A guard guides a vehicle along the fenceline around the federal correctional institution in Englewood, Colo.

A guard guides a vehicle along the fenceline around the federal correctional institution in Englewood, Colo. David Zalubowski / AP

Federal Prison Employees Fear Staff Shortages and Mass Reassignments as COVID-19 Cases Spike

"The seams are going to burst," one employee said

Federal prisons around the country are increasingly relying on teachers, librarians and even nurses to conduct law enforcement duties as COVID-19 spikes exacerbate existing staffing shortages, leading employees to fear for their safety or head for the exits. 

The Bureau of Prisons, the Justice Department component that manages 122 facilities nationwide, has expanded its use of a practice called “augmentation” during the novel coronavirus pandemic, in which employees typically assigned to other jobs are forced into correctional officer roles. Bureau workers have said for years the initiative sacrifices safety and key rehabilitation initiatives typically provided to federal inmates, but they said management has accelerated it to unprecedented levels under the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“It’s augmentation on steroids,” said Talmadge Coleman, a staffer at Federal Correctional Institution Edgefield in South Carolina. 

As employees are pulled away from duties like conducting case work, providing facility maintenance or offering psychological services, employees said, inmates tend to get more restless and prone to disruptions. They are also deprived of programs specifically designed to prepare them for post-prison life and reduce recidivism. 

“You can never accomplish your tasks, your primary goal of rehabilitation and meeting deadlines of GEDs and other vocational programs,” said Kareen Troitino, a teacher at FCI Miami who has been primarily augmented to correctional officer duty since March. 

Employees blamed a combination of existing staffing shortages, workers getting sick or quarantining due to COVID-19 and an unwillingness by management to spend on overtime as responsible for the rising use of the reassignments. Troitino said his facility had gone on a hiring spree, bringing on more than 40 officers this year. Still, his Miami facility spent March through September on full augmentation, meaning education, construction and religious services were all shut down. Some activities have slowly resumed, but augmentation continues. Joe Rojas, who works at FCI Coleman in Florida, said his facility has never fully recovered from a bureau-wide hiring freeze instituted early in the Trump administration and fallout from the 35-day shutdown that began in 2018. 

Cases of the novel coronavirus are also spiking among bureau staff, increasing by more than 100% since just Nov. 3. More than 3,200 employees, or nearly one-in-10, have tested positive for COVID-19. More than 40% of the staff cases are currently active. Some employees cited a recent decision to reinstate social visits for inmates as accelerating the spread among the workforce, as inmates are separated from visitors by plexiglass but staffers have to interact with them directly. 

“If not for COVID, we would still have augmentation but it wouldn’t be as crazy,” said Rojas. “It’s already a dangerous workplace with COVID and it’s made worse by understaffing.” 

Justin Long, a bureau spokesman, said BOP has taken all steps necessary to protect its workers and has learned throughout the process. He detailed a series of decisions, ranging from providing equipment to sanitizing facilities and limiting inmate movement, that he said have helped limit outbreaks within prisons. Long also defended augmentation by noting all staff are trained as correctional officers, though he acknowledged the negative impacts on inmates and employees alike.

"We remain deeply concerned for the health and welfare of our staff and their families as well as the inmates entrusted to our care and the communities we live and work in," Long said. "It is our highest priority to continue to do everything we can to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in our facilities."

Bureau Director Michael Carvajal is scheduled to testify before a House Judiciary subcommittee on Wednesday. 

While the bureau insisted augmentation is standard practice, employees said the negative consequences are severe. Typically, they noted, those serving as teachers, plumbers or in other capacities can be called upon when the alarm sounds due to a skirmish or disturbance in the prison. With augmentation, they said, there is no one left to respond. 

Aaron McGlothin, an employee at FCI Mendota in California, said his facility just began ramping up augmentation recently. He blamed management for agreeing to bring in hundreds of inmates in the custody of the U.S. Marshal Service, for which it did not have the staff to accommodate. A spokesman countered the bureau has no authority to reject individuals detained by USMS. 

“We have nurses working in a housing unit,” McGlothin said. “How do you justify reassigning a nurse?” 

He and other bureau employees said the augmented staff lament their temporary duties, as their supervisors still expect them to complete their normal responsibilities. Like Troitino missing deadlines to help inmates with education attainment, case workers fall behind on their assignments for individual inmates. Critical repair work is neglected. 

In addition to the visitor policies, workers said the bureau has failed to institute policies to protect them from the pandemic. After initially telling employees they were on their own for personal protective equipment, the bureau eventually opted to use UNICOR—the government-owned corporation that assigns manufacturing tasks to federal inmates—to make cotton masks for employees. They were issued the masks with a memorandum that stated there was no guarantee the product was “effective against biohazards, including against contracting viral and bacterial illnesses.” Most workers opted to purchase their own equipment, employees said. The bureau is one of five federal agencies that is slated to receive its own distribution of COVID-19 vaccine from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for disbursement to staff and inmates. 

McGlothin said he has noticed the cases in Mendota “are starting to go up big time.” He is currently home on quarantine due to a potential exposure to a colleague who since tested positive, the second time he has been sent home for that reason this month. Some employees, meanwhile, are opting not to come back at all. 

“People are leaving and retiring due to COVID,” said Coleman, the staffer in South Carolina.

Rojas said he has seen the same at his facility and others he represents through his union. 

“People didn’t want to come back to work,” he said. “They retired.” 

Several employees said they expect that attrition to only accelerate in the coming weeks and months. Rojas, who is himself eligible to retire, said he and many others have stuck around in part due to a retention bonus the bureau offered to veteran workers in recent years. That incentive is disappearing next year, he said. Long said the bureau is providing incentives "where appropriate" and taking other steps to boost recruiting. He noted the agency has hired 3,400 employees in 2020, a sharp uptick over recent years.

Employees suggested staff are increasingly burning out as use of augmentation and COVID-19 cases increase, and are nervously watching Congress 10 days out from a potential government shutdown. Already some of the prisons in the Southeast, Rojas said, are operating at 70% or less of their expected workforce level. 

“You can’t run a prison like that. The seams are going to burst,” he said. “I’m afraid.”

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.