Convicted kingpin 'El Chapo' Guzman is likely heading to the 'Alcatraz of the Rockies' - a US prison where no one has ever escaped
ADX Florence is part of a complex of prisons in a remote area about 115 miles south of Denver. The supermax facility there has been nicknamed the "Alcatraz of the Rockies," after the prison in San Francisco Bay that held gangster Al Capone in the 1930s and other notorious criminals.
A 2014 Amnesty International report found that more than 40 states were believed to operate super-maximum, or supermax, prisons, though the federal government only operated one: ADX Florence, which was the only level 6 prison — the highest security designation — in the US federal penitentiary system.
Regarded as the US's most secure prison, ADX Florence is patrolled by heavy armed guards and surrounded by gun towers. Walls topped with razor wire greet inmates who arrive by buses, special vehicles, and, in some cases, Black Hawk helicopters.
Source: CNN
"As soon as they come through the door ... you see it in their faces. That's when it really hits you," Robert Ward, ADX former warden from 2002 to 2005, told CNN. "The Supermax is life after death. It's long term. ... In my opinion, it's far much worse than death."
Source: CNN
Among the prisoners at ADX Florence are 1993 World Trade Center bombing mastermind Ramzi Yousef, Ted Kaczynski, known as the "Unabomber," and former Gulf cartel chief Osiel Cardenas Guillen. Convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is also held there.
Read more: The 8 most infamous criminals at America's toughest prison
Not all the inmates there are notorious. Some were sent there because they attacked guards or inmates at other facilities, Levine, the former federal inmate, told Reuters.
According to the 2014 Amnesty report, ADX Florence has general-population units, a special-security unit, known as H-unit, for prisoners under special administrative measures, a disciplinary unit, an ultra-security unit where prisoners are held in extreme isoloation, and an intermediate unit for prisoners in a step-down program, according to the Amnesty report.
Most ADX prisoners are confined to their cells with limited contact to the outside world for 22 to 24 hours a day. Only prisoners in the step-down unit and some in the special-security unit have any group interactions.
About 90% of more than 400 inmates are there because of discipline issues, according to an October report by the District of Columbia Corrections Information Council.
ADX Florence inmates are held in "control units," which function like prisons inside of a prison. "It's like a self-contained area within a self-contained area within a self-contained area," Levine told Reuters.
The prisoners are confined to single-person, 7-foot-by-12-foot concrete cells for 22 hours a day or more, depriving them of virtually all contact with the outside world.
A 2012 lawsuit against the Bureau of Prisons alleged that years of isolation and almost no human contact had serious eroded the social skills and ability to adapt of of ADX inmates.
According to the lawsuit, many prisoners at ADX facilities "interminably wail, scream and bang on the walls of their cells."
"Some mutilate their bodies with razors, shards of glass, sharpened chicken bones, writing utensils, and whatever other objects they can obtain. A number swallow razor blades, nail clippers, parts of radios and televisions, broken glass, and other dangerous objects," the suit said.
Each cell has a narrow window 42 inches tall and angled toward the sky. Inmates cannot see each other from inside their units, the corrections information council report said. The windows let in natural light but obstruct any views beyond the building.
Inside the cell are stools and desks that are made of concrete and can't be moved. There is a sink-toilet combo and an automated shower. The bed is a concrete slab adorned with a thin mattress and blankets. Small holes in the cell's double sliding doors allow meals to be slid in.
Source: CNN
The most highly guarded inmates have a television in their cell that shows content designed to provide them with education, psychological help, and religious services, according to the council report.
Interaction with other humans — like with a guard, psychiatrist, chaplain, or imam — is conducted through the slot in the cell's interior door. The 2014 Amnesty report said inmates at ADX Florence "routinely go days with only a few words spoken to them."
Inmates' brief time outside their cell is spent in an outdoor cage, which is itself not much larger than their cells. Prisoners are shackled with leg irons, handcuffs, and stomach chains when they leave their cells, and while in transit they pass hundreds of cameras, Hood told CNN.
Source: CNN
Special restrictions in place to keep some inmates from exerting influence or making threats outside the prison, which helps US authorities control prisoners who have sway over militant groups or criminal enterprises — like the Sinaloa cartel, which Guzman commanded during two stints in Mexican prisons.
"The architecture of the building is the control," Hood, the former warden, told CNN. "You're designing it so the inmates can't see the sky. Intentionally. You're putting up wires so helicopters can't land."
Source: CNN
(Reporting for Reuters by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; editing by Grant McCool)
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