Prison Staffing Reform Act of 2025

This proposal, called the Prison Staffing Reform Act of 2025, aims to fix understaffing in federal prisons to protect both staff and people in custody. It says an outside group must review staffing across the system within 180 days and report how shortages affect safety, medical care, programs, and costs. The report must lead to a plan to recruit and fill jobs, cut forced overtime, and set clear staffing guidelines and staff‑to‑inmate ratios for both security and non‑security roles. The review must also look closely at access to health care (including mental health, substance use, and maternal care), wait times for services, protections against abuse, food services, prison security, camera systems, and safer radios for staff. It must include an independent check of prison medical care quality and a three‑year hiring plan with costs. Lawmakers note that current understaffing harms health and safety, increases mandatory overtime, and can weaken prison security and public safety.

The Bureau of Prisons would have up to three years to carry out the plan once it is submitted, if funding is provided, and must give yearly progress updates during that period.

• Who is affected: Federal prison employees and people in federal custody, whose safety, health care, and access to programs are directly impacted by staffing levels.
• What changes: An outside review, a plan to recruit and fill vacancies, steps to reduce mandatory overtime, clear staffing ratios, a review of medical care quality, and attention to security tools like cameras and safer radios, plus a costed three‑year hiring strategy .
• When: Review and plan due within 180 days; implementation to be finished within three years of plan submission (if funded); annual progress reports during those three years .