The same week that President Joe Biden signed a bill into law that aims to strengthen oversight of the Federal Bureau of Prisons amid reports of systemic corruption and chronic understaffing, the Federal Correctional Institution in Ray Brook went into lockdown.

This lockdown — caused by an inmate’s “emotion-driven attack,” according to union officials representing the prison’s corrections officers — was at least the fourth lockdown at the medium-security facility so far this year.

There has been another lockdown in the days since.

At this prison, described by AFGE Local 3882 union President Jennifer Rockhill as a “generally pretty calm place,” lockdowns have been a normal part of life since the facility opened just months after the 1980 Winter Olympics (it was the Olympic Village before being reverted into a prison). Lockdowns were an inconvenience that the staff and prison population shouldered when the time came. But as lockdowns have become more frequent over the past few years, they’ve taken on new significance.

“It’s just one incident after another,” Rockhill told Staff Writer Aaron Marbone this week. “It’s been back-to-back-to-back.”

The staff-strapped prison is operating at a 6:1 ratio — 801 inmates to around 60 corrections officers and 67 non-correctional staff. Each lockdown now threatens to morph into something far more dangerous.

While on lockdown, visitations are suspended, leaving some families traveling from far away without answers. Inmates are kept in their cells for most of the day and their access to phone calls and email is revoked. Staff are required to work overtime and are asked to do extra work that inmates would normally do.

With fewer freedoms, tensions inevitably rise, and when tensions run high, prisons need a healthy contingent of staff to keep the peace. Without that, prison staff are put at risk.

This perilous situation mirrors that of many other federal prisons around the country facing similar staffing shortages. The BOP says it needs 4,300 more correctional officers to be fully staffed. But Ray Brook’s staffing crunch is compounded by a variety of factors –the region’s affordable housing crisis, dwindling labor pool and pay that the union has described as not competitive enough.

The bill signed by Biden last month creates an independent ombudsman to field complaints online and through a hotline and after an investigation, the ombudsman will report any dangerous conditions to the attorney general and Congress. The problems plaguing prisons like FCI Ray Brook are complex and will require a complex solution. We’re hopeful that given enough resources to back it up, the bill signed into law last month could spur change. But Congress must keep in mind that the work to address the broad-ranging crises facing the BOP is far from over.