United States Penitentiary, Marion

USP Marion

Location	Williamson County, Illinois
Coordinates	37°39′47″N 88°59′3″W
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. 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. It was built in 1963 to replace the Alcatraz prison in San Francisco, which closed the same year. According to Carl Sifakis, author of The Encyclopedia of American Prisons (New York, NY:Facts on File, Inc., 2003), "Amnesty International has categorized it as inhumane" (156).

History

Opened in 1963, Marion became the United States' highest security prison by 1978. 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, Michael 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 aide 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 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. Clutts was stabbed by Thomas Silverstein. 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 between twenty-two and twenty-three 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.

Communication Management Unit

Although the supermax facility is gone, The United States Penitentiary at Marion is now home to one of two known "Communication Management Units" in the federal prison system. 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.

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. An ACLU law suit charges that CMUs of the federal prisons violates inmates' rights. 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.

See also Federal Correctional Complex, Terre Haute#Communication Management Unit

The prison

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. 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.

Notable inmates

Name	Number	Status	Details
Leroy Antonio "Nicky" Barnes			former drug lord of Harlem
Christopher John Boyce			Soviet spy
Ed Brown			New Hampshire tax evader and protester
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	Convicted in Holy Land Foundation fraud
Clayton Fountain (1955–2004)			Murdered correctional officer Robert L.Hoffman at USP Marion October 22, 1983.
John Gotti (1940–2002)	18261-053	Moved to US Medical Center in 2002	American mobster and head of the Gambino crime family.
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
Jonathan Pollard		incarcerated 1986-1993, then transferred to FCI Butner	Israeli spy
Pete Rose	01832-061		athlete charged with filing false income tax returns (incarcerated from August 8, 1990, through January 7, 1991)
Nicodemo Scarfo		transferred to [[1]]	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

External links

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• USP Marion