Josh Duggar’s latest prison move could make it harder for the former 19 Kids and Counting star to see his family.
“The Bureau of Prisons wields arbitrary authority over prison placement. Inmates have no recourse to challenge,” Duggar’s attorney, Beau B. Brindley, said in a statement to Us Weekly on Tuesday, July 14. “In this instance, Josh did nothing but expose improprieties in the legal mail system at Seagoville during a hearing. As a result, he has been arbitrarily transferred to a facility so far from his family that visits will be almost impossible.”
Earlier this month, Us confirmed through court documents that Duggar, 38, is now imprisoned at FCI Elkton in Lisbon, Ohio.
A Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) spokesperson also confirmed to KNWA TV that Duggar was specifically transferred from temporary accommodations at FTC Oklahoma City to FCI Elkton on July 8.
His new prison is described online as a “low security federal correctional institution with an adjacent low security satellite prison,” which is currently holding just over 2,000 inmates between its two campuses.
In December 2021, Duggar was convicted of receiving and possessing child sexual abuse material. He was ordered to serve 12 years behind bars. (Duggar has maintained his innocence and suggested there were “errors in the admission of forensic evidence” at his trial.)
Duggar was initially housed at the Washington County Detention Center in Arkansas following his arrest. He served a majority of his 151-month prison sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Seagoville, Texas, before being moved to FMC in Fort Worth in early 2026. Prior to his latest move, he spent a few months at the Federal Transfer Center (FTC) in Oklahoma City.
Duggar is tentatively scheduled to be released in February 2033. The date, however, has been pushed back on multiple occasions.
Despite his conviction, Josh has had the support of his wife, Anna Duggar. The couple share seven children together, with Anna, 38, raising the kids in Arkansas.
“I have no idea why Anna has decided to stay with Josh, and what she is dealing with there and everything,” Josh’s sister Jill Duggar told Access Hollywood in September 2023 while promoting her book Counting the Cost. “I have no idea, and I’m just, I guess, watching with everybody else, kind of just what unfolds.”
Josh and Jill’s cousin Amy Duggar King has also expressed her desire to support Anna if she ever decided to leave her husband.
“Anna, I feel for you. No woman wants to be in your shoes. You’re faced with an impossible decision and you’re being surrounded by the wrong kind of support,” Amy, 39, wrote via Instagram in May 2022. “You’ve been taught since you were a child that marriage is forever and you prayed for God to send you a partner. You’ve constructed a life and a family with him. You didn’t choose any of this, and your kids certainly didn’t either.”
