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SMITH PACKS IT IN AFTER A YEAR AT THE BOP
Bureau of Prisons Deputy Director Joshua Smith, pardoned for a drug offense that happened 30 years ago, abruptly announced last Monday he was leaving the agency without giving a reason.
After his release from prison a quarter century ago, Smith built a Knoxville-based service company into a multimillion business while using it and a foundation he started to give recently released inmates employment and support in staying out of trouble.
In a post from his personal X account, Smith thanked President Trump for the chance to serve as BOP’s second in command, an opportunity available because Trump pardoned him for in 2021:
Three decades ago, I walked through the gates of a federal prison as an inmate. Years later, after receiving a presidential pardon, I was given the opportunity to walk back through those gates as Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, serving the very President that gave me that pardon. For that, I will always be grateful to President Donald J. Trump.
By all accounts, Smith’s leadership at the BOP was unconventional. He became part of BOP Director William K. Marshall III’s leadership team that pushed an agency Walter Pavlo described last week as “known for incremental change” toward a different management philosophy. “During their time together,” Pavlo said of Marshall and Smith, “the Bureau changed how it selected leaders, challenged its longstanding relationship with the union representing BOP employees, began rewriting decades-old policies, secured significant funding to address deteriorating prisons, created teams to attack infrastructure and operational problems and announced the closure or restructuring of several institutions.”
Smith traveled across the country to dozens of prisons – some visits being unannounced – and hosted a BOP-centric podcast called “Transparency Talks.” Smith helped transfer or replace about 70 pct of BOP executive staff — including several top wardens — and focus on leadership development. “At the end of the day,” he said, “bureaucracy is bureaucracy. I hope what I was able to do was at least start a fire there.”
Smith had a tense relationship with some of BOP employees. A BOP employee union rep at FCI Hazelton said, “The deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, with a criminal history of his own, has stepped down from the post.” American Federation of Government Employees Local 420 Steward Jason Shaffer said Smith’s appointment was “a slap in our face. To have an inmate who was once housed in our prison who was running the U.S. Bureau of Prisons has devastated our country and greatly affected the staff who have worked hard for the BOP.”
Smith would not say why he resigned, but he said he didn’t need the job.
CBS News, Bureau of Prisons No. 2 official who was pardoned for drug crimes abruptly departs (August 25, 2026)
Forbes, Josh Smith Abruptly Leaves Bureau Of Prisons After Year Of Changes (August 25, 2026)
WV Metro News, FCI Hazelton workers applaud resignation of BOP deputy director, former inmate (August 25, 2026)
~ Thomas L. Root
