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The federal jail system has a big scarcity of psychologists, and longtime bureau workers say the impact is catastrophic. In accordance with the Bureau of Prisons, greater than one-third of psychologist positions are unfilled, the best emptiness price in at the least a decade.
This drawback obtained worse when, in early 2025, jail leaders started routinely tapping psychologists to behave as jail guards, in keeping with interviews with psychologists and incarcerated folks and confirmed by the Bureau of Prisons. Psychologists are, by coverage, exempted from this apply, “besides in emergency conditions” similar to escapes or riots. They are saying being repeatedly pulled away from their jobs places the company’s core mission — making ready folks to achieve success after they depart jail — in danger, and threatens the muse of their therapeutic relationship with their sufferers.
When “there’s no one to take care of crises as a result of we’re all working correctional posts, that is an issue,” mentioned one psychologist who resigned in September.
The apply, known as “augmentation,” conscripts employees in non-security positions, like cooks and lecturers, to work as correctional officers in case of employees shortages or emergencies. Nearly everybody who works for the federal jail system is educated and authorized as a regulation enforcement officer because of this.
“Augmentation is the abuse of that system,” mentioned Alix McLearen, a psychologist who retired from the bureau in 2024 after operating applications together with reentry companies. “Now we’re not speaking about, ‘Holy shit, we simply had a large battle. Are you able to assist us interview folks?’ We’re speaking about, ‘You must go stand on the rec yard. You must go work this housing unit.’”
Bureau of Prisons spokesperson Emery Nelson mentioned in an emailed assertion that calling on psychologists to work as guards didn’t violate bureau coverage as a result of the final fiscal 12 months constituted an emergency “because of the finances disaster our company was positioned underneath by the Biden administration,” and that the company had just lately stopped diverting psychologists to different duties.
For years, the federal jail system has been mired in an understaffing disaster, with so few officers in some prisons that security and safety are compromised, in keeping with a report by the Justice Division’s inspector normal. Forty p.c of federal correctional officer positions weren’t stuffed in 2023, in keeping with congressional testimony by federal worker union President Brandy Moore White (Trump has since eradicated union protections for federal jail workers). Staffing numbers have hit new lows since then, in keeping with the Workplace of Personnel Administration, amid the Trump administration’s slashing of retention bonuses, eliminating union protections and luring correctional employees to Immigration and Customs Enforcement with massive bonuses and different aggressive hiring techniques.
Ayana Satyagrahi, a transgender lady at the moment serving time at a males’s facility in Texas, mentioned each time there’s a battle or different incident within the jail, all of the employees — together with psychologists — come operating to behave as officers. “They are going to arrive, and they’ll put you in handcuffs. It’s very troublesome for me to inform my private issues once I’m feeling unsafe, for any of us to open up to psychology,” she mentioned. “It makes us really feel like now we have no one to speak to.”
In a system the place a couple of quarter of prisoners have psychological well being issues, psychologists argue that they’re a necessary a part of operating prisons safely and successfully. Psychologists can step in to assist when incarcerated persons are suicidal or susceptible to harming themselves. They provide one-on-one and group remedy and applications — like drug remedy and intercourse offender remedy — that assist folks tackle issues which will have led to their incarceration.
“When there’s strong psychological well being companies at an establishment, you’ve an inmate inhabitants extra secure, much less vulnerable to act impulsively, much less vulnerable to act out of anger. Then you’ve employees which might be safer,” mentioned Cathy Thompson, who retired in 2023 as a high psychologist on the bureau. “The aim of a jail — BOP’s mission — is not only to accommodate folks, however to assist them develop the talents to return efficiently to the neighborhood.”
A report from the Justice Division’s Workplace of the Inspector Basic recognized two deaths of incarcerated folks between 2014 and 2021 the place psychologist understaffing and augmentation have been at the least partly in charge. Within the case of 1 suicide, “the establishment the place the demise occurred had reassigned psychologists and remedy specialists to correctional posts through augmentation each day for over two months, which considerably hampered the power of the Psychology Companies Division to fulfill its very important capabilities,” the report mentioned.
The psychologist who left her job within the fall mentioned she knew when she was employed that she would at instances act as a guard. However in a decade on the bureau she had by no means needed to do it routinely till final 12 months. “The largest concern for me was once I needed to pat down folks. It felt like an invasion of non-public area. In no different setting do I contact my purchasers in that approach. That at all times felt icky to me.”
One other psychologist, who was working a shift as an officer as soon as per week earlier than she resigned in August, mentioned that meant she solely had time to deal with sufferers with probably the most extreme psychological diseases. She mentioned she couldn’t deal with the many individuals incarcerated at her facility who “have been by no means taught acceptable methods to deal with issues, and due to this fact used medicine, used intercourse, that has resulted in jail time.”
In accordance with inner company numbers obtained by The Marshall Venture, in April 2025, dozens of federal prisons nationwide had fewer than half the psychologists wanted. At greater than 10 prisons, there was one psychologist, or none. Only one in 5 federal prisons had a totally staffed psychology division. The numbers have solely worsened since then.
“These are catastrophic numbers,” mentioned Jill Roth, a psychologist who retired in 2021 because the Bureau of Prisons’ nationwide coordinator for the jail rape elimination program. Each jail has a sure variety of psychologist positions allotted based mostly on how many individuals are housed there, what applications are supplied and the focus of individuals with severe psychological sickness.
At prisons with no employees psychologists, the bureau rotates psychologists from different services for just a few weeks at a time to fill in quickly. However that brings its personal issues.
“There’s no continuity of care,” Roth mentioned. Roth labored a variety of momentary obligation assignments throughout her profession; these now are typically performed through video visits or over the telephone, however the issues are the identical, she mentioned. “You have been making an attempt to take care of group remedy, and each week or two, you’ve a brand new [psychologist] in there. Remedy was nonexistent. It was terrible.”
The bureau spokesperson mentioned in his assertion that the company “has applied an aggressive, focused recruitment marketing campaign and retention incentive to strengthen our means to draw, rent, and retain certified psychologists nationwide.”
The psychology program within the federal jail system was once the envy of different correctional techniques, in keeping with psychologists who labored for the company for many years. “BOP was a spot psychologists have been excited to work,” Roth mentioned. “It has modified.”
One other psychologist mentioned he left a facility on the West Coast in Could after he was the one employees psychologist for greater than 700 folks. He cherished his job, however he feared that the care he might present underneath these circumstances didn’t meet primary skilled requirements. “Sooner or later it turns into unethical to proceed to take part in that,” he mentioned. “Can we offer this group of people the care they’re entitled to? The reply isn’t any. One individual can’t ethically try this.”
He nonetheless thinks about an individual who died by suicide in one of many solitary confinement cells at his jail. “This man was not on our radar, and he confirmed no indicators of psychological well being issues earlier than that,” he mentioned. As a result of the psychologist and his colleagues have been unfold so skinny, they didn’t prioritize remedy for something lower than emergency conditions. “With extra employees, we might have been in a position to catch a lot of these issues.”
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