The Federal Bureau of Prisons (often referred to operationally as the BOP) is a federal law enforcement agency

Law enforcement agency

In North American English, a law enforcement agency is a government agency responsible for the enforcement of the laws.Outside North America, such organizations are called police services. In North America, some of these services are called police while others have other names In North American...

 subdivision of the United States Department of Justice

United States Department of Justice

The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...

 and is responsible for the administration of the federal prison

Prison

A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...

 system. The system also handles prisoners who committed acts considered felonies under the District of Columbia's law. The Bureau was established in 1930 to provide more progressive and humane care for federal inmates, to professionalize the prison service, and to ensure consistent and centralized administration of the 11 federal prisons in operation at the time.

According to its official web site, the Bureau consists of more than 116 institutions, six regional offices, its headquarters office in Washington, D.C., 2 staff training centers, and 22 community corrections offices, and is responsible for the custody and care of approximately 210,000 federal offenders.