ADX Florence

The United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility Florence or more usually called ADX Florence is an American prison of very high security located at Florence in the Colorado. Also called Florence ADMAX , Supermax or the Alcatraz of the Rock , it is managed by the American federal government. It belongs to a vaster penitentiary complex located at Florence, the Florence Federal Correctional Complex (FCC) and it was conceived to lodge the prisoners considered to be most dangerous and requiring a narrow control. The principal ones condemned for terrorism of the United States are imprisoned there.

History

Opened in November 1994, the ADX Florence was built like an answer to the penitentiary murders of guards the October 22nd 1983, with the prison of Marion in the Illinois, a penitentiary of the United States (United States Penitentiary or USP) which was, at the time, the place of detention of the most dangerous prisoners. This day there, 2 prisoners succeeded in killing their guards guides by stabbing them after being themselves demolished their shackles

Consequently, the prison of Marion was transformed into a prison called to " containment permanent". That amounts maintaining the prisoners in an individual cell in a quasi-permanent way, enters 22 to 11 p.m. per day and under a narrow control. They are authorized neither to meet other prisoners to lunch, neither to make exercise, nor to follow a religious worship or for one some other activity. These practices having to be used to maintain a control absolute on the prisoner.

Following these murders, Norman Carlson, then director of the Federal Office off Prisons succeeds in convincing the federal government which one was to design a new type of prison, even protected. There existed according to him a need to isolate the unverifiable prisoners as well from penitentiary staff as for the other prisoners. The transformation of Marion was going to be used as model for the construction of the ADX Florence, a specifically built prison and completely to allow the " control individuel" of each prisoner.

The inhabitants of the county of Fremont accommodated rather well this new prison in an affected region by the economic crisis. This county lodges already 9 other prisons. More half of the uses of the area are related so that there is called in the " United States; industry pénitentiaire". ADX provides between 750 and 900 established posts, in addition to the 1000 part-time jobs which were necessary to its construction. The new prison was open in November 94 for total costs of 60 million dollars.

ADX Florence is included in a vaster penitentiary complex located at the 5880 Highway 67, Florence, Colorado , with three fifteen minutes of road in the south of Denver in a rather arid area. It is one of the 4 separate prisons of the complex, each one having a level different of safety.

The prison

ADX Florence accommodates in general between 400 to 500 male prisoners. Approximately 22% of them killed out of the fellows-prisoner in other penitentiaries, 35% went couplables of violences with regard to other prisoners or guards. The majority of the prisoners are kept at least 23 hours per day, only in their cell. These last measure 3,5 meters out of 2 meters and have a phonic insulation. The free hour is devoted to make exercise in a small court surrounded by high cement walls. The prisoners seldom see themselves between them and their only human contact is limited to their guard. The religious services are exempted in a small vault.

In each cell, the majority of furniture are integrated into this one. It is almost entirely made out of artificial stone, of which the office and the bed which is just covered by a fine mattress. Each cell is equipped with WC, shower with minutor (to prevent the floods) and with a sink without tap because considered to be potentially dangerous. They can be also equipped with polished a steel mirror fixed in the wall, of an electric light, of a cigarette-lighter, as well as small TV black and white of 13 inches of diagonal which diffuses only programs of education, from which besides all the prisoners do not profit. The windows small, are placed in height in the wall, pointing towards the sky preventing the prisoner from locating the position of its cell in the prison. Each cell is under the permanent control of a camera. To reach it is necessary to cross a steel door plus a grid.

The prison is equipped with an incalculable number of detectors of movement and cameras, 1400 doors of steel with controlled opening and a 4 height meters end of barbed wire, laser beams, detectors of pressure on the ground and dogs of attack in the zone separating the barbed fence and the walls from the prison.

Psychological effects

Much denounced the psychological effects in the long run of such a containment, effects which could be devastators. The prisoners can suffer from hallucinations, anxiety, a not controlled impulsiveness and practice self-mutilations. Moreover, containment can encourage feelings of rage or anger, encouraging behaviors violent one. One can also have opposite effects if the depression settles, making the prisoners extremely lethargic, with losses of memory and the refusal of any physical exercise.

Human rights

The prisoners complained about the excessive measurements taken by guards and civils servant in these types of equipment to supervise the prisoners. The constant monitoring and random research with the whim of the personnel of prison can be regarded as humiliating, and their frequency can be employed like methods of intimidation and deprivation of sleep. The maximum security facility , prison of high security of Marion in Illinois which was used as model for the ADX Florence, was denounced by Amnesty International like violating the standards minima defined by the the United Nations for the prisoner salary.

Known prisoners

Omar Abdel-Rahman (terrorist islamist, called the " Sheik aveugle" ; implied in the bomb attack against the World Trade Center in 1993.
Brian Askew (Co-Leader of RCC)
Matthew F. Hauls (" supremacist blanc" condemned to have ordered the assassination of a federal judge)
Robert Hanssen (agent of the FBI condemned for espionage to the profit of the Soviet Union and Russia)
Charles Harrelson (fatal of a judge)
Larry Hoover (leader of Black Gangster Disciples Nation, of Chicago)
Theodore Kaczynski (known as " Unabomber")
David Lane (fatal of Alan Berg, a liberal Jewish organizer of talk show)
Zacarias Moussaoui (condemned for conspiracy in the Attacks of September 11th, 2001)
Terry Nichols (conspiring of the attack of Oklahoma City)
Richard Reid (terrorist islamist, known as " Shoe bomber")
Eric Robert Rudolph (bomb planter of Olympic Park to Atlanta)
Ramzi Yousef (terrorist islamist, implied in the bomb attack against the World Trade Center in 1993)

See too

Supermax

External bonds

the official site of the Federal Office off Prisons Site and its section on the ADX Florence.
Satellite image off the penitentiary one Windows Live Local.
Hiring of the penitentiary on Google Maps.

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