KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Plainly put, Josh Smith could be enjoying life with his family on a faraway beach anywhere in the world. Instead, the 51-year-old former felon spends his days on the road visiting a record number of federal prisons and working on reforms within the largest prison system in the world.
“I’ve been to 64 facilities in the first year. There’re people that have been 10 years in this career that have never seen that many prisons,” Smith said while on a recent trip home to East Tennessee during the Memorial Day weekend.
Less than a year ago, Smith accepted the role as deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, calling early skepticism from corrections officers about his title “legitimate.”…