project, has said.”

After the FCI Dublin sexual abuse scandal, both prisoners and staff said union interference delayed corrective action. Seven of eight corrections officers charged with sex abuse crimes pled guilty or were convicted by juries, according to news reports. At the trial of the eighth officer, the local union president testified that the union abhorred “dirty officers” but claimed the defendant – Darnell “Dirty Dick” Smith, who was charged with 15 sex crimes against women inmates – was accused in retaliation by prison managers for speaking up about their alleged misconduct.

At USP Thomson in 2022, union resistance thwarted a new warden’s plan to fire violent officers. In January 2023, the union called for the warden to be canned for failing “to address the rampant sexual assault and misconduct of employees by inmates.” Some correctional officers tried to persuade inmates to assault the warden.

One BOP inmate told The Marshall Project earlier this year: “On a day-to-day basis, the union is a threat to the well-being of most inmates. It’s what guarantees that the officer who beats you will get away with it.”

Writing in Forbes last week, Walter Pavlo said, “Employee misconduct in federal prisons has consequences that ripple far beyond the individuals directly involved. For incarcerated people, misconduct can lead to harm, abuse, and violations of their basic rights. For staff, it can create a work environment where trust erodes and morale declines. The BOP has consistently ranked last in employee satisfaction, and the recent demise of their union has, for the moment, been troubling for many frontline staff. For the institution as a whole, unresolved allegations undermine legitimacy and weaken public confidence in the system. Legal and financial risks also rise, as cases of abuse or negligence can result in costly lawsuits and federal scrutiny.”

GAO, Bureau of Prisons: Strategic Approach Needed to Prevent and Address Employee Misconduct (GAO-25-107339, September 29, 2025)

Wall Street Journal, Trump Fires the Prison-Guard Union (October 4, 2025)

Forbes, Study Critical Of Bureau Of Prisons Investigating Misconduct (October 1, 2025)

GAO, High-Risk Series: Heightened Attention Could Save Billions More and Improve Government Efficiency and Effectiveness (GAO-25-107743, February 25, 2025)

KTVU-TV, Former FCI Dublin officer charged with sex abuse provides witness list (September 10, 2025)

~ Thomas L. Root

Bureau of Prisons Says ‘Union, No’ – Update for September 30, 2025

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

BOP CANCELS UNION CONTRACT FOR 30,000 EMPLOYEES

The Federal Bureau of Prisons last Thursday canceled its collective bargaining agreement with Council of Prison Locals 33, the national union representing more than 30,000 of its 34,900 workers. Cancellation of the contract, which would have expired in 2029, makes BOP employees “the latest group to be targeted by the Trump administration’s effort to assert more control over the government work force,” according to the New York Times.

BOP Director William K. Marshall III told employees that the union “has a proud history of advocating for its members, and I want to acknowledge the positive contributions it has made over the years… But when a union becomes an obstacle to progress instead of a partner in it, it’s time for change. And today, thanks to President Donald J. Trump and Attorney General Pamela Bondi, we’re making that change. Today, I’m announcing the termination of our contract with CPL-33 effective immediately.”

Marshall said that workers would not be fired, suspended or demoted without cause or due process, and that their pay and benefits were guaranteed by law to stay in place. Nevertheless, he told Brandy Moore White, the union’s president, that employees no longer have a right to union representation during meetings with management, investigative interviews or other proceedings. Earlier this year, the BOP prohibited the deduction of union dues from employee paychecks, causing union membership to plummet.

Moore White said, “Don’t be fooled, this is not about efficiency or accountability — this is about silencing our voice… “The vast majority of our members are Republicans and voted for this president. I literally cannot explain to you how many messages I’ve gotten from them saying this is such a slap in the face. This man vowed to protect law enforcement, and this is what we get in return. They just feel so blindsided and so frustrated with how this is going.”

She said the union plans to take legal action and seek a Congressional remedy.

Although Trump’s Executive Order issued last spring to cancel government union contracts made use of a narrow legal provision that lets a president suspend collective bargaining for national security, Marshall’s  announcement made no mention of any national security concerns. Instead, he just said the agency was ending the agreement because it believed collective bargaining was a “roadblock” to progress.

John Zumkehr, president of AFGE Local 4070 at FCI Thomson, argued the cancellation increases what he said is an already high risk of suicide among BOP employees. “When you strip away the protections we’ve fought for, you endanger the well-being of every officer and undermine the entire system,” Zumkehr said. “Instead of standing behind us, the Bureau is tearing down the few safeguards we have left.”

Writing in Forbes, Walter Pavlo noted that the BOP “has often been criticized by advocate groups as not being responsive to implementing laws, such as the First Step Act and Second Chance Act. Both of these pieces of legislation were slow to be implemented with some blaming the union for the lack of progress.”

He quoted Rabbi Moshe Margaretten, president of the Tzedek Association, a group instrumental in the creation and passing of the First Step Act, “As someone who has spent years working closely with the Bureau of Prisons on reform, I can say without hesitation that the union has been one of the greatest obstacles to real progress. For too long, every new policy, no matter how commonsense or beneficial to staff and inmates alike, had to be dragged through an approval process where the default answer was ‘no’… This is a watershed moment — an opportunity to finally build a Bureau of Prisons that works better for the men and women who serve in it and for the country as a whole.”

New York Times, Federal Bureau of Prisons Ends Union Protections for Workers (September 26, 2025)

BOP, Director’s Message (September 25, 2025)

AFGE CPL-33, Bureau of Prisons Union Condemns Administration’s Attack on Workers’ Collective Bargaining Rights (September 25, 2025)

Federal News Network, Federal Bureau of Prisons terminates collective bargaining agreement with AFGE (September 26, 2025)

Associated Press, Federal Bureau of Prisons moves to end union protections for its workers (September 25, 2025)

Forbes, Bureau of Prisons Cancels Collective Bargaining Agreement With Union (September 26, 2025)

~ Thomas L. Root