Bureau of Prisons Announces Staffing Increases, Fixes at Prison Holding Sean “Diddy” Combs

NEW YORK – The Federal Bureau of Prisons said it has increased its staffing levels in recent months to compensate for dire staffing shortages at the New York jail where Sean “Diddy” Combs is awaiting trial after pleading not guilty Tuesday to sex trafficking charges.

The agency’s efforts to fix Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center come as inmates, advocates and judges continue to sound the alarm about “unsafe and barbaric conditions,” rampant violence and multiple deaths. Some judges have refused to send people to the facility, the only federal prison in the nation’s largest city.

Combs’ lawyers are pushing for his transfer to a New Jersey prison, arguing that the Brooklyn jail, known as MDC Brooklyn, is not suitable for pretrial detention. Combs, 54, is being held in the facility’s special unit, confined to his cell for up to 23 hours a day and under 24-hour surveillance. His lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, said that’s routine for high-ranking newcomers.

The Brooklyn MDC is getting much-needed attention thanks to a group of senior Bureau of Prisons officials known as the Urgent Action Team, who are focused on returning the facility to adequate staffing levels and ensuring it is in good repair.

The agency announced Friday that it had increased staffing at the prison by about 20 percent, bringing its total number of employees to 469. Even so, there are still 157 vacancies. The new hires include corrections officers and medical staff. Before the increase, the facility was operating at about 55 percent of its full staff, according to court documents.

At the same time, the facility's inmate population has dropped from about 1,600 at the start of the year to about 1,200 as of Friday.

A senior Bureau of Prisons official told The Associated Press that members of the urgent action team have made repeated visits to the Brooklyn MDC and meet weekly to address the prison’s problems. Senior agency officials are giving the prison “sustained attention” and a “sustained leadership focus” to mitigate problems at the prison, the official said.

The official was not authorized to publicly discuss the ongoing investigation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

In addition to hiring, the Bureau of Prisons said it was addressing a major maintenance backlog at the Brooklyn jail. During the four weeks this spring, temporary workers completed more than 800 work orders for repairs and infrastructure improvements. These included electrical and plumbing upgrades, as well as repairs to the food service, heating and air conditioning systems.

MDC Brooklyn has been plagued by problems since it opened in the 1990s. Part of the facility, near the waterfront in the Sunset Park neighborhood, is a century-old former Navy warehouse. The Bureau of Prisons closed its other New York City prison, the Metropolitan Correctional Center, in 2021 after Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide exposed poor security, crumbling infrastructure and dangerous, squalid conditions there.

Inmates at the Brooklyn MDC have long complained of frequent violence, horrific living conditions, severe understaffing, and rampant trafficking of drugs and other contraband, sometimes facilitated by staff. At the same time, they say they have been subjected to frequent lockdowns in which they have been barred from leaving their cells for visits, calls, showers, or exercise.

The Brooklyn MDC isn't the only federal correctional facility facing staffing and other problems.

The Bureau of Prisons has struggled to retain correctional officers in its jails and detention centers across the United States — but the problem has been even more pronounced in New York, in part because of the city's high cost of living and starting salaries that are far lower than those of other law enforcement agencies.

In recent years, Brooklyn MDC officers have been forced to work repeated overtime due to staffing shortages, raising safety concerns. To stem the loss of experienced staff, the agency has increased retention bonuses to boost Brooklyn jail workers' salaries.

The problems persist. At least six MDC Brooklyn staffers have been charged with crimes in the past five years. Some have been accused of taking bribes or providing contraband to inmates, such as drugs, cigarettes and cellphones, according to an AP analysis of arrests linked to the agency.

In recent months, inmates have also alleged that food served at the prison contained maggots. The senior Bureau of Prisons official who spoke to the AP about the work of the urgent action team said all food at the prison was tested after that claim and no maggots were found. An assistant warden also tests food before it is served, the official said.

The agency has focused on fixing MDC Brooklyn amid increased congressional scrutiny and a new law overhauling oversight of the troubled federal prison system. Combs' detention at MDC Brooklyn has only further galvanized public interest.

An ongoing AP investigation has exposed deep, previously unreported flaws within the Bureau of Prisons, an agency with more than 30,000 employees, 158,000 inmates, 122 facilities and an annual budget of about $8 billion.

AP reporting has revealed dozens of escapes, chronic violence, deaths and severe staffing shortages that have hampered responses to emergencies, including inmate assaults and suicides.

In April, the Bureau of Prisons announced it was closing its women's prison in Dublin, California, known as the “rape club,” abandoning any attempt to reform the facility after an AP investigation revealed staff sexually abused inmates.

In July, President Joe Biden signed legislation establishing a new oversight paradigm for the Bureau of Prisons, including an independent ombudsman to handle and investigate complaints and risk-based inspections by the Justice Department's inspector general of all 122 federal correctional facilities.