Earlier this month, Josh J. Smith, who served five years in the federal prison system on drug charges, was tapped to be deputy director at the agency that had locked him up. The Bureau of Prisons touted Smith’s appointment as a “testament to the power of transformation” and proof that the agency is succeeding at its mission.
But many of the correctional officers who patrol the more than 100 facilities operated by the agency across the country saw Smith’s appointment as another slap in the face, just months after President Donald Trump moved to rescind their collective bargaining rights.
“I will never accept a former inmate supervising me,” said a correctional officer who works at a federal facility in Miami and asked not to be named because he’s not authorized to speak to the press. “I know a Marine who did a tour in Iraq who got fired for pissing marijuana. Why should he be making six figures, and this woman lost her job?”
The national union that represents bureau staffers did not take an official position on Smith’s appointment. However, Brandy Moore White, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Council of Prison Locals, said she had heard from many members who see a double standard in Smith’s appointment, given the rigorous screening that job applicants must undergo.
“If you have anything in your background, you can’t work for the bureau,” White said, noting that she had to spend hours with the investigator who conducted her background check before she was hired in 2004 as a health services secretary. “He’s going to have issues gaining respect because of that.”
In interviews with The Marshall Project, several bureau staffers expressed concern not about Smith’s criminal history, but about his lack of experience running an agency of the size and complexity of the Bureau of Prisons. It is the largest prison system in the country, with more than 35,000 employees and a budget of more than $8.6 billion. The bureau is responsible for overseeing nearly 156,000 people sentenced by the federal courts
For their part, several incarcerated people said they see Smith’s story as a positive. “The general consensus is that it can only be a good thing,” said Lana Crown, who is serving time at a federal prison camp in Texas. “Maybe he will help with living conditions and getting out of prison when we are supposed to, because he has lived it.”
CeCe Hunter, who is incarcerated at a federal facility in North Carolina, said, “He’s a convict, just like us. I think he would be more pro-prisoners than somebody that’s never been there.”
When reached by phone, Smith referred questions to the media office for the Bureau of Prisons, which declined The Marshall Project’s request to interview him. According to news reports and his online biography, Smith, now 50, grew up in public housing in Nashville. He was convicted of multiple felonies as a teenager and dropped out of high school. In 1998, he was convicted on a federal charge of conspiracy to possess and distribute cocaine and marijuana, and was sent to a minimum-security prison camp in Kentucky. There, he later told a reporter, he got to know people convicted of white-collar crimes, who he said taught him about finance, real estate and stock trading.
He went on to start a home repair and construction business that specialized in basements and foundations. Master Service Companies eventually expanded to locations in three states before Smith sold it in 2019. According to news coverage, he used millions of dollars from the proceeds to found the Fourth Purpose Foundation, a faith-based nonprofit that works with incarcerated people. He got involved in policy reform, joining Tennessee’s Criminal Justice Investment Task Force. In 2021, in the last days of Trump’s first administration, the president granted Smith a full and unconditional pardon.
“Deputy Director Smith's story is one of pain to prosperity,” bureau spokesperson Randilee Giamusso wrote in an email to The Marshall Project. “He brings to his role something our agency has never had before: a perspective shaped by lived experience.”
Smith’s name had been floated for a possible appointment for several months. In April, Trump named Billy Marshall, formerly the head of the prison system in West Virginia, to lead the bureau, and this month Marshall chose Smith to be his deputy.
“I love the fact that you have a guy who knows corrections in Billy, but you’ve got a guy like Josh who’s done a lot of reform and reentry work,” said Hugh Hurwitz, who served as interim director of the Bureau of Prisons in 2018 and 2019 and now works as a corrections consultant. “He’s run businesses; he’s got credibility; he has connections. Combine Josh's background and Billy's background, you’ve got a powerful team to run the agency.”
But among federal prison staff, the appointment felt like one more blow to their beleaguered organization.
Some staffers said they believe that Trump wants to privatize the bureau. The more the agency falters, they said, the easier it would be for Trump to make the case to let private prison operators take over. “Most of the people that I've talked to, they feel like we’re being set up to fail,” said Gregory Watts, who retired last year as a correctional officer in a federal prison in Texas and still serves as president of his facility’s union local. He thinks Smith was chosen specifically because of his lack of experience. Trump “wants to run the agency into the ground,” Watts said.
In an emailed statement, Liz Huston, a spokesperson for the White House, did not respond to questions about whether Trump wants to privatize the bureau, but said Smith’s firsthand experience gives him valuable perspective.
“For over two decades, he has been a dedicated advocate for prison reform, and his passion and expertise will play a critical role in transforming the agency’s culture,” Huston wrote.
The reaction of bureau staffers on social media was largely outraged. “Fox in charge of the chickens,” wrote one Facebook user in a private group for current and former agency employees. Another wrote that he struggled to get a small pay raise, “but an inmate can be your boss’s boss.”
The bureau has been plagued by understaffing for years, which experts say makes prisons more dangerous for staff and prisoners alike. But the Trump administration did not spare the agency in its efforts to aggressively cut the federal workforce. In February, the bureau announced it was slashing retention bonuses, which resulted in pay cuts of up to 25% for some workers. In March, Trump issued an executive order to end collective bargaining that would eliminate many protections the union had won over years of negotiations. (The union is currently challenging this action in court.) In May, officials announced a partial hiring freeze. Budget negotiations in Congress have included proposals to reduce retirement benefits for bureau employees.
White, the union president, said Smith has something that previous top administrators at the bureau have not had: the president’s ear. She is hopeful that will be a positive change for staff.
The bureau has seen an exodus of high-ranking officials since Trump’s inauguration. At least six members — more than a third — of the agency’s senior leadership, each with decades of experience, announced their departures within weeks. In interviews, bureau staffers said they feared that Smith’s appointment would lead to the retirements of more experienced employees that the agency cannot afford to lose.
“Having a prior convicted felon as the second-in-command at the bureau is just unbelievable,” said Josh Lepird, a regional vice president of the Council of Prison Locals. “The morale was down and low to begin with, but now you’ve got people that want to get out of the bureau ASAP.”
The mission of the Bureau of Prisons includes “preparing individuals for successful reentry.” Kimora, a professor who teaches corrections courses at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York (and uses one name), said that correctional officers who believe in that mission ought to embrace Smith’s appointment.
But Hurwitz, the former interim director, said he understands why staff is struggling with the news. He pointed out that the mission also includes incarcerating people who pose a danger to society. “You can do both, and quite frankly I think BOP is as good as anybody at doing both,” he said. But it can be difficult for officers to reconcile that they have “to both rehabilitate people as well as [say], ‘These are bad people, and you have to protect society from them.’”
Still, Hurwitz said, Smith is proof that it can be done.
“What he did, he did when he was in his 20s, and he’s a different person today,” Hurwitz said. “I’ve met him a number of times. He’s not a thug. He’s changed.”