Fox Hill Prison is the only prison in

the Bahamas The Bahamas, officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic and island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean. It contains 97 per cent of the archipelago's land area and 88 per cent of ...

. Located in

Nassau Nassau may refer to: Places Austria * Nassau (Groß Sankt Florian), incorporated village of Groß Sankt Florian Bahamas *Nassau, The Bahamas, capital city of the Bahamas Canada *Nassau District, renamed Home District, regional division in Upp ...

, the capital, it is operated by the Bahamas Department of Correctional Services. Fox Hill Prison has minimum, medium, and maximum security facilities for male prisoners. It also has one block for female prisoners, as well as a medical block.

History

The prison was established at its current location in Fox Hill, Bahamas, in March 1952. It was originally named Her Majesty's Prisons, a name shared with other prisons in the former

British Empire The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...

. On August 11, 2014, its name was changed to the Bahamas Department of Correctional Services. Fox Hill Prison was not the first prison in the Bahamas. The earliest record of a prison in what is now the Bahamas was from the 1600s. Former prisons in Nassau now house the Nassau Public Library and the

Royal Bahamas Police Force The Royal Bahamas Police Force (RBPF) is the national law enforcement agency of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. It operates within the portfolio of the Ministry of National Security. The police force was established on 1 March 1840 and is ...

headquarters. The Bahamas also maintains the Carmichael Road Detention Centre for migrants in Nassau,

New Providence New Providence is the most populous island in The Bahamas, containing more than 70% of the total population. On the eastern side of the island is the national capital, national capital city of Nassau, Bahamas, Nassau; it had a population of 246 ...

. The center opened in 1993 as the first

immigration detention Immigration detention is the policy and practice of incarcerating both foreign national asylum seekers/refugees and immigrants — whether suspected of unauthorized arrival, illegal entry, visa violations, as well as those subject to deportation ...

facility in the Caribbean.A short history of immigration detention
, Freedom for Immigrants. Before that time, immigrant detainees in the Bahamas were held at Fox Hill. Most detainees at the Carmichael Road facility are from

Haiti Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...

and

Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

.BAHAMAS: Forgotten Detainees? Refugees and Immigration Detainees: Appeals for Action
, Amnesty International (AI Index: AMR 14/003/2003).Carmichael Road Detention Center / Bahamas
, Center for Justice and International Law (November 3, 2017). Like the Fox Hill prison, the Carmichael Road facility has been criticized for poor conditions. The Bahamian immigration minister said in 2022 that the government was upgrading the Carmichael Road facility and also planned to build a migrant detention center in

Inagua Inagua is the southernmost district of the Bahamas, comprising the islands of Great Inagua and Little Inagua. The headquarters for the district council are in Matthew Town. History The original settlers were the Lucayan people(Taíno), who arr ...

Conditions and reputation

The prison has been criticised internationally for poor conditions. A 2003 report by

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...

found that the prison had a high risk of transmission of diseases such as

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

. According to the

United States Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy of the United State ...

's 2020

Country Report on Human Rights Practices Country Reports on Human Rights Practices are annual publications on the human rights conditions in countries and regions outside the United States, mandated by U.S. law to be submitted annually by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor of ...

for the Bahamas, the prison is overcrowded, unsanitary, and lacks adequate food and medical care.Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2020: Bahamas
, United States Department of State,

Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Affairs (DRL) is a bureau within the United States Department of State. The bureau is under the purview of the Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights. History ...

(2021). The report stated that the prison was infested with maggots, rats, and insects; that cells had buckets instead of toilets; and that prisoners reported

bed sores Pressure ulcers, also known as pressure sores, bed sores or pressure injuries, are localised damage to the skin and/or underlying tissue that usually occur over a bony prominence as a result of usually long-term pressure, or pressure in combi ...

caused by sleeping on the ground. It also stated that prisoners shared 6 by 10 foot (2 by 3 meter) cells with no mattresses, no toilets, and as many as six prisoners to a cell. In 2017, Commissioner Patrick Wright confirmed that prisoners in the maximum-security block still had to use buckets instead of toilets. Bahamian attorney Romona Farquharson has stated that sometimes prisoners get as little as 30 minutes of outdoor time per week. Commissioner of Correctional Services Doan Cleare said in 2022 that conditions in the prison had improved, with renovations and an end to the "issues with rodents". A video from ''

The Nassau Guardian ''The Nassau Guardian'' is a newspaper in The Bahamas, based in Nassau. Its first issue was published November 23, 1844. It is the largest newspaper in the Bahamas. The paper is one of the oldest continually published newspapers in the world and ...

'' the same year showed a mixture of age and quality of facilities, with some facilities renovated, but some prisoners still in crowded cells.

Notable inmates

Notable inmates detained at the prison include: *

Sam Bankman-Fried Samuel Benjamin Bankman-Fried (born March 5, 1992), commonly known as SBF, is an American entrepreneur who was convicted of fraud and related crimes in November 2023. Bankman-Fried founded the FTX cryptocurrency exchange and was celebrated as a ...

, businessman who founded the

cryptocurrency exchange A cryptocurrency exchange, or a digital currency exchange (DCE), is a business that allows customers to trade cryptocurrencies or digital currencies for other assets, such as conventional fiat money or other digital currencies. Exchanges may acce ...

FTX FTX Trading Ltd., trading as FTX (Futures Exchange), is a bankrupt company that formerly operated a cryptocurrency exchange and crypto hedge fund. The exchange was founded in 2019 by Sam Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang and collapsed in 2022 after ...

and cryptocurrency trading firm

Alameda Research Alameda Research was a cryptocurrency trading firm, co-founded in September 2017 by Sam Bankman-Fried and Tara MacAulay. In November 2022, FTX, Alameda's sister cryptocurrency exchange, experienced a solvency crisis, and both FTX and Alameda ...

; held at the prison in 2022 before he was extradited to the U.S. to face fraud charges. *

Viktor Kožený Viktor Kožený (born 28 June 1963 in Prague, Czechoslovakia) is a fugitive financier. According to Bloomberg News, he graduated from Harvard in 1989 with a bachelor's degree in economics. However, he cannot be located in the Harvard Alumni dir ...

, held at Fox Hill while fighting extradition to the United States; Kožený's counsel said the prison had a reputation for "breaking even the toughest of men" through harsh conditions. * Michaiah Shobek, serial killer executed in 1976. * David Mitchell, executed in 2000 for the murder of two Germans in the Bahamas.Deby Nash
Bahamas Hangs Convicted Stabber
, Associated Press (January 6, 2000).

References

{{Coord, 25, 01, 40, N, 77, 17, 31, W, display=title Execution sites Prisons in North America Buildings and structures in Nassau, Bahamas