Federal Correctional Complex, Terre Haute

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The Federal Correctional Complex, Terre Haute, is a federal prison for adult males located on Highway 63, two miles south of Terre Haute, Indiana, United States. It falls under the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

There are two facilities at FCC Terre Haute: Federal Correctional Institution, Terre Haute; and United States Penitentary, Terre Haute. USP Terre Haute is currently the home of the only death chamber for federal death penalty recipients in the United States, where they receive lethal injection. Among those most recently executed at USP Terre Haute were Timothy McVeigh and Juan Raul Garza in 2001, and Louis Jones, Jr., in 2003. McVeigh, the mastermind behind the Oklahoma City bombing, was the first prisoner executed by the U.S. Government since the moratorium on the death penalty was lifted in 1976.[1]

USP

A new United States penitentiary was authorized by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938 and established in Terre Haute, Indiana in 1940 on 1,126 acres of land. The opening of the prison in this city was partly due to heavy promotion by Terre Haute’s Chamber of Commerce, which eventually went on to raise $50,000 to pay for the property on which the prison was built.[2] The residents of Terre Haute initially embraced the prison due to the impression that it would provide jobs to local residents in addition to helping Terre Haute’s economy while only housing non-violent offenders. E.B. Swope was the prison’s first warden.

The U.S. Public Works Administration issued a $3 million grant to pay for construction of USP Terre Haute in 1938...[3] Construction cost of the institution at the time that it was built was $2,250,000.[4] The architectural design of the prison is a modified telephone pole design with all housing and other facilities opening onto a long central corridor. It was the first penitentiary for adult felons ever to be constructed without a wall. In 2004, the USP was rebuilt on adjoining property with the old penitentiary becoming a medium-security Federal Correctional Instition.

USP Terre Haute was among one of the first federal prisons to emphasize rehabilitation by providing psychological and psychiatric treatment, referring to prisoners by names as oppose to numbers, and allowing prisoners to talk during meals instead of eating in silence. The institution initiated the use of the word “inmate” as opposed to other less-appealing labels such as “convict” or “criminal”. It also became one of the first federal prisons to implement educational programs in prisons with sessions devoted to improving the inmates’ skills in reading, writing, math, as well as trades.

USP Terre Haute is a Care Level 3 facility, which means that any inmate sent to Terre Haute who has serious health issues that are not major enough to cause that inmate to be hospitalized is sent to the USP. This facility is also a tobacco-free institution. This part of the FCC contains six housing units. One of the six housing units is a faith-based unit that can house 125 inmates. When the inmates are not working, they are partaking in faith-based activities. All of the inmates in the USP are allotted seven visit-days a month and 300 minutes of telephone time, which they have to use in increments of 30 minutes or less. The inmates housed here can work at Unicor, which is a prison industry that makes towels and other accessories for the military. Inmates employed here earn an average of $6.50 to $7.50 a day and some can make up to $12 a day if they are paid by piece as opposed to by the hour.

Camp

The Terre Haute Camp was built in 1962 with the purpose of housing non-violent felons to perform farm and maintenance duties. The camp has two, eight, and twelve-person rooms. Programs provided for inmates in this facility include GED, ESL, and drug education classes. Sports, cards, golf, and crafts are all different recreational activities that the inmates may partake in within the camp. A selected group of inmates at the camp partake in a community talk tour called Choices, where these inmates visit schools and speak to children that are already involved in meth. The Federal Bureau of Prison’s National Bus Center is operated through this camp.

FCI

In 2001, the Federal Bureau of Prisons decided to build a second facility, costing approximately $80 million. This new penitentiary was initially intended to be another maximum-security facility that would include a new Special Confinement Unit, but ended up serving as a medium-security facility without the Special Confinement Unit. This new unit went on to become part of the USP while the FCI instead acquired the adjacent camp that only housed minimum-security male offenders.[5]

Death Row

In 1993, USP Terre Haute became the only federal prison in the United States to house a death row. It was selected due to its geographic location in the center of the country and the fact that it already was a high-security prison that housed some of the nation’s most dangerous inmates. This institution carries out executions of inmates by means of lethal injection. The most public and controversial death sentence to take place at the prison was the June 11, 2001 execution of Timothy McVeigh, who was convicted in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. On June 19, 2001, Raul Garza became the second person executed at USP Terre Haute for his involvement in three drug-related murders that occurred in 1993. On March 19, 2002, Louis Jones Jr. became the third person executed at this institution for kidnapping, raping, and killing 19-year-old Tracie Joy McBride.

All inmates serving death row sentences are placed in the Special Confinement Unit (SCU) of USP Terre Haute. This unit became a part of USP in July, 1999. The SCU can hold a maximum of fifty inmates. The SCU provides religious and educational television programs, medical and psychological treatment, indoor and outdoor recreation, in addition to an industrial workshop that provides jobs for the inmates.

Demographics

The USP Terre Haute total inmate population is 1,410. The racial breakdown of the USP is 57% percent of this populous are black, 39% are white, 4% are other. Of this, 26% of these inmates were convicted for weapon violations, 25% for drug offenses, 25% for robbery charge, 10% for homicide offenses, and 14% for other offenses. The average sentencing length for the USP is 198 months. The median inmate age here is 37 years old.

The Terre Haute Camp houses 429 inmates. The racial breakdown of the camp is 50% of these inmates ate white, 49% are black, and 1% are other. Of this, 71% of the inmates that make up the camp were sentenced for drug offenses, 14% for fraud/robbery/extortion, 9% for weapon-related offenses, and 6% for other offenses. The average sentencing length for the camp is 84 months.

The FCI Terre Haute total inmate population is 1,168. The racial breakdown of the FCI is 56% are black, 39% are white, and 5% are other. Of this, 43% of the inmates housed in this facility were sentenced for serving drug offenses, 28% for weapon-related offenses, 13% for robbery offenses, and 16% for other offenses. The average sentencing length is 130 months. The median inmate age at the FCI is 36 years old.