We certainly could be!
We heard that last week, the new director of the federal prison system, Billy Marshall, made an planned inspection of FCI Morgantown in Morgantown, West Virginia.
But now, we’re hearing that Josh Smith, the deputy director of the Bureau of Prisons, made an unannounced spot check of McCreary over the weekend – Saturday, June 14th, 2025.
This is a great business practice. Any manager with multiple brick and mortar locations knows you want to do your inspections unannounced to get the best results. The BOP has not done it this way for many, many years.
When the American Correctional Association would come to a prison, it came with two months notice and plenty of time to prepare. Anyone in the system knows this – new paint on the walls, last-minute paperwork straightening, and vastly improved meals in the chow hall until the whole ordeal was over.
Same rules apply when Region visits a federal prison. But, if this is the new way things operate, with authentic checks and balances on the public servants who are supposed to be held accountable, we can expect to see rapid change throughout the system.
Administrators with their feet kicked up on their desks will have to turn off their TVs and focus on fixing the failing infrastructure across the BOP. Maybe meals will improve on a consistent basis.
Further, when Josh Smith was at McCreary, he again met with inmates in the chow hall, took their concerns, and promised to do something about them. The biggest point of feedback he was given was the FSA versus SCA discrepancies – less common, but most important: why are so many inmates in federal prison still being held past their conditional release date?
This could be the change we need. Just a little accountability goes a long way. Hopefully, we’ll see the BOP start to whip itself back into shape.