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Dr. Malachi Z. York
Our Constitution
COPY CAT CASE
VIDEO
Government Key
Witness Recants Her Testimony
Federal Court Pretrial
Transcripts
ARTICLES ON ADX FLORENCE COLORADO FEDERAL PRISON
I spent this 9-11 anniversary in the most
unlikely of places—the so-called "Supermax" federal penitentiary
complex in Florence, Colorado. I was part of a small group of
journalists who were finally allowed by the Bureau of Prisons
and the Justice Department to tour for about 100 minutes a few
areas of a 640-acre compound that houses approximately 3,200
prisoners, including some of the best known and most notorious
of our time.
No, we did not see Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry
Nichols or the so-called "Shoe Bomber" Richard Reid or the
so-called "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski or the so-called "20th
Hijacker" Zacarious Moussaoui. We did not see any dank
underground cells or other evidence that the men in the
"Administrative Maximum Security" portion of the prison are
simply left to rot in their cells. But we didn't see a shiny
happy place either—it is prison, after all, and it happens to
house inmates who for one reason or another were kicked out of
their "regular" penitentiaries.
We saw an eerily-quiet, sterile portion of the facility, a place
where almost every single inmate was polite, if not particularly
talkative, and where federal officials could best show us the
vast majority of prisoners at this ADX house aren't big-named
convicts or high-profile terrorists—and that they all have a
chance to "rehabilitate" themselves enough to warrant being
placed back in a prison population somewhere. We saw what they
wanted us to see, and only that, in an environment of control
that extended to when we were allowed to sit down inside the
"briefing room."
We saw cement desks and bed frames and stainless steel toilets
and sinks. We saw cages—straight out of the circus—where inmates
who are going along with the warden's "program" are allowed to
"recreate" outside for about 10 hours a week. We saw that the
windows in the cells are only a few inches wide and all look
inward toward the other windows of other cells. No one has a
view of the beautiful Rocky Mountains which surround the
facility in the southern portion of Colorado.
(DAEMMRICH/AFP/Getty)
We were allowed to tour—the first ever
formal media visit we were told—to help prison officials
"destroy" some of those public "myths" and many others that have
cropped up about the prison since the most-sensitive portion of
the place opened in 1994. "Today is about education," said ADX
Warden Ron Wiley, who looks like a cross between Texas Rangers'
manager Ron Washington and comedian Eddie Murphy. "Ninety
percent of the ADX mission is inmates taken out of other
institutions," he said, and the "20 or 30 inmates" who we would
consider high-profile are "not my major mission."
Warden Wiley told us that he speaks personally with every single
inmate in his facility at least once a week. So what does Terry
Nichols talk about? What does the Unabomber have to say? All
Wiley would tell us is that their requests are more practical
than philosophical in nature. The high-profile prisoners, he
said, are actually among the best behaved in the facility. "It
is super quiet" where they are confined, he said, "and they
exhibit a lot of discipline and respect for authority."
They'll ask about when their Special Administrative Measures
(the extra security precautions imposed by the Justice
Department) are going to be reviewed, Wiley said, or if they can
get a certain kind of magazine. Will these people ever be able
to satisfy the misty "test" imposed by the Bureau of Prisons in
determining whether a Supermax prisoner is worthy of going into
the general prison population? They are all eligible, Wiley said
proudly, before immediately conceding that some of the truly
high-profile convicts probably would never stay alive and well
in a general population because of the nature of their crimes.
So don't look for Nichols in Leavenworth or Kaczynski in Marion
anytime soon. And don't look upon "Supermax" as this
particularly foreboding or sinister place. It may be a
high-tech, super-secure prison but it is still a prison, where
men will live and die in 68-square-foot cells. And despite
Warden Wiley's central-casting demeanor and attitude, it is
still a place that can generate the occasional doubt of drama.
When we were listening to one prison official drone on about
yoga I suddenly saw two corrections officers race down the
hallway past our window and then saw two others, who were part
of our tour, immediately bolt us into the room.
Lockdown? No, just a false alarm.
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From Terry Frieden
CNN Washington Bureau
CNN justice producer Terry Frieden was part of the first-ever
media tour of the U.S. Bureau of Prison's Administrative Maximum
prison -- also known as "Supermax." What follows is Frieden's
account of his experience.
A file photo of the SuperMax prison taken when the facility
opened 13 years ago.
FLORENCE, Colorado (CNN) -- Visiting Supermax, the "Alcatraz of
the Rockies," reveals nothing so much as an astonishing and
eerie quiet.
It's not what one would expect of a place that houses 473
notorious terrorists, vicious murderers and violent, disruptive
escape-prone inmates brought in from other federal
penitentiaries.
I've visited noisy, boisterous state and federal prisons, where
inmates scream for a visitor's attention or proclaim their
innocence.
But at Supermax -- officially called "Administrative Maximum,"
or ADX -- everything is very tightly controlled, with nothing
left to chance, so there is no particular sense of a threat, no
feeling of vulnerability. View an explainer of Supermax's
security »
Corrections officials were blunt in explaining their reason for
finally inviting reporters, albeit without cameras, to peek
behind the heavy metal gates for the first time since the
penitentiary opened 13 years ago.
"This is about dispelling myths and rumors," said Warden Ron
Wiley.
Myths that particularly rile prison officials are reports that
Supermax, southwest of Colorado Springs, is a dungeon where
inmates are cast aside to rot and die, and that the prison is
underground, which it obviously is not. View a map of Supermax's
location »
The first hint of the level of control throughout Supermax is
the cumbersome, time-consuming security procedures we visitors
(already cleared for admittance) were subjected to.
I expect metal detectors these days, but despite possessing my
Justice Department-issued photo ID, I still had to be
photographed by the Bureau of Prisons, which is part of the
Justice Department. Even Bureau of Prisons executives had to
display their credentials to guards time and time again.
Prison officials also have been bugged by rumors that the
penitentiary was not entirely safe and secure, and that the lack
of adequate staffing and a perimeter fence were potential
problems to the community.
Bureau officials insist allegations of inadequate security were
fueled by corrections labor unions wanting more staffing, but
complaints caught the attention of Attorney General Alberto
Gonzales and Colorado Sens. Ken Salazar and Wayne Allard, all of
whom visited.
In the end, it was agreed that a $10 million perimeter fence
wasn't needed.
The handful of journalists allowed in were not allowed to see
the headline-grabbing terrorists isolated under specially
designed procedures. We didn't get a glimpse of Zacharias
Moussaoui, Ramzi Yousef, Richard Reid, Theodore Kaczynski or
Terry Nichols. But we've seen them in court, and they're not the
guys you'd most fear.
All the attention paid to the few most infamous prisoners
distorts the reality of ADX, officials insist.
"They're like the premier players of the NBA. They get all the
attention," Wiley complained.
Bureau of Prisons officials stressed that 95 percent of the
Supermax prisoners are the most violent, disruptive and
escape-prone inmates from other federal prisons, and they were
transferred to ADX to help control those other facilities. At
ADX, every prisoner has his own 86-square-foot cell.
Despite the brutal nature and violent history of most of the
inmates, not a single major assault against a corrections
officer has occurred since the first inmates arrived in 1994.
The one-on-one killers who slashed or strangled other inmates,
earning a trip to Supermax, are the inmates one would most worry
about. Contact with others comes only after the inmates have
adhered to a strict program for group recreation. Two
inmate-on-inmate homicides have led to even tighter
restrictions.
I was allowed to briefly talk at random to a few of the inmates.
One man who identified himself as Jack Stancell of South
Carolina told me he's doing time because, among other things,
he'd stabbed somebody and murdered somebody else. He's been in
prison for 33 of his 65 years. He says Supermax is actually
better than some places he's been.
"You get used to it," he says without emotion.
As I walk into the outdoor recreation area, it's evident that
virtually every possibility in combating the criminal mind has
been considered. Large cables are strung above the basketball
courts and track for no apparent reason.
"Those are helicopter deterrents," a corrections official
explains. "We are not really worried about a chopper escape
attempt, but you've got to be prepared."
In the prison library, where inmates most ask for Westerns and
romance novels, employees scour pages of returned books just to
make sure there's not a message or code that could be passed
along to another inmate. Nothing's left to chance.
And apparently so as not to fuel inner terrorist fires, the
newspapers from September 11 that will eventually reach the al
Qaeda members and sympathizers imprisoned here will be altered.
It will be 30 days before they finally have access to the 9/11
papers, and then they will find that all articles dealing with
the anniversary or terrorism will have been excised.
It may well take more than a two-hour visit by a handful of
reporters to begin erasing myths about Supermax. But it's a
start.
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