Federal Correctional Institution, Danbury

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Federal Correctional Institution, Danbury
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Location Danbury, Fairfield County, Connecticut
Status Operational
Security class Low-security (with minimum-security prison camp)
Population 1,200 (220 in prison camp)
Opened 1940
Managed by Federal Bureau of Prisons

The Federal Correctional Institution, Danbury (FCI Danbury) is a low-security United States federal prison for male inmates in Danbury, Connecticut. 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 female offenders. It was announced in the summer of 2013 that FCI Danbury would transition from housing women to housing men with the female inmates transferring out between August and December 2013 and the male inmates arriving in early 2014. The satellite camp will continue to house female offenders.[1]

History

FCI Danbury was opened in August 1940 with the purpose of housing male and female inmates.[2] It housed several high-profile political prisoners during World War II. Conscientious objectors, including poet Robert Lowell and civil rights activist James Peck, were housed there for refusing to enter the military draft in the early 1940s.[3][4][5] Robert Henry Best served most of his life sentence at FCI Danbury after being convicted of treason in 1948 for making propaganda broadcasts for the Nazis during the war. Screenwriter Ring Lardner, Jr., a member of the Hollywood 10, a group of filmmakers who were charged with contempt of Congress in 1947 for refusing to answer questions regarding their alleged connections with the Communist Party USA, served 9 months there.[6]

Beginning in the 1970s the Yale Law School began providing legal services for prisoners at FCI Danbury.[7] As of the 2010s Yale students and professors visit the facility.[8]

FCI Danbury became exclusively for female inmates in 1993.[9] This was because there was a lack of space for women in the Northeastern United States and due to the growth in the number of female prisoners.[10]

In August 2013, the Federal Bureau of Prisons announced that FCI Danbury was going to be reverted to an all-male facility to alleviate overcrowding across the entire federal prison system. The female inmate population will be transferred to the Federal Correctional Institution, Aliceville in Alabama, which opened in 2013 and has over 1,500 low-security beds for female inmates. It was estimated that the change would be completed by December 2013.[11][12][13] However, female inmates were not transferred to other facilities until April 2014.

FCI Danbury and its camp were the only federal prisons in the Northeast which housed women, and the repurposing would further promote an imbalance of women's prisoner space within the BOP system.[8] In August 2013 11 senators from the Northeast sent a letter to the BOP director criticizing the move, since it would mean there would be no facility for female federal prisoners from the Northeast; the move would mean that all of the women would be far from their families and loved ones. In November of that year several senators announced that at FCI Danbury the BOP would install a new low security camp for women and convert an existing minimum security camp into a low security camp for women to remedy the issue.[7] As of August 2014 there was no timeline for the installation of the new women's facilities,[14] no new construction had yet occurred at FCI Danbury. U.S. citizens would be eligible for the camps, but non-U.S. citizens would still be incarcerated further away.[7] As of that time there were no women's prisons left in the Northeast.[8]

Location and facilities

FCI Danbury is located in southwestern Connecticut, approximately 55 miles (89 km) from New York City,[15] 60 miles (97 km) from Hartford, Connecticut, and 150 miles (240 km) from Boston, Massachusetts.[10]

The facility is accessible to a MetroNorth station fewer than 4 miles (6.4 km) from the facility. Four Amtrak stations are within 30 miles (48 km) from the facility.[10]

The prison had at one point included athletic facilities such as a running track, a soccer field, handball courts, a baseball diamond, and a handball field, since there is a large amount of outdoor area in the FCI Danbury property.[10]

Programs

Prior to the facility's conversion it offered General Education Development (GED) programs, paralegal classes, a group therapy program for people with post-traumatic stress disorder called the "Bridge Program," and a residential drug abuse program. The prison chaplain, religious groups, and volunteer groups had offered educational and other programming. In addition, prior to 1999 the prison hosted a "children's day" so inmates could spend time with their children.[10]

Notable incidents

Deadly 1977 fire

On July 7, 1977 at about 1:15 AM, a fire began in an inmate's clothes hanging on wooden pegs in one of the prison washrooms, and before it was extinguished about 45 minutes later, five inmates had died of smoke asphyxiation. The most significant factors contributing to the deadly fire were the presence of fuels that promoted rapid flame and smoke development, the failure to evacuate occupants quickly and reliably (the two primary exits were blocked by the fire and a broken key in a lock, leaving a narrow catwalk as the only exit), and the fire not being extinguished in an incipient stage. An automatic sprinkler system would have been the most reliable fire defense; however, even without automatic detection and suppression equipment, the fire safety system, with little expenditure of money, could have been more effective by revisions to emergency procedures in the fire plan. The Danbury Fire Department was not called until about 15 minutes after the fire's discovery because of a fire plan that called for initial use of the institution's firefighting resources, but the inmate fire brigade was never released from housing units and the institution's fire apparatus was never used. The ensuing public outcry led to several investigations and reviews of the prison's fire safety systems and protocols. A comprehensive program of fuel control, additional fire detection and suppression equipment, and training and planning sessions have also been established, not only at FCI Danbury but throughout the rest of the federal prison system.[16][17]

Correction Officer Michael Rudkin

In 2008, supervisory staff at FCI Danbury discovered that Correction Officer Michael Rudkin had been having consensual sexual relations with a female inmate. When questioned, Rudkin, who was married at the time, admitted to the affair and stated that it had been going on for approximately one year. An FBI investigation revealed that Rudkin had had sexual encounters with other inmates as well. Since it is illegal for prison staff to have sexual relations with inmates under their care regardless of consent, Rudkin pleaded guilty to sexual abuse of a ward and was sentenced to prison at the United States Penitentiary, Coleman, a high-security facility in Florida. Rudkin was subsequently convicted in 2010 of attempting to hire a hitman to kill his former inmate paramour, his ex-wife, his ex-wife's new boyfriend, and a federal investigator assigned to his case while at USP Coleman.[18] He was sentenced to 90 years in federal prison.[19]

Notable inmates

Inmate Name Register Number Status Details
Leona Helmsley 15113-054 Released from custody in 1994; served 21 months.[20] Upscale hotel owner and leading real estate investor in New York City; convicted of tax evasion in 1989 for failing to pay $1.7 million in taxes from 1983 to 1985; known as the "Queen of Mean" for her tyrannical management style.[21]
Sun Myung Moon 03835-054 Released from custody in 1985; served 11 months.[22] Leader of the Unification Church; convicted of tax evasion in 1982; the United States v. Sun Myung Moon serves as a landmark case involving taxes and religious organizations.[23][24]
Lauryn Hill 64600-050 Released from custody in 2013; served 3 months.[25] Grammy Award–winning singer and actress; pleaded guilty in 2012 to not reporting over $2.3 million in income by intentionally failing to file tax returns for five years.[26][27]
Piper Kerman 11187-424 Released from custody in 2005; served 13 months.[28] Pleaded guilty to money laundering in 1998; authored Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison (2010), which chronicles her time at FCI Danbury; the Netflix television series Orange Is the New Black is based on Kerman's book.[29]
Teresa Giudice 65703-050 Served a 15-month sentence; released on December 23, 2015 after serving 12 months.[30] Star of the Bravo television show Real Housewives of New Jersey; she and her husband, Joe Giudice, pleaded guilty in 2014 to bankruptcy fraud and mail fraud for lying to banks and hiding assets in order to avoid paying taxes on $1 million; Joe Giudice received 41 months.[31][32]
Alexander Salvagno 11212-052 Serving a 17-year sentence; scheduled for release in 2027. Former owner of Evergreen Resources, a fertilizer manufacturer; convicted in 1999 of ordering employees to handle and dispose of cyanide waste without required safety measures; received the longest sentence ever imposed for an environmental crime.[33]

In popular culture

  • In the movie The American President (1995), Louis Rothschild (played by Michael J. Fox), when discussing creating a diversion to help the president's girlfriend leave the White House, explains he "... can't be party to anything illegal.... It's always a guy in my job who winds up going 18 months in Danbury minimum security prison."
  • In the movie Blow (1998) George Jung serves his first prison sentence in Danbury.
  • The memoir Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison (2010), chronicles Piper Kerman's time at FCI Danbury.
  • The Netflix television series Orange Is the New Black (first airdate July 11, 2013) is based on Kerman's book.
  • The Showtime series Weeds starts its seventh season with main character, Nancy, being discharged from Danbury FCI.

See also

References

Notes

  1. ↑ Pirro, John (3 July 2013). "FCI Danbury converting back to men's prison". The News-Times. Danbury, Connecticut. retrieved 29 July 2013.
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Arons, et al., p. 2.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Arons, et al., p. 7.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 Arons, et al p. 8.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Aron, et al., p 3.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  19. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  22. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  23. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  24. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  25. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  26. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  27. ↑ USDOJ: US Attorney's Office - District of New Jersey. Justice.gov (2013-05-06). Retrieved on 2013-10-23.
  28. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  29. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  30. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  31. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  32. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  33. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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