A group of House Judiciary Committee Democrats is calling on the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to address persistent staffing shortages and safety issues in federal prisons. Representatives Jamie Raskin, Lucy McBath, Jasmine Crockett, and Joe Neguse sent a letter to BOP Director William Marshall demanding immediate action.
The lawmakers highlighted that chronic understaffing, pay reductions, hiring freezes, and high attrition have created crisis conditions at many BOP facilities. The letter follows a 2025 oversight hearing where committee members examined long-standing challenges at the agency, including underfunding and staffing shortfalls. Despite these concerns, no BOP witness was called to testify by the committee majority.
“We are deeply concerned that these developments compromise the safety and security of both inmates and staff. The shrinking existing workforce has been left to contend with an ever-growing use of overtime, which leads to fatigue, burnout, and increased attrition. Insufficient staffing levels have led to lockdowns, heightening tensions among inmates, increasing instances of violence, limiting access to recidivism-reducing programming, further restricting the availability of medical and mental health care, and hindering institutional response to institutional emergencies such as assaults and suicide attempts,” the Members wrote.
The letter also points out that ongoing staff shortages have forced facilities to rely on “augmentation,” assigning non-custody employees like teachers or nurses to guard housing units instead of trained correctional officers. This practice extends into healthcare and mental health services despite repeated congressional warnings against it.
A 2023 report from the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General found that 21% of authorized correctional officer positions were vacant. In response to staffing gaps, BOP implemented wage cuts for frontline officers—some by as much as 25%—instituted a hiring freeze, canceled a collective bargaining agreement affecting over 30,000 employees, and lost experienced personnel to other agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). A BOP official told ProPublica: “We’re broken and we’re being poached by ICE.”
Whistleblower reports cited by ProPublica indicate that both staff and inmates often lack basic hygiene products; some facilities have fallen behind on utility bills or lack adequate food supplies.
Extended lockdowns caused by insufficient staffing have also delayed medical care and disrupted re-entry programs required under the bipartisan First Step Act.
The legislators are seeking answers within 30 days regarding hiring practices, attrition rates, recruitment efforts, staff losses to ICE, compliance with the First Step Act mandates on programming for inmates’ re-entry into society, use of augmentation policies for non-custody staff assignments in prisons, employee rights protection following cancellation of collective bargaining agreements, and overall plans for improving safety in federal prison facilities.
Lucy McBath is currently serving in Congress representing Georgia’s 7th district after defeating Jeff Criswell in the 2024 general election with nearly 75% of the vote. She has represented this district since replacing Karen Handel in 2019.
For more information about Rep. McBath’s background: she was born in Joliet, Illinois in 1960; she lives in Marietta; she graduated from Virginia State University with a BA in 1982.
