Senate Judiciary Committee grills Bureau of Prisons chief on staffing, inmate deaths

Sen. Dick Durbin and members of the Senate Judiciary Committee met in Washington Wednesday morning at a hearing called “Examining and Preventing Deaths of Incarcerated Individuals in Federal Prisons.”

The hearing was in response to inmate deaths at the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and factors that led to the deaths, including inadequate care, staffing shortages and poor facilities maintenance. Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters was questioned by senators during the hearing.

“In recent years, more than 300 people have died of unnatural causes in custody of the Bureau of Prisons—deaths that too often have been the result of mismanagement and operational failures,” Durbin said in his opening statement.

“After media reports late last year alleged that some adults in custody died while waiting for necessary medical care, I called on BOP to change its procedures, staff and supply medical units so that incarcerated adults can receive the care they need,” he said.

“The inspector general’s report identified 344 non-medical deaths of adults in custody in its review period of 2014 to 2021,” said Durbin. “A number of trends emerged that demonstrate an increased risk to the safety of individuals in BOP’s care. Suicides accounted for just over half of the 344 deaths that the IG reviewed. Almost half of those suicides occurred in restrictive housing, which is more commonly known as solitary confinement.”

“Earlier this month, the Government Accountability Office released a report, which I requested with Senator (Christopher) Coons (D, DE). It found that BOP has failed to implement 54 of the 87 recommendations from two prior studies on restrictive housing,” Durbin said. “Let’s be clear. The failure to decrease our over-reliance on restrictive housing is deadly. That is why I will hold a follow-up hearing on the dangers [of solitary confinement] this spring.”

“It is time for solutions and change. The lives of hundreds of Americans in the Bureau of Prisons’ custody are at risk.”

Peters responded by admitting the situation was difficult. “This won’t be resolved overnight,” she said. She said nearly 40% of inmates in restrictive housing were there to feel safer but admitted that was probably not in their best interests. “They need to be educated that this isn’t where they want to be. There’s physical and mental wear and tear, even if they’re there voluntarily.”

Jon Zumkehr, president of AFGE 4070 at Thomson Federal Prison was in Washington, D.C. for the hearing.

“Peters is the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons; she testified under oath today that we have a staffing crisis, that retention and recruitment are a big issue and that she fully supports retention and recruitment,” said Zumkehr in a Zoom interview. “But she slashed the pay for staff at USP Thompson and that is a huge problem. We’ve all been calling her out on it and saying, ‘We have 111 vacancies at Thomson, the most at a standalone institution in the Federal Bureau of Prisons and you slashed our pay.’  She still hasn’t responded to Senator Durbin’s office on those requests of why did you do it and we’ve got every answer in the book but none of them are accurate and we need them.”

“We met with Senator (Tammy) Duckworth yesterday and staff members from Senator Durbin’s office and they stated that Director Peters has not responded back to them on their questions that they submitted three or four weeks ago. That’s an issue to us because we’re saying there is a problem.”

“The director talked about transparency, yet she’s not being transparent,” he continued. “How can she go under oath and talk about pay as an issue, yet she is the one who slashed the pay and made a problem at Thomson even worse by slashing the pay by 25%. We’re facing a recruitment crisis; we cannot get staff to come in the door and her solution to the problem is to cut the pay.”

Staffing shortages mean fewer services for inmates, Zumkehr said. “We are going to have to cut services for the inmates because we don’t have staff to provide.”

At one point in the hearing, Peters said “Our employees are our everything,” something Zumkehr finds odd. “It’s funny she says that because they weren’t ‘the everything’ when the staff were getting sexually assaulted by the inmates,” he said. “We’ve had staff suffering still to this date from trauma from the attacks. They have moved on, but yet the staff are still suffering, so when she says that I don’t take her at her word for that right now.”

The biggest problem the prison faces with hiring is competition from other companies, including jobs outside the industry. At the hearing, Peters mentioned a staffer at the federal prison near Boston who is making more money working at a grocery store.

For Thomson, the competition is local industries. “In our case at Thompson, they’re making more money at the factories, they’re making more money at the power plant” said Zumkehr. “She’s (Peters) aware of that but yet she’s the one that slashed their pay so she’s saying one thing but doing a complete opposite. We need these senators to hold her accountable for that.”

Peters said in the hearing that 45% of BOP staffers receive retention bonuses, but those bonuses have been cut for employees at Thomson. The loss of bonuses doesn’t make sense to Zumkehr. “We don’t understand why. We firmly believe she’s getting bad information; why did she cut the pay because we have 111 vacancies? That number is not in dispute. We currently have 20 staff leaving who gave notice that ‘Hey, I’m leaving for a new job.’”

“Most private sector employments pay more than it does working at Thomson, and we need them to catch up to the Border Patrol pay, to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement).” Compounding the problem is Thomson’s rural location, said Zumkehr. “We’ve held 56 job fairs in the community, we have tapped out the local community. We need help, we need you to restore the pay that you cut.”

Zumkehr met with Senator Tammy Duckworth while he was in Washington. “It is critical that FCI Thomson has the resources it needs to fulfill its mission, and that includes being able to support a strong and stable workforce,” said Duckworth in a news release. “Jon and I had a productive conversation about ongoing staffing and retention efforts at Thomson, and I’ll continue to work closely with the Illinois delegation to push the Bureau of Prisons and Office of Personnel Management to address ongoing concerns.”

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WHBF - OurQuadCities.com.