The National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls Statement on the Appointment of Joshua Smith as Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons

BOSTON, June 9, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls (The National Council) recognizes the historic appointment of Joshua Smith, whose lived experience within the federal prison system and subsequent advocacy work reflect the resilience found in many directly impacted individuals.

Representation inside systems of harm is not the same as transformation. We hope that appointing a formerly-incarcerated person to a leadership role in the Bureau of Prisons signals a growing awareness that the system has failed to rehabilitate, repair, or deliver justice. Mr. Smith should understand how prisons perpetuate generational trauma, racialized punishment, and systemic neglect, which could benefit people in his custody. Mr. Smith must spearhead the decarceration of the elderly, ill, long-timers, and those who are being punished for fighting back against their abusers, especially women and girls. Too many have been criminalized for surviving violence, poverty, and state abandonment. Leadership changes, no matter how remarkable, are meaningless unless they result in a system that no longer disappears, warehouses, and dehumanizes.

We stand ready to support Mr. Smith if he wants to reduce the prison population and thereby save the taxpayers money while returning loved ones to their families and communities. We do not seek kinder cages. What our communities need are meaningful investments in housing, education, healthcare, restorative practices, and economic justice. We need systems of care, not punishment. The National Council will continue the long-term work with directly-affected women, girls, families, and communities to build what we know is possible—a world without incarceration.

About The National Council:

The National Council is a 501 (c) (3) organization founded in 2010 by a group of women incarcerated in the federal prison in Danbury, CT. The organization works to end the criminal legal system's forced separation of women and girls from their communities and loved ones through hyper-local organizing, public awareness education, movement lawyering, and the national FreeHer Campaign. Our mission is to end the incarceration of women and girls.

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SOURCE The National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls