William K. Marshall III
| William K. Marshall III | |
|---|---|
| Status: | Serving as BOP Director |
William K. Marshall III is the 13th Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, sworn in April 2025 as a Trump appointee. He is the seventh person to hold the position in ten years — a turnover rate that itself reflects the agency's institutional instability.
Tenure
Marshall's directorship has coincided with the most consequential restructuring in BOP history:
- July 1, 2026: announced the closure of six facilities (Beaumont Low, Big Spring + camp, La Tuna + camp, Lexington camp, Petersburg Low, Taft), citing "decades of deferred maintenance and extreme staffing challenges" and a maintenance backlog exceeding $4 billion
- July 1, 2026: simultaneously announced the conversion of Duluth and Morgantown camps from minimum-security to Federal Satellite Low (FSL) facilities
- September 2025 - October 2026: presided over the cancellation and re-termination of the AFGE union contract in defiance of a court order
- October 2026: launched a 4,500-employee hiring initiative
- November 10, 2026: announced the VITAL veterans program's bureau-wide expansion
Congressional Oversight
House Judiciary Democrats (Rep. Raskin, Rep. McBath) sent a staffing-focused letter to Marshall on February 20, 2026. The CRS report R48826 ("Correctional Officer Staffing in Federal Prisons," January 2026) documented chronic vacancies that predate his tenure but have accelerated under the closure-and-consolidation strategy.
See Also
References
- ↑ "BOP to close six institutions". Federal News Network. Retrieved November 11, 2026.