How prison staffing shortages are driving away mental health staff

0:00Federal prisons have been in crisis for years and that fact has been documented over and over. We have a system on the brink of failure. That's John Wetzel back in February 2024. He's the former Pennsylvania Secretary of Corrections, and he was testifying to Congress about understaffing at correctional facilities. Fast forward to May 2025. So let me be blunt. The Bureau of Prisons is not a system in need of some minor improvements. It is in need of a true reckoning. That's Republican Congressman Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey at a different congressional hearing. The bureau is currently operating with thousands of vacancies, including nearly 6 ,000 fewer staff than its authorized level.

0:48This is not sustainable to go in this direction. The shortages are so severe that there are not enough correctional officers to respond to crises. Here's Democratic Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett of Texas also speaking in 2025. Having staff like prison teachers, cooks, nurses and monitors being forced to serve as correctional officers because BOP has too few officers to actually do the job is absolutely ridiculous. Congressman Jeff Van Drew put it more bluntly. Chronic understaffing and rising inmate numbers have created an increasingly unsafe environment for everyone on the inside. Including psychologists.

1:28Consider this. Prison mental health staff are being asked to step in as guards, and it is making them leave their jobs.

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2:04it's consider this from npr correctional officers are leaving their jobs at federal prisons and when these prisons are understaffed psychologists and other staff are asked to act as guards and a recent reporting from the marshall project says it's pushing mental health professionals out of prisons here to talk about it is alex mclaren she was the acting director for the National Institute of Corrections, which is housed under the Bureau of Prisons. She also worked as a federal prison psychologist. Hi there. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks for being here. So Alex, as I understand it, you joined the Bureau of Prisons back in 2003 and then retired in 2024.

2:43When you think back to the start of your time there, what were staff levels and morale like for psychologists? So the Bureau of Prisons was once considered not just by me or those who worked there, but by correctional workers and correctional psychologists around the country as the gold standard, as the system that every other system was striving to be like. And when I hired on, It was such an incredible honor. BOP had a robust internship program, and that was the pipeline in for psychologists. But the conversations really were not about understaffing. They were about improving services and the science of corrections starting to grow and how we were going to implement re-entry services that were starting to be discussed as we really pivoted as a nation more to rehabilitation and what we did with people during their incarceration.

3:46Contrast that to where the agency got, you know, over the last two decades and where they are now, where it is a staffing crisis, as you mentioned. And that internship pipeline that I mentioned bringing in psychologists, last year the Bureau of Prisons withdrew from the match that brings you the cream of the crop in psychology. So that harm is going to be there for years to come. Alex, this may be a bit of a basic question, but I'm hoping you can just spell it out for us. In your view, why are psychologists so important within the federal prison system? Psychologists in the Bureau of Prisons do so many things.

4:30They are reentry professionals. So not only are they doing what you would traditionally think of a psychologist doing in clinical work, treating depression or bipolar disorder, but they're working to help people plan for their reentry. They may be helping people to engage with their family because that community connectivity is so important. They're involved in staffing and workplace conflict issues, violence prevention. That's a lot more than just treating symptoms of mental illness. So then when there aren't enough psychologists working at a prison, what kind of problems can that create? Can you give us one or two examples?

5:11Sure. When you don't prioritize the hiring of psychologists, you're creating crises. Because what the psychologists are doing are transforming any risk that arrives into some kind of actionable steps towards safety. So you will have people that have a mental illness that may be destabilized and they're not getting the support that they require to refrain from self-harm, to refrain from violence. Those things don't just impact them, but they impact the entire community of the facility, the staff and the people who are incarcerated there. I mean, I know that in any institution, there are often a lot of reasons that contribute to staffing shortages.

5:57But when we talk about the Bureau of Prisons, what do you think is the most significant reason for this? You know, you almost have to look at it through a funnel. Under this administration, government workers feel under attack. You look at BOP specifically. It was ranked the worst place to work in federal government twice in a row in the last few years. There's been unstable leadership. All of those things are then feeding into people who have been or would be BOP psychologists. I mentioned that BOP withdrew from the internship program, which is how it gets, I think, about 80 positions every year.

6:35Those are your newest, freshest, skilled people, and they're the backbone of your recruitment. Psychologists, like everyone that works there, are considered correctional workers first, which means that they do serve law enforcement functions. They're on call, but they're getting lower pay not only than some other government agencies, but then folks in the private sector. That's not very appealing when you stack all of that up. Alex McLaren worked in the Federal Bureau of Prisons as a psychologist and as the acting director for the National Institute of Corrections. Alex, thank you. Thank you so much.

7:09We reached out to the Federal Bureau of Prisons for comment. They responded with an email stating that improving mental health services was a top priority and detailing some of the key actions being undertaken. The email read in part, This administration did not create the staffing crisis, but it's confronting it directly. Through targeted investment, workforce modernization, and operational innovation, the Bureau is taking steps to stabilize and strengthen mental health services across its institutions. This episode was produced by Jason Fuller and Karen Zamora with audio engineering by Ted Meebane.

7:45It was edited by Jeanette Woods and Courtney Dornig. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan.

7:54It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Juana Summers.