Colette Peters, director of the Bureau of Prisons, stops by on Trump’s first day

Colette Peters resigned as director of the Bureau of Prisons after 30 months on the job, just as President Donald Trump was inaugurated on Monday. Deputy Director William Lathrop will take over as interim director. Peters, an outsider to the agency, took the BOP job after leading the Oregon Department of Corrections. In the end, the challenges she faced on her first day working at the BOP in August 2022 were largely the same; Staff shortages, dilapidated buildings and poor work ethic.

Shortly after Trump’s election, Peters announced the closure of six federal penal camps for men and one facility for women, FCI Dublin. Dublin was the facility that was given the name “rape club” after its director, chaplain and a number of staff were convicted of inappropriate sexual relationships with several female prisoners. In December, the BOP settled a civil lawsuit brought by 103 women detained at FCI Dublin for $116 million.

Peters appeared to have a good relationship with Congress. In appearances before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, she spoke clearly about the challenges facing the BOP but struggled to produce results. She inherited many of these challenges from previous directors. Joe Biden signed the federal prison oversight law in 2024, which allowed the inspector general’s office to conduct more unannounced prison inspections. In inspections the OIG has conducted over the years, it found significant staffing shortages, poor medical care for prisoners, spoiled food and filthy living conditions. Although Peters said she welcomed the bill, it has not yet been funded.

There were problems that Peters just couldn’t fix. Regardless of how much money was spent on raises and retention bonuses, recruitment was proven to be only moderately successful. In a recent OIG inspection of FMC Devens, one of seven medical centers in the BOP, “twenty percent of corrections positions, as well as 24 percent of health services and 39 percent of psychological services positions, were vacant,” resulting in “interference with FMC Devens.” Ability to provide adequate health care to inmates.” Staffing shortages across the country led to extended facility closures and reduced program offerings.

The BOP said it needs more than $3 billion to update its aging prisons. However, each year the BOP received only a fraction of that, which only made the problem worse. Closing six men’s prisons, three of which were stand-alone men’s prisons, was an attempt to cut costs, but it was too little, too late.

Peters made progress on the First Step Act, Trump’s signature law, which allowed many minimum- and low-security inmates to shorten their sentences by participating in programs and productive activities. The First Step Act led to the early release of nearly 50,000 prisoners, but was fraught with problems calculating credits that resulted in many people staying in prison longer than required by law. Additionally, the lack of space in the BOP resulted in people remaining locked up in institutions for far longer than necessary.

Peters attempted to provide greater public transparency by speaking openly about the BOP’s problems in a wide-ranging interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes.” The interview did little to change the perception of the public or the people who worked in the BOP. There were awkward moments when Peters was unable to say how many workers were needed to fully staff the prisons, and also when Peters sidestepped the question of whether they were female inmates who were sexually abused by staff , owes an apology.

Relations with frontline prison staff were also strained during Peters’ tenure. While Peters tried to create the appearance of a kinder, gentler BOP, employees continued to feel the pressure of long hours and mixed duties due to augmentation (a practice that allows medical staff, case managers or executive assistants to serve as correctional officers). sense where there are bottlenecks). Little progress has been made in improving relations with union representatives who represent many frontline workers in prisons. Among more than 430 federal agencies, the BOP ranks near the bottom for employee job satisfaction. The union is also trying to reverse the prison closures announced by Peters in December.

When Trump was elected, it became clear that changes were coming across the government. On his first day as president, he called for a temporary hiring freeze and the return of all employees to the office, a holdover from the COVID-19 era. On corrections, Trump advocated the use of private prisons, a practice both Barack Obama and Biden opposed. In fact, on his first day, Trump issued an executive order repealing the Biden ban on private prisons.

The BOP is a complicated agency. With an annual budget of $8.3 billion, the prison population has fallen by nearly 50,000 in the last 12 years, but costs continue to rise. Healthcare costs, inefficiencies associated with old buildings and excessive overtime to meet the demands of monitoring 150,000 prisoners around the clock continue to drive up costs.

Trump wants his own person as director, and rumors swirled after the election about whether Peters would survive to serve another administration. It’s likely that the Trump administration will look outside the agency for even more changes. With Peters’ departure, that means the next director will be the sixth since Trump took office in his first term. There is a need for stability at an agency that has such a vital interest in our national security. While nearly 50% of all federal prisoners are housed in minimum or low security prisons, there are many violent prisoners held in higher security prisons.

The new Trump administration believes it is ready to make big changes and that Republican control of the House and Senate will lead to bold steps. The non-governmental organization Department of Government Efficiency has pledged to cut trillions of dollars from the government. With one of the largest budgets in the Justice Department, the BOP is ripe for transformation, but it needs a strong leader to lead the agency toward stability while making it more efficient and humane.