DW Opinion

Five Lessons For The Future Of Federal Prisons

Leaders will come and go, but our responsibility to protect the public doesn't end at the prison gates.

Josh Smith

I had the honor of serving in President Trump's second administration as Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), the largest prison system in the world. In this role, I helped lead 34,000 employees and 156,000 inmates, and oversaw 120 facilities and an $8.4 billion annual budget. But the number I'm most proud of is 65: that's how many different federal prisons I visited all across America during my 15 months on the job.

On these visits, I kept a laser focus on hearing directly from frontline employees and seeing with my own eyes what needed fixing to advance BOP's three-fold mission of safety, accountability, and rehabilitation.

My background was not your typical resume among BOP leadership: I experienced incarceration myself as a young man. My Christian faith transformed my life. I founded, grew, and sold a successful business. I started a foundation focused on learning and spreading best practices in corrections. I then became the first person in BOP history to have been in its custody and then join its top leadership ranks.

I'd like to offer here five lessons for future BOP leadership.

1. Get out in the field. Don't hide behind your desk

While visiting those 65 prisons, I held dozens of listening sessions with staff, where they could share concerns and frustrations and propose ideas and solutions. The BOP executive leadership team and I also opened a portal for feedback, where we received and read more than 2,000 messages from frontline employees.

I remember one work trip to Colorado, where I left my security detail behind and showed up unannounced at one of our facilities on a Saturday so I could see it in an unvarnished way. As I walked around speaking with staff members, I remember meeting a corrections officer who was bone tired from repeated double shifts. It was a vivid example of BOP's years-long staffing shortage, and it galvanized me to turbocharge our recruitment efforts.

Leaders need to see pain points for themselves — not learn about them by reading reports at their desk in Washington.

2. No coasting in leadership; you earn your position every day

Early in my tenure as Deputy Director, I encountered a longtime warden who drew many staff complaints and thought he didn't need to be part of our efforts to reform and modernize BOP. When we let him know he'd be transferred into another role, he chose retirement instead. Meanwhile, I identified a young warden at one of our low-security facilities who was clearly a star. We elevated him to running one of BOP's largest complexes, and he's doing a terrific job.

I made it clear I wasn't part of the good ol' boys' club — and that leadership would be based on merit: no coasting or complacency just because someone had held a role for a long time.

Like President Trump's approach to leadership, I wasn't afraid to shake things up, and that's exactly what we did: we replaced 70% of BOP's executive team and almost 50 of our 120 wardens, along with many other leadership positions. I knew that getting the right people in leadership positions was one of the most important things I could do.

3. Invest in your people

If you intend to hold your leadership ranks to high expectations, you better also be willing to invest in and support their continued professional growth — something I learned is lacking in government, especially in corrections.

Leadership development was one of my highest priorities. We brought our wardens together for a unique three-day leadership experience, inviting some of the nation's most respected leaders in both corrections and business, along with nonprofit organizations that had stepped forward to support BOP. These leaders shared their experiences, challenged conventional thinking, encouraged our wardens, and invested in their development.

When you invest in leaders, the impact reaches far beyond the individuals in the room. It also touches their employees, their institutions, and ultimately the entire organization. That's how lasting culture change begins.

4. Let outside partners help fulfill the mission

Another change I made was one of the simplest: opening BOP's doors to outside partners who could help us pursue those three North Star goals of safety, accountability, and rehabilitation.

One of my favorite examples of this was welcoming the faith-based nonprofit God Behind Bars into BOP for the first time. I attended several of the events God Behind Bars put on, including one alongside my friend, White House Pardon Czar Alice Marie Johnson, at the very same facility where she herself had been incarcerated prior to receiving clemency from President Trump. On that special day, we watched together as 60 incarcerated women chose to be baptized.

We demonstrated what can happen when government opens its doors to organizations eager to help. Our nonprofit partners invested millions in donated services, programming, and resources, expanding opportunities for both employees and incarcerated people without placing the full financial burden on taxpayers.

5. Be ready to do more with less funding

When I started in the job, BOP faced roughly $4 billion in deferred infrastructure needs. President Trump and Congress provided $2 billion for critical infrastructure — but this still meant we had roughly twice as much need as money. So our objective wasn't simply to spend $2 billion. It was to stretch it.

Instead of only bringing in outside contractors to lead that effort, we reorganized our Facilities operation and empowered the existing leadership to create Facilities Management Strike Teams made up of skilled BOP employees from around the country.

By pairing our facilities professionals with incarcerated workers, we created an approach that accomplished two important goals at once: completing critical infrastructure projects at a fraction of traditional costs while also teaching inmates marketable skills they could use after release. Taxpayers saved substantially, and incarcerated individuals gained valuable work experience that could help them become productive members of our communities.

Public safety doesn't end at the prison gates

Last Christmas, my wife and I spent more than 15 hours visiting three federal prisons, bringing cookies and thanking employees who were working instead of celebrating with their families. We wanted them to know their service mattered.

I often reminded our staff that few professions are more important to public safety than corrections. The overwhelming majority of incarcerated people will eventually return to our communities. What they learn, how we hold them accountable, and the opportunities we provide can help determine whether they return to productive lives or create more victims.

Great correctional leaders show up, listen, invest in their people, embrace partnerships, and demand accountability. Leaders will come and go, but our responsibility to protect the public doesn't end at the prison gates. That's where our greatest opportunity to prevent the next crime begins.

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Josh Smith served as the Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (2025-2026) and is the Founder of The Fourth Purpose Foundation & Prison Life Media.

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