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The United States Penitentiary, Marion (USP Marion) is a large medium-security 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 convicts who violated federal law (U.S., Mexico), inmates considered dangerous (Brazil), or those s ...
for male and female inmates in Southern Precinct, unincorporated Williamson County, Illinois. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice. The facility also has an adjacent satellite prison camp that houses minimum security male offenders. USP Marion in
Southern Illinois Southern Illinois, also known as Little Egypt, is the southern third of Illinois, principally along and south of Interstate 64. Although part of a Midwestern United States, Midwestern state, this region is aligned in culture more with that of th ...
is approximately south of the city of Marion, Illinois, south of Chicago, and southeast of
St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...
.


History


Construction

USP Marion was built and opened in 1963 to replace the maximum security federal prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco, which closed the same year. The facility became the first control unit in the United States, when violence forced a long-term lockdown in 1983.


Birth of the "control-unit" prison

USP Marion was originally constructed to hold 500 of the most dangerous federal inmates, mostly transfers from Alcatraz. Prison administrators aimed to maintain a safe and orderly environment and rehabilitate the inmates while avoiding the high-profile abuses that occurred at Alcatraz. They implemented a behavior modification program named Control and Rehabilitation Effort (CARE) in 1968. Inmates in the program spent most of their time in
solitary confinement Solitary confinement is a form of imprisonment in which the inmate lives in a single cell with little or no meaningful contact with other people. A prison may enforce stricter measures to control contraband on a solitary prisoner and use additi ...
or in "group therapy" sessions where they were berated for their deviant behavior and urged to change. In 1973, the first blocks of "control unit" cells were created. Inmates assigned to the control-unit would spend 23 to 24 hours a day in one-man cells that were specifically designed to severely limit or eliminate the inmate's contact with other people inside the prison and the outside world.


Notable incidents


High-profile escape attempts

The first escape from USP Marion was on July 21, 1971, when Warren George Briggs leapt over two 15 foot fences and escaped to Kansas City, Missouri via Interstate 57. Four days later, Warren turned himself in to the FBI. He reportedly did this so he could draw attention to his invention, a water desalting process that would enable mankind to purify water at a reasonable cost. On October 10, 1975, five inmates used a homemade electronic device to open the front gates of the prison. One of them had been an electrician and was assigned 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. The five escapees were all eventually captured and returned to prison, the last one being apprehended in Canada on October 31, 1975. Two escape attempts occurred in 1978 involving the same inmate,
Garrett Brock Trapnell Garrett Brock Trapnell (January 31, 1938 – September 7, 1993) was a con man, bank robber, and aircraft hijacker of the 1960s and early 1970s. Trapnell robbed a string of banks in Canada, frequently posed as an agent of the Central Intellig ...
. On May 24, 1978, Trapnell's friend, 43-year-old Barbara Ann Oswald, hijacked a St. Louis based charter helicopter and ordered the pilot, Allen Barklage, to fly to USP Marion. Barklage complied, but he wrestled the gun away from Oswald and fatally shot her while he was landing in the prison yard, thwarting the escape. On December 21, 1978, Oswald's 17-year-old daughter, Robin Oswald, hijacked
TWA Flight 541 TWA Flight 541 was a domestic passenger flight hijacked in the United States by Robin Oswald in an attempt to free Garrett Brock Trapnell, who was a prisoner at the United States Penitentiary, Marion (USP Marion). The hijacking was successfully ...
, which was en route from Louisville International Airport to
Kansas City International Airport Kansas City International Airport (originally Mid-Continent International Airport) is a public airport in Kansas City, Missouri located northwest of Downtown Kansas City in Platte County, Missouri., effective December 30, 2021. The airport o ...
and threatened to detonate dynamite strapped to her body if the pilot did not fly to
Williamson County Regional Airport Veterans Airport of Southern Illinois , also known as Williamson County Regional Airport, is five miles west of Marion, in Williamson County, Illinois, United States. The airport is owned by the Williamson County Airport Authority. It sees one a ...
, located only miles from USP Marion. When the pilot landed at the airport in Marion, hundreds of law enforcement officers had responded. Robin Oswald surrendered to FBI negotiators at the Williamson airport without incident about ten hours later. The dynamite was later found to be fake. The last escape from the maximum-security prison area was on February 14, 1979, when Lawrence Caldwell, Albert Garza and Howard Zumberge climbed both exterior fences in a dense fog; Caldwell was caught before he could clear the first of the two fences. Both Garza and Zumberge were apprehended three days later near Cypress, hiding in a church basement. During the capture of the escapees, Garza shot Johnson County Sheriff Elry Faulkner in the chest at almost point-blank range; Faulkner was wearing a bulletproof vest, however, and only suffered minor bruises. Garza was shot and wounded, but survived and returned to Marion two months later.


Murders of Correction Officers Clutts and Hoffmann

On October 22, 1983, correctional officers Clutts and Hoffmann were killed in separate incidents only hours apart, both at the hands of members of the Aryan Brotherhood, a white-supremacist prison gang. Officer Clutts was stabbed to death by
Thomas Silverstein Thomas Edward Silverstein (February 4, 1952 – May 11, 2019) was an American criminal who spent the last 42 years of his life in prison after being convicted of four separate murders while imprisoned for armed robbery, one of which was overturne ...
. While walking down a hall accompanied by Clutts, Silverstein was able to turn to the side and approach a particular cell. The prisoner in that cell subsequently unlocked Silverstein's handcuffs with a stolen key and provided him with a knife. Later that same morning, Officer Hoffmann was stabbed to death by Clayton Fountain, after Hoffmann had pulled Fountain off another officer who was being attacked.


Permanent lockdown and the birth of the supermax

As a result of the murders of Clutts and Hoffmann, USP Marion went into "permanent lockdown" for the next 23 years, which meant that all inmates were locked in their cells for the majority of the day. All of USP Marion was effectively transformed into a "control unit" or supermax, meaning "super-maximum" security, prison. This method of prison construction and operation involves the keeping of inmates in
solitary confinement Solitary confinement is a form of imprisonment in which the inmate lives in a single cell with little or no meaningful contact with other people. A prison may enforce stricter measures to control contraband on a solitary prisoner and use additi ...
for 23 hours a day, and does not allow communal dining, exercising, or religious services. These practices were used to keep prisoners under control and prevent prisoners from assaulting other prisoners or prison staff by severely limiting their contact with other people. Years later,
Norman Carlson Norman A. Carlson (August 10, 1933 – August 9, 2020) was an American correctional officer and businessman. He was best known for his direction of the Federal Bureau of Prisons from 1970 to 1987 and long-time involvement with this bureau. D ...
, director of the Bureau of Prisons at the time of the Marion incident, said that ordering the permanent lockdown was the only way to deal with "a very small subset of the inmate population who show absolutely no concern for human life." He pointed out that the two inmates who killed the guards were already serving multiple life sentences, so adding another would have had no effect. The "control unit" model at Marion was later the basis for ADX Florence, which opened in 1994 as a specifically designed supermax prison.


Downgraded to medium-security prison

In 2006, USP Marion's designation was changed to a medium security prison and major renovations were made. The renovations increased Marion's inmate population from 383 to 901.


Communication Management Unit

Although the facility no longer operates as a "supermax" facility, USP Marion is now home to one of two "Communication Management Units" in the federal prison system. The other is at the Federal Correctional Complex, Terre Haute, Indiana. 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. In a '' Democracy Now!'' interview on June 25, 2009, animal rights activist
Andrew Stepanian Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) was an international animal rights campaign to close down Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), Europe's largest contract Animal testing, animal-testing laboratory. HLS tests medical and non-medical substances on ...
talked about being jailed at the CMU. Stepanian is believed to be the first prisoner released from a CMU.


Notable inmates (current and former)

† Inmates who were released from custody prior to 1982 are not listed on the Federal Bureau of Prisons website.
†† The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 eliminated parole for most federal inmates. Inmates sentenced for offenses committed prior to 1987 are eligible for parole consideration.


Foreign Terrorists

Foreign citizens who committed or attempted terrorist attacks against United States citizens and interests.


Domestic Terrorists

American citizens who committed or attempted terrorist attacks against United States citizens and interests.


Organized crime figures


Others


See also

* List of U.S. federal prisons * Federal Bureau of Prisons * Incarceration in the United States


References


External links


USP Marion
{{Federal Bureau of Prisons Marion Prisons in Illinois
USP Marion The United States Penitentiary, Marion (USP Marion) is a large medium-security United States federal prison for male and female inmates in Southern Precinct, unincorporated Williamson County, Illinois. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Pr ...
Supermax prisons Buildings and structures in Williamson County, Illinois 1963 establishments in Illinois