WASHINGTON • Biden administration officials have discussed whether to remove the holdover director of the beleaguered federal Bureau of Prisons who has been at the center of the agency’s myriad crises.

The discussions about whether to fire Michael Carvajal are in the preliminary stages and a final decision hasn’t yet been made, two people familiar with the matter said. They were not authorized to publicly discuss the internal talks and spoke on condition of anonymity.

But there’s an indication that the bureau is shaking up its senior ranks following growing criticism of chronic mismanagement, blistering reports from the Justice Department’s inspector general and a bleak financial outlook.

Since the death of Jeffrey Epstein at a federal lockup in New York in August 2019, The Associated Press has exposed one crisis after another, including rampant spread of coronavirus inside prisons and a failed response to the pandemic, escapes, deaths and critically low staffing levels that have hampered responses to emergencies.