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BOP DIRECTOR DISCOVERS HOW LONELY IT CAN BE AT THE TOP

I wrote a little last week about the resignation of Federal Bureau of Prisons director Michael Carvajal, but it’s worth revisiting, if only to round up the reaction and context. Summed up neatly, he was rolled by events he didn’t see coming.

Recall that Carvajal last week announced he’s retiring, a decision that came six weeks after Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Illinois), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, demanded that Attorney General Merrick Garland fire him. Carvajal, a 30-year BOP veteran, was appointed director in February 2020.

A day after Carvajal’s announcement, BOP deputy director Gene Beasley announced his retirement effective May 31.

The BOP said Carvajal will stay on for an interim period until a successor is named. It is unclear how long that process would take.

The Associated Press said that Carvajal has “been at the center of myriad crises within the federal prison system.” To a certain extent, he stepped into the messes rather than made them himself. For example, the AP reported that more than 100 Bureau of Prisons workers have been arrested, convicted, or sentenced for crimes since the start of 2019, including a warden charged with sexually abusing an inmate. Those problems have been long festering. The scandal at MCC New York – brought to public attention with the 2019 suicide of Jeffrey Epstein – hardly started when Carvajal became director. Likewise, BOP employees misbehaving is not a new phenomenon. But for better or worse, the bad press came down on the BOP while Carvajal was at the helm.

Carvajal was hardly a BOP virgin. He served as assistant director from 2018 to 2020, so one could reasonably conclude he was aware of messes in Atlanta, New York, and elsewhere when he took office.

But the one epic fail that belongs solely to Carvajal is COVID. He took office just as COVID-19 was taking off, and one could argue he never took his blinders off. “I don’t think anybody was ready for this Covid, so we’re dealing with it just as well as anybody else and I’d be proud to say we’re doing pretty good,” Carvajal told CNN in April 2020.

“Doing pretty good?” Two months into the pandemic (about 48,000 inmate COVID cases ago), Carvajal confidently told the Judiciary Committee that “at this point, we have more recoveries than new infections. And I believe that this shows that we are now flattening the curve.” Six months later, the total number of inmate COVID cases had climbed to over 24,000. Nevertheless, Carvajal told the House Subcommittee that “the Bureau has a sound pandemic plan in place and a well-established history of managing and responding to various types of communicable disease outbreaks.”

As of today, more than 50,000 BOP inmates have contracted COVID, at least 290 federal inmates are dead, and the BOP’s ham-handed response has been successfully challenged in court in Connecticut, Ohio, and California, to mention a few locations.

The AP reported that Carvajal’s term included “a failed response to the pandemic, dozens of escapes, deaths and critically low staffing levels that have hampered responses to emergencies.” The Washington Post reported, “With Carvajal presiding over the agency for effectively the entirety of the pandemic so far, about one in three Bureau of Prisons inmates has tested positive for the virus, according to agency data, a rate nearly double that of the general U.S. population.”

Jose Rojas, president of the Southeast Council of Prison Locals, AFGE – federal correctional officers’ union – was derisive. “Destructive actions by Carvajal have crippled this agency to the point of uncertainty, like a tornado leaving destruction behind… He was a disgrace to our agency. Good riddance.”

Durbin issued a statement that was no more flattering: “For years, the Bureau of Prisons has been plagued by corruption, chronic understaffing, and mismanagement. In the nearly two years since Director Carvajal was handpicked by then-Attorney General Bill Barr, he has failed to address the mounting crises in our nation’s federal prison system, including failing to fully implement the landmark First Step Act. His resignation is an opportunity for new, reform-minded leadership at the Bureau of Prisons.”

That’s the best observation: No matter whether Carvajal was a victim, a rapscallion, or a bumbler, perhaps the Administration will seize this opportunity to pick “new, reform-minded leadership,” someone from outside the Bureau, someone who will be a champion of what Congress has mandated in the First Step Act, the CARES Act, and other prison reform measures.

Associated Press, US prisons director resigning after crises-filled tenure (January 6, 2022)

Washington Post, Bureau of Prisons director to resign after scandal-plagued tenure during pandemic (January 6, 2022)

CNN, Bureau of Prisons leader retiring under political pressure from lawmakers seeking his ouster (January 5, 2022)

Testimony of Michael Carvajal before the Senate Judiciary Committee (June 2, 2020)

Statement of Michael D. Carvajal before House Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security (December 2, 2020)

Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Two execs of prisons resigning (January 7, 2022)

Durbin Statement on Resignation of Director Carvajal from Federal Bureau of Prisons (January 5, 2022)

– Thomas L. Root