ADX Florence Federal Prison
The federal prison ADX Florence (officially English United States Prison Administrative Maximum Facility Florence , short ADX Florence or ADMAX Florence ) is a maximum security penal institution of the US Department of Justice in Florence , Colorado , which meets the so-called Supermax standard. It is considered to be the safest civil prison in the United States.
Emergence
The abbreviation ADMAX or ADX stands for Administrative Maximum as the maximum security level of the US penal system . The Americans nicknamed the prison " Alcatraz in the Rockies " and "Big One". In the classification of the US prison system , the prison is classified as "Administrative Security". The penal facility is operated by the Bureau of Prisons , the penal administration of the American federal government. According to an entry in the Guinness Book of Records , the ADMAX Florence is the safest prison in the world.
Established in 1994 in response to the murder of two prison staff in Maximum Security Marion Federal Prison for $ 60 million, the prison is one of three prisons in the Florence Correctional Complex (FCC). Today it is operated as a state high security custody and houses around 400 prisoners classified as particularly dangerous , such as terrorists and serial killers , as well as prisoners who attacked or murdered fellow prisoners and prison officers during their previous prison term.
Conditions of detention
The conditions of detention in the Supermax Florence are often referred to as solitary confinement because the prisoners are only allowed to have little contact with the outside world and with their relatives.
A standard cell in the Supermax Florence is equipped with a chair anchored in the floor, an immovable concrete table, a bed, a toilet, a time-controlled shower, a mirror made of polished steel and a cigarette lighter. All furniture except the mirror is made of reinforced concrete . Some cells have a window in the ceiling so that inmates can only see the sky.
With the exception of two special areas, all cells have a standardized television set. Telephone calls can be made with 30 predefined numbers. Personal belongings in the cells are severely restricted and limited to a maximum of 0.09 m³ (more precisely: 3 ft³) - that is, about a 90 cm long shelf with a depth of 30 cm and a height of 30 cm. Legal documents may only relate to current cases.
Work (simple punching work ) is only allowed to occupants depending on their security level. The inmates spend 23½ hours a day in their solitary cell, in which they are counted seven times a day. The food is served in the cells in order to avoid contact with inmates. In order to be transferred to a less restrictive prison, several years of compliant behavior by the inmate are required.
There is a strict dress code for prisoners and visitors alike : suggestive or revealing clothing or clothing that is too tight, such as shorts or tops, is prohibited; Bras must be wireless. Five external visits per month for up to seven hours each are only possible on certain days.
The security technology falls under US Defense Top Secret and is only partially known. The architect John Quest spoke about the opening of 1,400 security doors, several thousand motion detectors , thermal imaging processes and multi-row electric fences . The ADMAX Florence is the first prison that was completely built according to the Supermax standard.
The first criticism arose when the maximum security prison was being built. In Congress , there were debates about whether the prison and detention conditions the human rights contradict or not. Some MPs were against the building. Even so, the prison was completed in 1994.
Proponents consider this type of prison to be the best possible form of accommodation for dangerous violent criminals , while opponents consider this type of prison to be torture and “breeding ground for monsters”.
Known inmates
The most famous inmates are or were:
- Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso , New York Mafioso and former "acting" boss of the Lucchese family
- Barry Mills , leader of the Aryan Brotherhood gang
- Dandeny Muñoz Mosquera , better known as "La Quica". Member of the Medellín drug cartel
- David Eden Lane , a far right terrorist
- Jokhar Zarnayev , a terrorist of Chechen origin, sentenced to death for complicity in the 2013 Boston Marathon attack
- Eric Rudolph , convicted of several bomb attacks, a. a. on the 1996 Olympics
- José Padilla has been found guilty of three terrorist offenses
- Juvenal Pineda , senior member of the FARC rebels in Colombia
- Luis Felipe , better known as "King Blood". Founder of the New York gang group: "Almighty Latin Kings and Queens Nation". Has commissioned multiple murders
- Ramzi Ahmed Yousef , was one of the masterminds behind the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 and the assassin of Philippine Airlines Flight 434 on December 10, 1994
- Richard Reid , for an attempted assassination attempt on a passenger plane with explosives hidden in his shoes
- Robert Hanssen , convicted for his espionage activities on behalf of the Soviet Union
- Theodore Kaczynski , had sent letter bombs to various people in the United States between 1978 and 1995, killing three people and injuring another 23
- Thomas Silverstein , for the murder of two inmates and a prison guard
- Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols , who killed 168 people and injured several hundred in the bomb attack on the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City
- Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab , Nigerian terrorist who tried to blow up a plane with explosives hidden in his underpants
- Zacarias Moussaoui , for assisting in the preparation of the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 in the United States sentenced
- Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera , better known as "El Chapo", former chief of the Sinaloa cartel , a Mexican drug cartel.
literature
- Stefan Wagner: In the valley of the bad. The prisons in a small town in Colorado house the most dangerous criminals in the US (FOCUS 10/2007 of March 5, 2007, pp. 164-166)
Web links
- Official homepage of the Bureau of Prisons ( English )
- Website of the responsible construction office DLR-Group (English)
- Just how bad are American 'supermax' prisons? “People talk about it as being a cleaner version of hell”, including a stylized image of a cell
Individual evidence
- ^ Virgil L. Williams: Dictionary of American Penology , Greenwood Publishing Group, January 1996, p. 216
- ↑ a b BOP: FLM_aohandbook.pdf ( English , PDF; 2.06 MB) Federal Bureau of Prisons. P. 4 ff. Accessed July 2, 2013.
- ↑ BOP: USP Florence ADMAX Visiting Regulations ( English , PDF; 307 kB) Federal Bureau of Prisons. S. 3. Accessed July 2, 2013.
- ↑ a b Inmate Locator. In: Federal Bureau of Prisons. Retrieved July 27, 2020 (English).
Coordinates: 38 ° 21 ′ 33 ″ N , 105 ° 6 ′ 5 ″ W.