On May 14, 1930, President Herbert Hoover signed the Act of Congress that created the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). The signing was accompanied by little fanfare, not much controversy, and modest hopes for the future. Until the 1890s, most federal prisoners were housed in state facilities. The U.S. Marshalls found beds for them and paid for their keep with funds supplied by the Attorney General. Along with other inmates, the federal prisoners were leased out to farmers and private businessmen. Most "contract" inmates performed menial labor under brutal conditions. In 1887 Congress passed a law that prohibited state officials from leasing out federal prisoners. Some states responded by refusing to accept any more federal prisoners; others began charging exorbitant boarding fees. Meanwhile, the number of federal prisoners rose steadily, growing from a few hundred in the mid-1840s to over 15,000 as the 1880s came to a close.
In 1891, Congress passed the Three Prisons Act; and for the first time, the federal government assumed direct charge of its prisoners. U.S. penitentiaries were opened in Leavenworth, Kansas (1895), Atlanta, Georgia (1902), and McNeil Island, Washington (1907). In theory, these prisons, and the federal reformatories that followed, operated under the direction of a Superintendent of Prisons in the Department of Justice. In practice, each warden ran his prison (or, in the case of the Institution for Women in Alderson, West Virginia, her prison) in an independent, autocratic fashion, taking little or no direction from Washington. Each prison was funded separately by Congress. Wardens obtained their jobs through political patronage. In time, each prison became the fiefdom of the warden and his or her cronies. The results were not good. In the 1920s, federal prisoners were beaten mercilessly for minor rule violations. They ate rotten food served from buckets. Baths were a...........
