Two execs of prisons resigning
Exits come amid agency problems
WASHINGTON — The director and deputy director of the federal Bureau of Prisons are resigning amid scrutiny in the wake of investigative reporting that uncovered widespread problems at the agency.
Bureau Director Michael Carvajal, a Trump administration holdover who’s been at the center of myriad crises within the federal prison system, informed Attorney General Merrick Garland of his resignation, the Justice Department said. Carvajal will stay on for an interim period until a successor is in place. It is unclear how long that would take.
Gene Beasley, deputy director of the Bureau of Prisons, will retire from the agency May 31, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press on Thursday. The person could not discuss the matter publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
Beasley started working at the Bureau of Prisons as a correctional officer at a prison in Illinois in 1997 and has held a variety of positions, including in human resources and as associate warden and complex warden at the prison complexes in Forrest City and Allenwood, Pa. Before being named as the agency’s deputy director in June 2020, he worked as a regional director overseeing operations at federal prisons in the western United States.
The announcements of Beasley’s and Carvajal’s departures come weeks after the AP revealed that more than 100 Bureau of Prisons workers have been arrested, convicted or sentenced for crimes since the start of 2019, including a warden charged with sexually abusing an inmate.
Their tenure as the agency’s top officials has been marred by the rampant spread of the coronavirus inside federal prisons, a failed response to the pandemic, dozens of escapes, deaths and critically low staffing levels that have hampered responses to emergencies. The agency has also been plagued by violence, including a spate of inmates killed during altercations with fellow prisoners in November and December.
“We are very appreciative of Director Carvajal’s service to the department over the last three decades,” Justice Department spokesman Anthony Coley said in a statement. “His operational experience and intimate knowledge of the Bureau of Prisons … helped steer it during critical times.”
The administration had faced increasing pressure to remove Carvajal and do more to fix the federal prison system after President Joe Biden’s campaign promise to push criminal justice changes.
The Bureau of Prisons is the largest Justice Department agency, budgeted for around 37,500 employees and more than 150,000 federal prisoners. Carvajal presided over an extraordinary time of increased federal executions and a pandemic that ravaged the system.
Carvajal, 54, was appointed director in February 2020 by then-Attorney General William Barr.
Biden administration officials had discussions about whether to remove Carvajal in the spring, after the AP reported that widespread correctional officer vacancies were forcing prisons to expand the use of cooks, teachers, nurses and other workers to guard inmates.
Carvajal’s departure was celebrated by some of his own employees, who say the federal prison system has suffered under his watch.
“Destructive actions by Carvajal have crippled this agency to the point of uncertainty, like a tornado leaving destruction behind,” said Jose Rojas, a leader in the federal correctional officers’ union. “He was a disgrace to our agency. Good riddance.”