The Federal Bureau of Prisons has six regional offices, and every one of its 118 institutions answers to one of them. The number is fixed by regulation: 28 C.F.R. § 503.1 provides that “The Bureau of Prisons consists of a Central Office, located at 320 First Street, NW., Washington, DC 20534, a Staff Training Center, and six Regional Offices (Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, North Central, South Central, and Western).” None of the six holds prisoners. Each is where a BP-10 appeal from its prisons is decided.
The Bureau’s six regional offices at a glance
The offices sit in six cities: Mid-Atlantic at Annapolis Junction, Maryland; North Central at Kansas City, Kansas; Northeast at Philadelphia; South Central at Grand Prairie, Texas; Southeast at Atlanta; and Western at Stockton, California. The states column names only states where a region runs an institution.
| Regional office | Office location | States with institutions | Institutions | Population | Reentry offices |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mid-Atlantic Region | Annapolis Junction, MD | Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia | 20 | 23,314 | 3 |
| North Central Region | Kansas City, KS | Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, South Dakota, Wisconsin | 20 | 21,437 | 5 |
| Northeast Region | Philadelphia, PA | Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania | 18 | 22,303 | 4 |
| South Central Region | Grand Prairie, TX | Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas | 22 | 26,460 | 2 |
| Southeast Region | Atlanta, GA | Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Puerto Rico, South Carolina | 21 | 27,281 | 4 |
| Western Region | Stockton, CA | Arizona, California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington | 17 | 16,870 | 4 |
| Total | 118 | 137,665 | 22 |
On this page
What does a BOP regional office do?
It supervises. The Bureau’s Offices page, read September 18, 2026, puts it this way: “Six regional offices provide oversight and technical assistance to the facilities located in their respective region of the country. In addition to providing operational oversight, regional office staff conduct workshops, conferences, and specialized training programs for their region; assist state and local criminal justice agencies; and contract to provide offender placement in residential reentry centers.”
For families that means two things: a grievance the warden has denied goes to the region next, and the halfway-house contracts a region signs are administered by the 22 Residential Reentry Management offices beneath it, one per group of judicial districts, so reentry questions go to the office for the release district.
Which region is my prison in?
The one the Bureau’s roster gives the institution. The table above follows the roster, and so does each region page. By the states where each region runs a prison:
- Mid-Atlantic: Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia.
- North Central: Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, South Dakota and Wisconsin.
- Northeast: Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
- South Central: Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas.
- Southeast: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Puerto Rico and South Carolina.
- Western: Arizona, California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington.
Tennessee is the one state the two Bureau sources disagree about. The Offices page prints Tennessee under the Mid-Atlantic Region. The roster, queried September 18, 2026, puts FCI Memphis, the state’s only federal institution, in the South Central Region, and that is where an appeal from Memphis is processed. RRM Nashville, which handles reentry for the Tennessee districts, is a Mid-Atlantic office.
The Offices page also assigns every state without a Bureau institution to a region: Delaware to the Mid-Atlantic; Iowa, Nebraska and North Dakota to North Central; Maine, Rhode Island and Vermont to the Northeast; New Mexico to South Central; and Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming to the Western Region. For an appeal, the region that matters is the prison’s, not the home state’s.
Where do BP-10 appeals go?
To the Regional Director for the prison where the person is held when the appeal is mailed. Program Statement 1330.18 (Jan. 6, 2014), at pp. 6–7, allows an appeal “on the appropriate form (BP-10) to the appropriate Regional Director within 20 calendar days of the date the Warden signed the response.” At p. 7 it fixes the office: “The appropriate regional office to process the Appeal is the regional office for the institution where the inmate is confined at the time of mailing the Appeal, regardless of the institution that responded to the institution filing.”
The 20 days run to receipt, not to postmark. Under the response schedule at PS 1330.18 at p. 9 the Regional Director answers “within 30 calendar days”; under the extension schedule in the same paragraph the region may take one further 30 days, with written notice. A denial can then go to the General Counsel on a BP-11 “within 30 calendar days of the date the Regional Director signed the response” (PS 1330.18 at p. 7). Our guide to filing a BP-9 and the Administrative Remedy Program policy page walk through each form.
Regional offices take no mail or money for people in custody; both go to the institution. See writing to someone in federal prison and sending money.
How do the regions fit under the Central Office?
The regions sit between the wardens and the Central Office in Washington, which the Offices page calls the headquarters where “national programs are developed and functional support is provided”. It is also where the BP-11 is decided. Our overview of the Federal Bureau of Prisons shows the whole structure.
The Grand Prairie Office Complex in Texas, the Offices page says, “was created to better serve employees and consolidate various processes to achieve more streamlined, efficient, and cost-effective Bureau-wide operations”; it houses the Designations and Sentence Computation Center. It shares its street address, 346 Marine Forces Drive, with the South Central Regional Office. Our page on BOP Grand Prairie covers it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many regional offices does the Federal Bureau of Prisons have?
Six: Mid-Atlantic, North Central, Northeast, South Central, Southeast and Western. The number is set by 28 C.F.R. § 503.1. Together they supervised 118 institutions holding 137,665 people in the Bureau’s population report of September 10, 2026. The Central Office in Washington sits above them and is not itself a regional office.
Which regional office handles a federal prison in Texas?
The South Central Regional Office in Grand Prairie, Texas. The roster puts every Bureau institution in Texas in that region, which also covers Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and, on the roster’s reading, FCI Memphis in Tennessee. A BP-10 from a Texas prison goes to the South Central Regional Director if the person is still held there when it is mailed.
Is Tennessee in the Mid-Atlantic or the South Central Region?
It depends which Bureau document you read. The Offices page prints Tennessee in the Mid-Atlantic list, while the roster files FCI Memphis, the state’s sole federal institution, under South Central, and a Memphis appeal goes there. The reentry office for Tennessee release plans, RRM Nashville, belongs to the Mid-Atlantic Region. We checked both on September 18, 2026.
How long does a Regional Director have to answer a BP-10?
Thirty calendar days from the date the appeal is logged as received, under the response schedule in Program Statement 1330.18 at p. 9. The region may extend that once by 30 days in writing. If no answer arrives in the time allowed, including the extension, the statement lets the person treat the silence as a denial at that level.
Can I send mail or money to someone through a regional office?
No. A regional office has no one in custody, so post and deposits for a person are sent to the prison that holds them, following that prison’s procedures. Use a regional address only for a BP-10 appeal, a sensitive request filed directly with the Regional Director, or a letter to a named member of the office’s staff.
Is the Central Office one of the regional offices?
No. The Central Office in Washington, D.C. is the Bureau’s headquarters and supervises all six regions. Under 28 C.F.R. § 503.1 the Bureau consists of the Central Office, a Staff Training Center and the six regional offices. A final administrative appeal, the BP-11, goes to the General Counsel there rather than to a region.
Where we can help
We work on problems that climb this ladder: remedy appeals carried from the warden to the region and on to Washington, transfers, and compassionate release requests a warden has turned down.
Discuss a Discipline or Custody Issue. You leave with an assessment of whether the Bureau followed its own policy, and what to file if it did not. A BP-9 is due 20 calendar days after the event it complains of. 28 C.F.R. § 542.14(a).
Call 843-620-1100 or contact us to arrange a paid one-hour consultation about a specific situation. Calls are answered 24 hours a day. Related: our compassionate release and prison consulting pages.
Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. is a federal criminal defense and post-conviction firm based in Columbia, South Carolina, practicing nationwide. Mentions of particular places on this page do not imply an office or a lawyer there.
Sources and currency
Bureau of Prisons documents
- Offices, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Read September 18, 2026.
- Our Locations, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. The roster, queried September 18, 2026.
- Population Statistics, Federal Bureau of Prisons. The September 10, 2026 report.
- Administrative Remedy Program, Program Statement 1330.18, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2014, at pp. 6–7 and 9.
Regulations
- 28 C.F.R. § 503.1, Structure of the Bureau of Prisons.
- 28 C.F.R. § 542.14, Initial filing.
- 28 C.F.R. § 542.15, Appeals.
Sources reviewed September 2026.
Reviewed for legal accuracy by Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney·September 2026