When the coronavirus hit the Federal Bureau of Prisons last year, the senior official responsible for overseeing health care and safety in all of the more than 120 lockups was Nicole English, a career corrections officer with a graduate degree in public administration — and no hands-on health care experience. When she switched roles, her replacement, Michael Smith, also had no formal medical education.

Union leaders, prison health care workers and advocates for prisoners’ rights said it was troubling that the people leading the federal prison system’s Health Services Division during the COVID-19 crisis lacked medical licenses. The Bureau of Prisons came under fire last year from politicians and union leaders for pressuring guards to come to work sick, failing to follow its own pandemic plan and buying knock-off N-95 masks.

Agency spokeswoman Randilee Giamusso defended the Bureau of Prisons’ response to the coronavirus as “swift and effective,” but wouldn’t comment on Smith or English’s qualifications beyond sharing their publicly listed biographies.

Instead, she wrote in an email that in their roles as assistant directors in charge of the Health Services Division, English and Smith oversaw “an array of highly qualified subject-matter experts” who can help set policies and make decisions.

But as some critics noted, the head of the Health Services Division is the one who signs some of the most important medical policies and standards.

The nonprofit National Commission on Correctional Health Care has urged since 1999 that jail and prison medical staff members have the same credentials as those who work outside, in settings like hospitals. But states often allow medical staffers in correctional facilities to work under licenses that are restricted because of past disciplinary issues — and critics say it’s part of the reason prisons were so ill-equipped to combat the coronavirus.

Read the full article about prison leadership by Keri Blakinger at The Marshall Project.