When the warden of a women’s prison in Northern California was indicted in September on charges he had repeatedly sexually abused an inmate, forced her to undress and took nude photos of her — and then warned her he wouldn’t be punished owing to his connections — it was yet another black eye for the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Prison systems are notoriously prone to corruption, racketeering and malfeasance within their employees’ ranks, but the long-standing problems at the bureau, which is part of the Justice Department, have come to seem endemic. In a recently published investigation, the Associated Press reported that more than 100 federal prison employees have been convicted, sentenced or arrested for crimes in the past three years. Of the criminal cases brought against Justice Department workers in recent years, two-thirds involved bureau personnel, who account for less than one-third of the department’s total payroll, the AP found.
The bureau, with an annual budget of nearly $8 billion, runs a network of facilities across the country that houses more than 150,000 inmates — roughly the same as in Texas, which incarcerates more people than any other state. About 37,500 people are on the bureau’s payroll.
The agency has suffered from a litany of problems in recent years, including short-staffing, escapes, and a staggering toll taken by the coronavirus pandemic, which resulted in almost 42,000 inmates testing positive for covid-19. At the Justice Department, Deputy...
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