| Location | Williamson County, Illinois |
|---|---|
| Status | Operational |
| Security class | Medium |
| Capacity | 1,000 |
| Opened | 1963 |
| Managed by | Federal Bureau of Prisons |
The United States Penitentiary is a Federal Bureau of Prisons facility located in Southern Precinct, unincorporated Williamson County, Illinois.[1][2] The facility is located 9 miles (14 km) south of Marion, 120 miles (190 km) from St. Louis, and 300 miles (480 km) from Chicago.[3] It was built in 1963 to replace the Alcatraz prison in San Francisco, which closed the same year.
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Opened in 1963, Marion became the United States' highest security prison by 1978.[4] The facility became the nation's first control unit when violence forced a long-term lockdown in 1983.
Marion was one of two supermax prisons in the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the other being ADX Florence in Colorado. The prison was originally constructed to hold 500 inmates. In 1968, a behavior modification program was implemented, called Control and Rehabilitation Effort, or CARE. Inmates placed in CARE wound up either in solitary confinement, or were subjected to "group therapy", which involved psychological sessions.
In 1975, five prisoners (Maurice Philion, Arthur Mankins, Henry Gargano, Edward Roche, and Dennis Hunter) walked out of the front door of the prison and escaped. One of them had been an electrician and over a period of time had been required to work on the lock mechanisms of all of the doors in the main corridors. He also converted a radio into a remote control, with which he opened all of the doors. One prisoner was recaptured within hours. Two gave themselves up after they became hungry. One made it to Canada, where he was arrested and imprisoned for separate charges.
On May 24, 1978, three prisoners, Garrett Brock Trapnell, Martin Joseph McNally and James Kenneth Johnson attempted to escape with the aid of an accomplice who hijacked a helicopter and forced the pilot to land in the prison. The escape was thwarted when the pilot of the helicopter wrestled the gun away from the female hijacker and killed her before the escaping inmates boarded the aircraft.
On December 21, 1978, TWA Flight 541 from Louisville International Airport to Kansas City International Airport was hijacked by 17-year-old Robin Oswald to Williamson County Regional Airport in attempt to secure the release of her father Garrett Brock Trapnell. Oswald's mother Barbara Oswald was killed May 24, 1978, after hijacking a helicopter in a failed attempt to rescue him. Robin surrendered to F.B.I. negotiators after 10 hours at the Williamson airport.[5][6]
On October 22, 1983, two prison guards, Merle E. Clutts and Robert L. Hoffman, were killed in separate incidents, both at the hands of Aryan Brotherhood members.[7] Clutts was stabbed by Thomas Silverstein.[8] The prison was, at the time, the holding place for the Federal Bureau of Prisons' most dangerous prisoners. Despite this, two inmates were able independently to kill their accompanying guards. Relatively lax security procedures allowed a prisoner, while walking down a hall, to turn to the side and approach a particular cell. An accomplice would subsequently unlock his handcuffs with a stolen key and provide him with a knife.
As a result of the incident, the prison in Marion went into "permanent lockdown" for the next 23 years and was completely transformed into a "control unit" prison. This penal construction and operation theory, since named supermax (a portmanteau of super and maximum) calls for the keeping of inmates in solitary confinement for 22-23 hours each day, and does not allow communal dining, exercising, or religious services. These practices were used as administrative measures to keep prisoners under control.
Years later, Norman Carlson, director of the Bureau of Prisons at the time of the Marion incident, said that ordering the permanent lockdown was the only way to deal with "a very small subset of the inmate population who show absolutely no concern for human life." He pointed out that the two inmates who killed the guards were already serving multiple life sentences, so adding another would have had no effect. The "control unit" model at Marion was later the basis for ADX Florence, which opened in 1994 as a specifically-designed supermax prison.[9]
Although the facility no longer operates as a "supermax", The United States Penitentiary at Marion is now home to one of two known "Communication Management Units" in the federal prison system.[10] The other is at the Federal Correctional Complex, Terre Haute, Indiana. The units severely restrict the visitation rights for inmates and monitor all telephone calls and mail. Most of the inmates are Arab Muslims. The prison also houses Daniel G. McGowan, serving seven years for involvement in two arsons at logging operations in Oregon. His sentence was given "terrorism enhancements" as authorized by the Patriot Act.[11]
The Federal Bureau of Prisons created the Communication Management Unit (CMU) in response to criticism that it had not been adequately monitoring the communications of prisoners. "By concentrating resources in this fashion, it will greatly enhance the agency's capabilities for language translation, content analysis and intelligence sharing," according to the Bureau's summary of the CMU.[12] An ACLU law suit charges that CMUs of the federal prisons violates inmates' rights.[13] In a Democracy Now interview on June 25, 2009, animal rights activist Andrew Stepanian talks about being jailed at the CMU. Stepanian is believed to be the first prisoner released from a CMU.[14]
The prison is located approximately nine miles south of Marion, which is roughly 330 miles (530 km) south of Chicago. Permanent lockdown, where prisoners remain in their cells 23 hours a day with little to no human contact, began in 1983 and ended in 2006, when the prison began extensive renovations as a medium security prison. The renovations increased Marion's inmate population from 383 to 900.[15] The majority of the inmates housed at Marion are weapons and drug offenders. With the addition of a Sex Offender treatment program at Marion in 2006, the majority of prisoners are now Sex Offenders.
Besides the better known former supermax penitentiary, the facility also houses a minimum security work camp as well.
| Name | Number | Status | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leroy Antonio "Nicky" Barnes | former drug lord of Harlem | ||
| Christopher John Boyce | 19347-148 | Released on parole September 16, 2002 | Soviet spy |
| Ed Brown | New Hampshire tax evader and protester | ||
| Frankie Carbo | Released, paroled due to ill health | Murder, Inc. gunman | |
| Zachary Adam Chesser | in USP, Marion[16] | American who pled guilty to aiding a terrorist organization al-Shabaab | |
| James Coonan | former leader of the "Westies" Irish mob, which operated in Hell's Kitchen, NYC | ||
| William Daddano, Sr. (1912–1975) | favored "middle manager" in the Chicago Outfit | ||
| Ghassan Elashi | 29687-177 | In USP, Marion[17] | Convicted in Holy Land Foundation fraud[18] |
| Clayton Fountain (1955–2004) | Murdered correctional officer Robert L.Hoffman at USP Marion October 22, 1983.[19] | ||
| John Gotti (1940–2002) | 18261-053 | Moved to US Medical Center in 2002 | American mobster and head of the Gambino crime family. |
| Robert Hogan | Deceased.Killed by fellow inmate.[20] | Murdered Janice R Hylen a contract dietician at USP Atlanta November 21 1979 | |
| Christopher Jeburk | prison escapee and bank robber | ||
| Chevie Kehoe | murderer and white supremacist | ||
| Carlos Lehder | Medellin Cartel Co-Founder | ||
| Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino | American Mobster and boss of Philadelphia Crime Family | ||
| Tom Manning | United Freedom Front militant | ||
| Leonard Peltier | 89637-132 | Incarcerated at Marion June 1, 1977–1985 | Native American activist convicted of murdering two FBI agents |
| Kirksey Nix | 20921-077 | In USP, Marion[21] | |
| Jonathan Pollard | incarcerated 1986-1993, then transferred to FCI Butner | Israeli spy | |
| Pete Rose[22] | 01832-061 | athlete charged with filing false income tax returns (incarcerated from August 8, 1990, through January 7, 1991) | |
| Nicodemo Scarfo | transferred to United States Penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia. | former Philadelphia crime boss | |
| Richard Scutari (1947-) | Currently held in United States Penitentiary Marion - Communication Management Unit. | former leading member of terrorist group the Order. | |
| Thomas Silverstein | 14634-116 | Moved to ADMAX | murderer and Aryan Brotherhood leader |
| Garrett Brock Trapnell (1938–1993) | skyjacker, bank robber, and con man | ||
| Manuel Noriega | former Panamanian general and dictator | ||
| Russell Dan Smith | Founder, Just Detention International | ||
| John Anthony Walker | Soviet spy |
Jeff Foiles is now an inmate