The Bureau of Prisons Isn't as Bad as You Think; It's Worse

Prisoners dying from maltreatment, crooked guards, and "rape clubs." Welcome to today's federal Bureau of Prisons

I mentioned in a previous column that I had recently had dinner with a friend who did two years in prison about 15 years ago and who is now an advisor to the Director of the Bureau of Prisons (BOP.)  I told him that he was a bigger man than I, and that I so despised the corruption and violence that is endemic in the BOP that I didn’t think I could ever work with them, even if it was to make the Bureau a better place.  He said that he thought I was wrong.  The BOP’s new director, Colette Peters, is an outsider who had success as the head of Oregon’s Department of Corrections.  He told me that she truly wanted to clean up the BOP, but that entrenched interests, including a former director who had risen up through the ranks and those around him, had blocked her.  My friend believed that, if Peters could clean out the remnants of the previous regime, she would revamp the BOP.