The Director of the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is important to D.C. as incarcerated D.C. citizens are housed in over 100 federal prison’s around the U.S. A new BOP Director, former Oregon prison director Colette Peters, has recently appointed.

The Marshall Project published a piece profiling Ms. Peters titled She Tried to ‘Humanize’ Prisons in Oregon. Can She Fix the Federal System?. Some quotes from the article:

• Inspired by European models, the new Bureau of Prisons director built a Japanese garden in one penitentiary and made official language less demeaning. But some are skeptical of lasting reform.
• And even though Justice Department officials touted Peters as a “visionary leader” with an eye toward rehabilitation when they announced her appointment, critics have raised questions about whether she’s really lived up to her ideals in Oregon.
• “Federal elected officials have been concerned about issues of harassment, discrimination, retaliation and sexual assault at the Bureau of Prisons,” said Sandy Chung, executive director of the ACLU of Oregon. “We’re seeing many of these same issues at the Oregon Department of Corrections — and if under her long tenure, Colette Peters has not been able to adequately address these issues here, how do we expect that she’s going to do that at a federal level with a much bigger system?”
• So far, Peters has not said publicly whether she has a plan to reform the federal prisons, and through a spokesman she declined to comment for this story.

[ CLICK HERE to read the article ]