FCI Berlin, a federal prison in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, was built to hold 1,660 people. When the Justice Department’s inspector general showed up unannounced on January 12, 2026, it held 846, about 51 percent of capacity (DOJ OIG report 27-002, p. 1). It was also 54 employees short of its authorized staffing (p. 6). The Bureau of Prisons’ remedy for a half-empty prison that could not staff itself was to give it a second job: housing immigration detainees for ICE. The October 2026 report describes what followed, and the Bureau’s reply describes what comes next, which is largely policy memos and work requests.
A Vacancy Is Not a Floor Plan
Berlin is staffed at 80 percent, 222 of 276 positions, and its Correctional Services Department sits at 68 percent, 82 of 120 (p. 6). To keep posts covered, the Bureau sent 390 temporary-duty deployments to the prison between March 2025 and January 2026, including 323 officers on two-week rotations. Berlin’s own officers worked overtime equal to more than 12 full-time positions, and non-custody employees were pulled onto officer posts, a practice called augmentation (pp. 6 to 7). Local leadership told inspectors these stopgaps were not sustainable (p. 7). Filling every authorized slot would not solve it either. The Bureau’s own staffing tool says safe operation at full capacity requires 383 employees, 107 more than authorized (p. 9).
Here is the detail worth lingering on. Bureau headquarters officials told the inspectors that Berlin was picked for ICE detainees partly because of its proximity to Boston and its available space, and that the space existed because understaffing had reduced the number of inmates designated there (p. 3). A prison empty because it cannot staff itself was treated as a prison with room.
One inference, labeled as such. KTVU reported on the leaked February 2025 interagency agreement, saying it carried a caveat that Berlin was not currently available because of insufficient staffing, food, clothing and training. The OIG report does not say how that caveat was resolved. It says detainees began arriving in March 2025 (p. 1) and that the 390 deployments run from the same month (p. 6). My inference, resting on those two sources, is that the staffing problem was known when the mission was assigned and that rotating officers were the workaround. Nothing in the report states that directly.
Waiting Is the Treatment Plan
The medical findings are where staffing stops being an abstraction. Health Services had 11 of 16 positions filled (p. 7). The clinical director who held the department together left in June 2026, and the Public Health Service officers assigned to the detainee side were reassigned that month to an Ebola response. That left Berlin with no on-site physician, which OIG confirmed was still true in September 2026 (p. 7). The only dentist position had been vacant more than a year, covered by a temporary dentist about three days a month (pp. 7 to 8). There has been no psychologist on staff since December 2025, so releasing an inmate from suicide watch, which requires a face-to-face evaluation, means a psychologist from another institution has to drive in (p. 14).
In the records OIG could analyze, ten completed sick call requests from January 2026 averaged nearly two months from request to provider, against a 14-day policy. One inmate with eye pain and redness waited nearly four months. Another, reporting frequent urination and poor circulation in his hands, waited over six (p. 16). OIG also suspects some requests never reached the electronic records system at all (p. 16). Of 134 nonemergency outside appointments in the prior year, 36 happened by the target date. The other 98 were late by an average of 53 days (p. 17). One inmate was ordered for emergent oral surgery in March 2025, with a May 2025 target. He was seen in April 2026, after the contractor rescheduled him and an employee assigned to escort one trip refused the post, which canceled it (p. 17).
Somebody Else’s Detainees
The interagency agreement calls for ICE to provide at least two officers as points of contact or on site at each institution (p. 55). Berlin had one, rarely present, plus high turnover among the Boston-based regional staff, and BOP employees fielded the requests ICE did not answer (p. 10). Berlin completed 846 detainee intakes in the first seven months, and the clinical director described arrivals of 30 to 50 a week by November 2025 (p. 15). Records were incomplete. Some detainees were labeled cleared for tuberculosis without complete test results, and the clinical director said an active case nearly arrived once (p. 15).
The rest of the ICE findings read like a checklist of who was responsible for what. A Public Health Service provider repeatedly used detainees to translate medication dosages for other detainees, which OIG said violated both the agreement and BOP policy and potentially violated federal law (pp. 24 to 25). BOP sexual abuse reporting posters in detainee units had been swapped for ICE’s at ICE’s request. The BOP restored them in September 2026, after receiving the draft report (p. 30). Of 13 ordered outside medical trips for detainees, only 2 were approved, and both were pending an average of 94 days past target. One detainee’s urgent oral surgery referral sat unscheduled for over six months, while a BOP inmate’s routine consult was booked ahead of it (p. 19). The Public Health Service, for its part, told OIG that weekday-only coverage was a BOP scheduling decision (p. 11, note 3).
A second labeled inference. OIG says its authority is limited to DOJ, so it did not assess ICE’s responsibilities or what happened to detainees before arrival (p. 46). It sent the draft to ICE, DHS OIG and the Public Health Service (p. 46). The agreement divides one building’s duties among DOJ, DHS and HHS (Appendix 4, pp. 55 to 58). My inference, resting on that scope statement and that division of duties, is that no single inspector general can examine the arrangement as a whole. I found no DHS OIG report on Berlin, though absence from a search is not proof that none exists.
Concurrence Is Not a Cure
BOP Director William K. Marshall III concurred with all eight recommendations in an October 7, 2026 memo (pp. 59 to 64). The recommendations are narrow: document sick calls, secure dangerous medical supplies, supervise inmate workers in Health Services, clarify rounds, fix the abuse-reporting posters, and tighten contraband and pat-search practices (pp. 44 to 45). None addresses physicians, psychologists or officers, and a search of the response turns up no mention of vacancies or staffing at all.
Some answers sit oddly against the findings. OIG documented unlocked chemical containers, sharp tools, and open storage rooms around the dental area (p. 20). The BOP’s answer to that recommendation is a work request for a locking device on the cabinet (p. 60). On rounds, OIG’s review of 128 hours of footage found no overnight rounds in two general population units, one holding ICE detainees, and several gaps of three or more hours (pp. 26 to 27). The Bureau replied that normal operations in those units require a single log entry for “intermittent rounds conducted periodically throughout the shift” (p. 61).
Then there are the things the recommendations never touch. A December 2024 BOP change dropped the requirement to watch buprenorphine strips fully dissolve. Between August and October 2025, 12 of 50 participants in the program were removed for diversion (p. 26). OIG made no recommendation on that, and the Bureau’s response is silent. The prison has $17 million in unfunded infrastructure requests (p. 34), a pallet x-ray machine broken for almost three years (p. 33), and walk-in refrigerators that ran as warm as 57 degrees against a 41 degree standard (p. 38).
None of this is new to the inspector general. OIG notes similar round failures at five other institutions (p. 27), and its earlier inspections of FCI Waseca and FCI Sheridan found the same overtime and augmentation spiral. OIG rates all eight recommendations resolved but not closed and wants proof of implementation by January 13, 2027 (p. 65). As of September, the prison had room for roughly 800 more people. It did not have a doctor.
