The Federal Medical Center, Carswell (FMC Carswell) is a United States

federal prison A federal prison is operated under the jurisdiction of a federal government as opposed to a state or provincial body. Federal prisons are used for people who violated federal law (U.S., Mexico), people considered dangerous (Brazil), or those sen ...

Fort Worth, Texas Fort Worth is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat of Tarrant County, Texas, Tarrant County, covering nearly into Denton County, Texas, Denton, Johnson County, Texas, Johnson, Parker County, Texas, Parker, and Wise County, Te ...

, for female inmates of all security levels, primarily with special medical and mental health needs. It is operated by the

Federal Bureau of Prisons The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is a Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement agency of the United States Department of Justice that is responsible for all List of United States federal prisons, federal prisons ...

(BOP), a division of the

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a United States federal executive departments, federal executive department of the U.S. government that oversees the domestic enforcement of Law of the Unite ...

. The facility also has a prison camp for minimum-security female inmates. As of April 2020, 1,625 women were confined at FMC Carswell. The facility is located in the northeast corner of

Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth (abbreviated NAS JRB Fort Worth) includes Carswell Field, a military airbase located west of the central business district of Fort Worth, in Tarrant County, Texas, United States. This military ...

, formerly known as

Carswell Air Force Base Carswell Air Force Base is a former United States Air Force (USAF) base, located northwest of Fort Worth, Texas. For most of its operational lifetime, the base's mission was to train and support heavy strategic bombing groups and wings. Carswe ...

. It lies in the northwest part of the city of Fort Worth, near the southeast corner of Lake Worth. The BOP housed women under federal death sentences in this facility. The director of the DC Prisoners' Project stated in 2009 that Carswell, along with

FMC Butner The Federal Medical Center, Butner (FMC Butner), is a United States federal prison opened in 1995 in North Carolina for male inmates of all security levels who have special health needs. It is part of the Butner Federal Correctional Complex and is ...

and FMC Rochester, "are clearly the 'gold standard' in terms of what BOP facilities can achieve in providing medical care," and that they had provided "excellent medical care, sometimes for extremely complex medical needs."Fornaci, Philip (Director of the DC Prisoners' Project).
Federal Bureau of Prisons Oversight Hearing

Archive
. Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security.

U.S. House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Article One of th ...

Committee on the Judiciary. July 21, 2009. Retrieved on February 5, 2016. The prison has seen media coverage due to incidents of abuses of inmates by prison staff, as well as the presence of several high-profile prisoners. Significantly affected by the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, Carswell has had one of the highest rates of infection among all federal prisons in the United States, with hundreds of prisoners contracting the virus and at least four dying.

History

Prior to the facility's opening, women went to a federal prison hospital in Kentucky that also served male prisoners. FMC Carswell opened in 1994. The facility previously served as the medical center for

.Brink, Betty.
Death by Indifference
" ''

Fort Worth Weekly ''Fort Worth Weekly'' is an alternative weekly newspaper that serves the Greater Fort Worth area (all of Tarrant County and some of Denton County). The newspaper has an approximate circulation of 35,000. It is published every Wednesday and featu ...

''. April 18, 2012. Retrieved on January 29, 2016.

Facility and programs

FMC Carswell is fully accredited by the

Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations The Joint Commission is a United States-based nonprofit tax-exempt 501(c) organization that accredits more than 22,000 US health care organizations and programs. The international branch accredits medical services from around the world. A majori ...

and the

American Correctional Association The American Correctional Association (ACA; called the National Prison Association before 1954) is a private, non-profit, non-governmental trade association and accrediting body for the corrections industry, the oldest and largest such associati ...

. It is the only medical facility for women in the

. The main five-story building has a capacity of 600 prisoners. The minimum security prisoners live in barracks, outside of the main compound. Lisa Montgomery

Although most inmates at this facility have some form of medical condition requiring treatment, there is also a general population of inmates at FMC Carswell who do not. Carswell housed the last woman who was under a federal death sentence,

Lisa Marie Montgomery Bobbie Jo Stinnett (December 4, 1981 – December 16, 2004) was a 23-year-old pregnant American woman who was murdered in Skidmore, Missouri, in December 2004. The perpetrator, Lisa Marie Montgomery, then aged 36, strangled Stinnett to death an ...

, who had murdered a young pregnant woman and then cut the woman's unborn fetus from her womb.Schuppe, Jon.
Tsarnaev Joins A Death Row With Many Members, And Few Executions
"

NBC News NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Media Group, a division of NBCUniversal, which is itself a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's various operations r ...

. June 25, 2015. Retrieved on February 15, 2016. "the one woman on death row, Lisa Montgomery, who killed a pregnant woman and cut her unborn baby out of her womb, is serving her remaining days in the Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas." Montgomery was scheduled to be executed via lethal injection on December 8, 2020; however, this was rescheduled for January 12, 2021, as her attorneys contracted COVID-19. Montgomery was transferred to the federal execution facility at the

United States Penitentiary The Federal Bureau of Prisons classifies prisons into seven categories: * United States penitentiaries * Federal correctional institutions * Private correctional institutions * Federal prison camps * Administrative facilities * Federal correcti ...

Terre Haute Terre Haute ( ) is a city in Vigo County, Indiana, United States, and its county seat. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 58,389 and its metropolitan area had a population of 168,716. Located along the Wabash River about e ...

Indiana Indiana ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north and northeast, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the s ...

, on January 12, 2021, and was executed on January 13, 2021. FMC Carswell has an administrative high security unit, which houses women in the BOP system who are classified as "special management concerns" due to violence and/or escape attempts. The unit has a capacity of 20 women; according to a report published on July 6, 2018, there were 10 women confined in the unit.

Notable incidents

Articles criticizing FMC Carswell have appeared in various media outlets relating to various forms of

prisoner abuse Prisoner abuse is the mistreatment of persons while they are under arrest or incarcerated. Prisoner abuse can include physical abuse, psychological abuse, sexual abuse, torture, or other acts such as refusal of essential medication, and it can ...

. These articles focus on allegations of

medical malpractice Medical malpractice is a legal cause of action that occurs when a medical or health care professional, through a negligent act or omission, deviates from standards in their profession, thereby causing injury or death to a patient. The negligen ...

, neglect, and

sexual abuse Sexual abuse or sex abuse is abusive sexual behavior by one person upon another. It is often perpetrated using physical force, or by taking advantage of another. It often consists of a persistent pattern of sexual assaults. The offender is re ...

of inmates by staff. Over a seven-year period, seven FMC Carswell staff members were convicted of sexual abuse of a prisoner. In March 2000, a correction officer at FMC Carswell, Michael Lawrence Miller, raped a prisoner. The prisoner did not report the incident after it occurred, but kept a pair of sweatpants she wore during the incident as proof. As she was being released in September 2000, she gave the sweatpants to a prison administrator. Implicated by this evidence, Miller was convicted, and in 2004 he was sentenced to 150 months (12 years and 6 months) imprisonment. He served out his sentence at the

Federal Correctional Institution, Sandstone The Federal Correctional Institution, Sandstone (FCI Sandstone) is a low-security United States federal prison for male offenders in Sandstone, Minnesota. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BoP), a division of the United States Unite ...

, and was released on March 19, 2015. In May 2008, Vincent Inametti, a

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

priest who worked as a chaplain at FMC Carswell, was sentenced to 48 months in prison and ordered to pay a $3,000 fine after pleading guilty in November 2007 to two counts of

of two inmates. Inametti, Register # 36889-177, was imprisoned at the

Federal Correctional Institution, Butner Low The Federal Correctional Complex, Butner (FCC Butner) is a United States federal prison complex for men near Butner, North Carolina. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice. FCC Butner ...

in North Carolina and released in October 2011.Find an inmate
"

. Retrieved on February 27, 2014.

Coronavirus pandemic

In April 2020, the BOP announced the first death of an inmate at FMC Carswell due to

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...

. On April 1, doctors had performed an emergency

Caesarean section Caesarean section, also known as C-section, cesarean, or caesarean delivery, is the Surgery, surgical procedure by which one or more babies are Childbirth, delivered through an incision in the mother's abdomen. It is often performed because va ...

to deliver the premature daughter of the inmate, who three days later tested positive, making her the first inmate to contract coronavirus at FMC Carswell. The 30-year-old Native American Andrea Circle Bear (BOP# 18015-273), who was serving a two-year sentence on a drug-related charge, died on April 28. In July 2020, it was reported that 28-year-old inmate

Reality Winner Reality Leigh Winner (born December 4, 1991) is an American U.S. Air Force veteran and former NSA translator. In 2018, she was given the longest prison sentence ever imposed for an unauthorized release of government information to the media af ...

had tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the prison's total of confirmed cases to more than 500. According to ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', "Despite weeks of pleas for cleaning supplies and commissary privileges, attorneys, health providers and even the guard's union are all denouncing the rudimentary protocols inside FMC Carswell." In an email to her sister, Winner said guards were mocking infected prisoners.

Notable inmates (current and former)

Death row

Former death row

Non-death row

High-profile inmates

Other notable inmates

References

External links

FMC Carswell page at BOP.gov

"Abuse at Carswell Prison is for real"
May 21, 2000,

Molly Ivins Mary Tyler "Molly" Ivins (August 30, 1944 – January 31, 2007) was an American newspaper columnist, author, and political commentator, known for her humorous and insightful writing, which often used satire and wit to critique political fig ...

* Brink, Betty.
Taking the Cuffs Off at Carswell
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''. Wednesday May 3, 2006. {{Women's prisons in the United States Buildings of the United States government in Texas Carswell Carswell Carswell Carswell Capital punishment in the United States 1994 establishments in Texas Prison hospitals