Federal Prison System

History

The U.S. Congress formally established the Federal Bureau of Prisons in 1930. By then, a fairly considerable federal corrections system already existed. Courts had been created in 1789, and seven prisons had been gradually established from the last decade of the 19th century. Individuals found guilty of federal offenses could be fined, given corporal punishment, or held in state, local, or federal facilities. The federal correctional system, although predominantly a 20th-century creation, has its roots, in other words, in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The so-called Three Prison Act, which was passed in 1891, began the process of creating the federal prison system by identifying three sites around the country for its first penitentiaries. Development, however, was slow, and six years passed before ground breaking began on the first of the penitentiaries, USP Leavenworth. All told, it took inmates 25 years to complete Leavenworth Penitentiary.

Leavenworth was followed by Atlanta in 1902 and then, in 1909, by McNeil Island in Washington State, which had originally been founded as a territorial jail in 1875. These three institutions made up the entire system for many years until new laws, such as the Volstead Act in 1918, which introduced Prohibition, caused the federal population to grow exponentially.

The first women's prison in the federal system, FPC Alderson, opened in 1928 almost 40 years after the Three Prison Act. Prior to this time, women convicted of federal offenses were held in state and local penal facilities. Unlike the earlier penitentiaries that had grouped men in single large buildings, Alderson housed women in low-level, freestanding houses set within a rural setting.

Alcatraz, commonly viewed as a precursor to today's supermaximum secure facilities, opened in 1934. Designed to be an impenetrable and inescapable facility, Alcatraz was the destination for the most notorious criminals of the time. Al Capone, George “Machine Gun” Kelly, and Robert Stroud, the so-called Birdman of Alcatraz, all spent time there. When Alcatraz finally closed in 1963, its prisoners were transferred to the modern facility at Marion, Illinois.

Originally, Marion was a Level 5 prison, the highest security rating of the time. A series of violent and lethal attacks by inmates on staff and other prisoners throughout the 1970s and early 1980s culminated in the killing of two staff members on the same day in October 1983. After this event, the prison was re-rated at the previously unheard of security level of 6 and placed on continual lockdown. In 1994, ADX Florence replaced Marion as the destination “of last resort” for those inmates who were labeled dangerous and troublesome in the federal system.

The supermaximum secure prison at ADX Florence has the highest security level in the federal prison system. It holds “inmates who have been officially designated as exhibiting violent or serious and disruptive behavior while incarcerated” (National Institute of Corrections [NIC], 1997, p. 1). Prisoners are housed in solitary confinement and are rarely allowed out of their cells. Very few inmates are sent directly to ADX Florence from the courts. They are [Page 312]usually transferred there from other high-security state or federal facilities during their sentence. Wardens wishing to commit prisoners to ADX Florence must make a special request to the North Central Regional Director and provide evidence that the individual “can be controlled only by separation, restricted movement, and limited direct access to staff and other inmates” (NIC, 1997, p. 1). According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons (2000b), “Inmates with severe or chronic behavior patterns that cannot be addressed in any other Bureau institution should be referred to ADX Florence general population, and those who are somewhat less problematic should be referred to USP Marion” (p. 12). If the inmate is designated a “failure” within Marion he may be sent on to ADX Florence.

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