FCI Waseca: Federal Prison for Women in Minnesota

By Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., and Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA

FCI Waseca at a glance

FCI Waseca is a low-security federal prison for women in Waseca, Minnesota, about 80 miles south of Minneapolis, and the only federal prison for women in the state. It held 810 people as of September 2026 and has no camp. It opened in 1995 as a men’s prison on the campus of a former University of Minnesota school and was converted to hold women between 2008 and 2009.

Official name	Federal Correctional Institution, Waseca
BOP code	WAS
Security level	Low; women
Population	810 (as of September 2026)
Visiting	Friday 4:30–8:30 p.m.; Saturday, Sunday and federal holidays 8:30 a.m.–3:00 p.m.
Inmate mail	Inmate Name & Register Number · FCI Waseca · Federal Correctional Institution · P.O. Box 1731 · Waseca, MN 56093
Send money	Lockbox · Western Union (code city FBOP, DC) · MoneyGram (receive code 7932)
Phone	507-835-8972 · Fax 507-837-4547
Street address	1000 University Drive SW, Waseca, MN 56093 · Waseca County
Judicial district	District of Minnesota
BOP region	North Central
Housing	Five general population units across 12 floors, four of them basements
Special Housing Unit	Yes
Medical care level	Level 2
Mental health care level	Level 2
RDAP	Yes
UNICOR	Textile sewing factory · see whether it is operating
Camp	No

The prison is one of the federal prisons in Minnesota and falls under the Bureau’s North Central Region. In January 2023 it became the first Bureau institution the Justice Department’s Inspector General inspected without warning, and the report that followed is the most detailed public account of conditions inside any federal women’s prison in the country.

Is FCI Waseca the only women’s prison in Minnesota?

FCI Waseca is the only federal women’s prison in Minnesota, and the distinction matters because the state runs a women’s prison of its own at Shakopee. Two systems, two locators, two sets of rules on mail, money, visiting and release. If the sentence came from a state court, the Bureau’s locator will never find her. Minnesota has four federal prisons and this is the only one that holds women.

Facility	Code	Type and security	Who is held there
FCI Waseca (this page)	WAS	Federal correctional institution, low	Women
FCI Sandstone	SST	Federal correctional institution, low	Men
FMC Rochester	RCH	Federal medical center, administrative	Men
FPC Duluth	DTH	Federal satellite low, announced July 1, 2026; a minimum-security camp on the Bureau’s roster	Men

Sandstone is the trap: same state, same facility type, same security level, and it takes men. The North Central Region covers 20 institutions across nine states, from Colorado to Michigan. Sixteen hold men only; MCC Chicago, FCI Greenville and FCI Pekin hold mixed populations. FCI Waseca is the only institution in that whole region designated for women alone.

There is no camp here, and that trips up families who have read about other women’s prisons. The Bureau’s roster lists no satellite camp and no satellite low for Waseca, and the prison is not part of a federal correctional complex. The Bureau publishes four addresses for it — inmate mail, staff mail, the physical address and a shipping address — and none for a camp, because no camp exists. What exists is a range of custody levels inside one fence — the 2023 PREA audit records women held at “Low, Minimum, Community In/Out” custody, which is why some work outside the perimeter and why the phrase “camp cadre” circulates. It describes a job, not a separate prison.

This was a college before it was a prison. The Inspector General records that the site “was originally built as a university campus and was purchased by the BOP in 1993,” that the Bureau opened it as a male institution in 1995, and that “between 2008 and 2009 the BOP converted it to a female institution.” Because Waseca “was converted to a prison after having been designed and built as a university,” the same report says, it “has many blind spots and areas where inmates or staff could remain beyond lines of sight.”

What is the security level at FCI Waseca?

FCI Waseca is a low-security institution throughout. A low-security designation means a secure perimeter, multi-occupancy housing rather than cells, and a lower staff-to-inmate ratio than a medium. The Special Housing Unit is the exception: those cells lock, have their own toilets and showers, and hold two women wherever possible, with the Warden’s approval needed to house anyone alone.

Under the Bureau’s security designation rules, whether a woman lands here turns on her security point score and on whether any Public Safety Factor applies; a Public Safety Factor overrides the point total however low she scores. Our guides to the intake process and to preparing for prison cover what happens next. Immigration removal hearings are held on site under the Institution Hearing Program.

Geography is the constraint few families hear about at sentencing. As of September 2026, of the 118 institutions on the Bureau’s roster — counting individual prisons and setting aside the fifteen records that stand for whole complexes — exactly five are classified low security and hold women: FCI Aliceville in Alabama, FCI Danbury in Connecticut, FCI Estill in South Carolina, FCI Tallahassee in Florida and FCI Waseca. Four of the five are in the South or on the eastern seaboard. That is why the statutory promise in 18 U.S.C. § 3621(b) of a placement “as close as practicable” to home, and within 500 driving miles of it “to the extent practicable,” so often produces a prison a family cannot reach. For a man at low security the Bureau chooses among dozens; for a woman it chooses among five.

The arithmetic runs the other way too. Aimee Marie Bock, register number 22500-510, was sentenced in the District of Minnesota on May 21, 2026, to 500 months for leading the Feeding Our Future fraud, the largest prosecution this state has seen. As of September 2026, Bureau records place her at FCI Greenville in Illinois, not at the women’s prison ninety minutes from the courthouse. A judicial recommendation is a recommendation; the Designation and Sentence Computation Center decides.

Who are the notable inmates at FCI Waseca?

The only notable person the Bureau’s records place at FCI Waseca is Holly Ann Grigsby. Other names attached to this prison online belong to people who left years ago or were never here. Each entry below carries the register number so you can repeat the search in the Bureau’s public Inmate Locator.

Name	Status	Case
Holly Ann Grigsby	Held here. Register number 42508-086; projected release LIFE	Sentenced on July 15, 2014 in the District of Oregon by Senior U.S. District Judge Ancer L. Haggerty to life without possibility of release for a pattern of racketeering activity that included four murders committed with David Joseph Pedersen in October 2011. The Justice Department’s announcement records that she “was not previously convicted or sentenced for any of the murders”
Jeffrey Skilling	Not here. Register number 29296-179; released February 21, 2019	The former Enron chief executive, listed on some sites as a holdover here. He is a man, this institution has held only women since 2008–09, and he left Bureau custody in 2019
Catherine Greig	Not here. Register number 57820-112; released July 23, 2020	Harboring a fugitive and identity fraud, for helping James “Whitey” Bulger evade capture
Rachelle “Shelley” Shannon	Not here. Register number 59755-065; released November 7, 2018	Arson and bombing of abortion clinics
Angela Johnson	Not here. Register number 08337-029; Bureau records place her at FCI Tallahassee, projected release LIFE	Convicted in 2005 in the Northern District of Iowa over five murders
Lisa Biron	Not here. Register number 12775-049; Bureau records place her at FCI Hazelton, West Virginia, projected release June 17, 2047	Child sexual exploitation offenses, New Hampshire

Two cautions. The locator names a prison by place and type, so read both words: “Hazelton FCI” and “Hazelton USP” are two prisons on one campus (facility codes HAF and HAZ). And Felecia Thomas, whose 2011 assault on another prisoner here was reported locally and repeated on directory pages, returns no record on a name search.

How do I find someone at FCI Waseca?

To find someone at FCI Waseca, use the Bureau’s free public Inmate Locator at bop.gov, and search by the eight-digit register number if you have it. The number is the reliable key: the locator matches the committed name on the judgment, not a married name, a maiden name or a nickname, and women’s names change on paper more often than men’s — the most common reason a family searching for someone at this prison gets no result. Its records reach back to 1982: for a woman still held it gives the facility and a projected release date, and for one released it shows “Not in BOP Custody as of” and a date, with no facility.

If the search comes back empty, work through these before assuming something has gone wrong.

• Wrong system. A Minnesota state sentence produces a state prisoner held by the Department of Corrections, and the federal locator will never show her. Minnesota’s women’s prison is at Shakopee.
• Not yet in Bureau custody. Someone awaiting sentencing or designation is usually held for the U.S. Marshals Service in a county jail. The Marshals publish no public locator; the defense attorney or the district’s Marshals office is the route.

A record the Bureau marks “IN TRANSIT” — moved from a Bureau facility, and may or may not be returned — names no facility and shows “NOT IN BOP CUSTODY”, usually with “Release Date: UNKNOWN”. Check again before you travel or send money: the population here was 806 in February 2023, 884 in September 2024 and 810 as of September 2026, so a result from last month is not evidence of where someone is today. Note too what the locator will not tell you — her housing unit, whether she is in the Special Housing Unit, whether she is on a transfer list. Those answers come from the Unit Team, in writing. Our guide to how federal register numbers work explains what the eight digits mean.

How do I write to someone at FCI Waseca?

Write to someone at FCI Waseca at P.O. Box 1731, Waseca, MN 56093, never to University Drive. The street address is the physical location and the shipping dock; the Bureau lists P.O. Box 1731 for inmate mail and parcels. The first line is her committed name and register number, in that order.

Address mail exactly like this
Inmate Name & Register Number FCI Waseca Federal Correctional Institution P.O. Box 1731 Waseca, MN 56093

Under the Bureau’s correspondence rules, incoming general correspondence is opened, inspected and may be read. First-class mail is handed out on weekday evenings; legal and special mail comes from a member of her Unit Team. The institution’s handbook (2023) sets limits that catch families out: no layered or musical cards; no more than 25 letters and cards kept in her room; no more than 25 photographs received in a day, and no Polaroids. If she transfers, general mail is forwarded for only 30 days before it starts coming back to you, while special and legal mail is forwarded indefinitely.

Legal mail is opened only in front of her and is not read, but only if the envelope carries the attorney’s name and is marked “Special Mail — Open only in the presence of the inmate.” An attorney’s letter without that marking is processed and read like any other. Our guides to attorney-client communication in the Bureau of Prisons and to writing to someone in federal prison cover what gets rejected and why. Never put money in a letter; it is rejected and returned.

How do I send money to someone at FCI Waseca?

Send money to someone at FCI Waseca through the Bureau’s central lockbox in Des Moines, Iowa, or through Western Union or MoneyGram; money never goes to the prison itself. Each route needs her committed name and her eight-digit register number, written on the instrument and on the envelope.

Route	Where it goes	How fast it posts
Postal money order (or cashier’s check)	Federal Bureau of Prisons Committed Name Eight-Digit Register Number Post Office Box 474701 Des Moines, Iowa 50947-0001	U.S. postal money orders post without a hold; most other instruments carry an automatic 15-day hold
Western Union Quick Collect	Code city FBOP, DC	Two to four hours if sent between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. Eastern; otherwise by 7:00 a.m. next morning
MoneyGram Express Payment	Receive code 7932, company name Federal Bureau of Prisons, Washington, DC	Same as Western Union

No cash and no personal checks; our guide to sending money to a federal prisoner compares every route. One instruction on Waseca’s own self-surrender sheet matters before a report date: “Do not send any funds to the National Lock Box prior to your arrival, they will be rejected and returned them to sender.” A woman reporting here brings cash, up to a $1,000 limit, and nothing more.

What are the visiting hours at FCI Waseca?

Visiting at FCI Waseca runs on Friday evening, Saturday, Sunday and federal holidays, and not at all from Monday to Thursday. These hours come from institution supplement WAS-5267-09d, dated February 7, 2025 and signed by the Acting Warden, which rescinded the June 2021 version. The Bureau’s national visiting regulations sit behind it.

Day	Visiting room	Last time visitors are processed in
Friday	4:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.	7:30 p.m.
Saturday	8:30 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.	2:00 p.m.
Sunday	8:30 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.	2:00 p.m.
Federal holidays	8:30 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.	2:00 p.m.
Monday to Thursday	No visiting

Three timing rules will cost you a visit. You may not enter the front lobby before 4:15 p.m. on a Friday or 8:15 a.m. on weekends, and visitors waiting in the lobby or the parking lot are asked to leave until the right time. Processing stops at 7:30 p.m. on Fridays and 2:00 p.m. on weekends. And there is a blackout in the middle of the weekend morning: no one is processed between 9:15 and about 10:30 a.m., until the 10:00 a.m. count clears. Arrive at 9:30 on a Saturday and you lose an hour of your visit.

Call 507-835-8972 before you drive. The institution runs a recorded line carrying the hours and any closure — its supplement says visiting information “will be updated when the Visiting Room is closed during regular visiting hours or federal holidays on the automated message system” — and that recording is the current word.

Women in the Special Housing Unit do not get in-person visits. The supplement is flat about it: inmates in the SHU, “regardless of status, will only be authorized visits through Video Sessions,” with a non-contact room in the sallyport for extraordinary circumstances. Check before you book a flight.

Who can visit, and how many

• Five visitors at a time, in any combination of adults and children. More needs advance approval from the Unit Team.
• Immediate family identified in the presentence report go on the list straight away. Everyone else completes form BP-A0629, returns it directly to unit staff, and must document a relationship predating the incarceration — co-signed leases, utility bills, dated letters.
• Every proposed visitor who is not immediate family gets an NCIC criminal-history check, completed before any visit, whatever the security level.
• Attorneys must show current bar membership and a valid driver’s license and sign the Attorney’s Visitor Logbook; a visit outside normal hours must be arranged with the Unit Team in advance. Pastoral visits need the Chaplain’s approval seven working days ahead.

The supplement carries rules about children few other institutions spell out. Two rooms open off the visiting area, “one room for kids only and a parenting room,” available to women with children with staff approval, both closing fifteen minutes before the visiting day ends. Any woman with a Walsh Act assignment — a conviction for a sex offense involving a minor — is seated near the officers’ station and barred from those rooms because staff cannot see into them. Nursing is permitted, with privacy screens provided and only the mother and infant behind a screen. Handshaking, embracing and kissing are allowed at the beginning and end only, and hand-holding during the visit is not — but a woman may hold her infant or toddler on her lap throughout.

What visitors can wear and bring

Three colors will turn you away. Visitors may not wear green, khaki or orange pants, shirts or skirts, because those are what the institution issues; camouflage is out for the same reason. So are tight, transparent or spandex clothing; tank, halter and sleeveless tops; clothing with holes; hats; sweatpants; plunging necklines; open-toe or open-heel shoes; shorts and skirts above the knee when standing; and anything hooded. One clause is easy to miss and it is seasonal: “Jackets, coats, or sweaters will only be allowed during the months of October through May.” In a Minnesota July, leave the cardigan in the car.

What you may bring is short: a clear plastic coin purse no larger than five by seven inches holding up to $20 per adult and no more than $60 per group, or one credit card for the group, for the vending machines; life-supporting medication declared at the entrance; and for an infant a diaper bag no larger than 18 by 14 by 8 inches with a receiving blanket, two jars of unopened baby food, two bottles, wipes and three diapers. Everything else stays in the car — handbags, wallets, baby carriers, strollers, toys, cameras, paperwork, food, phones, lipstick, combs, tobacco, and, unexpectedly, watches and fitness bands of any kind. One clause is in the supplement because women had been turned away over it: “Visitors will not be prohibited from visiting an inmate due to such visitor’s use of sanitary (i.e. feminine hygiene) products.”

Identification and screening

Everyone aged 16 and over needs a current driver’s license, state identification card or military identification card, and the supplement’s wording is unusually narrow: “Under no circumstances will any other forms of ID be allowed.” A lobby scanner verifies it. Adults may be pat searched at random or on suspicion, and an underwire bra or a concealed medical device that triggers the detector may require a limited visual search, conducted in private by a staff member of the same sex. Our pages on searches, shakedowns and contraband and on federal prison visitation cover the system-wide rules.

A note for Spanish-speaking families. As of September 2026, the Bureau’s Spanish version of this supplement was still WAS-5267.09a (2017), two revisions behind the English document the institution now operates under. The hours happen to match, but the rules do not: the 2017 text states that women are never permitted in the children’s room, which the 2025 English supplement no longer says. Read the English version, or call.

Getting there

The institution is at 1000 University Drive SW, just off U.S. Highway 14 between Owatonna and Mankato. From Minneapolis, take Interstate 35 south to Highway 14 west, then right onto Highway 13 north and follow the signs; from Iowa, I-35 north to the same turn. The self-surrender sheet gives the last turns and a warning: from Highway 13 north, left onto 2nd Street SE and right onto University Drive SW to the visitor lot on the right — and satellite navigation “will sometimes show or get you on/to 350th Ave/University Drive,” which is a different road.

Minneapolis–St. Paul International is the nearest airport, about an hour and a half away; the nearest bus station is in Owatonna, 20 minutes out. The institution provides no transportation.

How do phone calls and email work at FCI Waseca?

At FCI Waseca she places the calls; you cannot call in. Your number has to be on her approved list, and before she can use the phone she is issued a Phone Access Code and must register a sample of her voice; replacing a code she has let slip costs her $5.00. Across the Bureau the allowance is 510 minutes a calendar month under the Bureau’s telephone regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, issued September 3, 2026 — 300 free to anyone eligible for First Step Act telephone incentives, and the other 210 purchasable by anyone who uses up those 300, eligible or not — and a single call should generally not exceed 15 minutes. The extra 100 minutes in November and December belonged to the 2008 policy and did not survive its rescission. Everything except a properly arranged unmonitored legal call is recorded. Our guide to federal inmate phone calls covers the rest.

One local detail confuses many families. Monthly minutes at Waseca do not reset on the first of the month. They revalidate on a staggered day set by the fifth digit of her register number: a 0 revalidates on the 1st, a 1 on the 4th, a 2 on the 7th, and so on in three-day steps to a 9 on the 28th. If she has run out and the month has turned over, check that digit before assuming something has gone wrong. There is also a wheelchair-accessible telephone fixed low on the wall in every unit, and that one stays on during the working day for women whose shifts fall across the normal phone hours.

Email runs on TRULINCS, and families sign in through CorrLinks; when she adds your address you have ten days to accept the invitation before it lapses. Messages are text only and charged by the minute, and email with a lawyer is not privileged. Our CorrLinks and TRULINCS page covers the system-wide rules. Video visiting is the only way most families reach a woman in the Special Housing Unit: sessions run 25 minutes, are charged and monitored, and may not be scheduled with someone already released to a reentry center, home confinement or supervision. A sister who went home last month cannot get on the call.

One TRULINCS function matters before she needs it. The Request to Staff menu carries a Department of Justice sexual abuse reporting mailbox that goes straight to the Inspector General, outside the institution’s chain of command. When the Inspector General inspected Waseca its team asked women to demonstrate they could find it, and they could — but the inspectors noted the computers sit in open areas of the housing units, and one woman said she would wait until no one was nearby before using it.

What can people buy at the FCI Waseca commissary?

The monthly commissary spending limit at FCI Waseca is $460, set by the Bureau’s trust fund rules, Program Statement 4500.13, issued May 7, 2026, which raised the national ceiling from $360. Items outside that cap include stamps, copy cards and over-the-counter medicines.

Waseca’s own handbook (2023) still says otherwise: “Your monthly spending validation is $360.00.” That figure is out of date, as are listings that repeat it. What is not obsolete, and appears nowhere in national policy, is the sentence after it: “Inmate’s spending validation of $180 will revalidate on a bi-weekly basis on the 1st and the 15th of the month.” The allowance here is released in two halves. Whether they were rebased when the ceiling rose is stated in no published document, and the Trust Fund office is the only place to get the answer.

The shopping rules are the harshest part. She shops one day a week, set by the last two digits of the first five numbers of her register number, and the rotation changes quarterly. Sales run Monday to Thursday only, in three windows from 6:15 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., and lists go through a slot in the commissary door. Then the rule that costs a week: “You will be called three times only; if you do not show up at the window by the third time your name and laundry number are called, you will lose your shopping privileges for that week.” Shopping on the wrong day is itself a disciplinary matter. Over-the-counter medication is the exception, available any day Monday to Thursday on a separate form.

The commissary list itself (2025) is a women’s list: ultra-thin pads at $5.00, panty liners at $2.00, Tampax at $5.40, sports bras at $14.45 and $31.30, a tablet at $141.70. Two details tell you more than the prices. Typewriter, correction and Swintec ribbons are still stocked, which is how legal work gets done at a prison whose law library runs on shared terminals. And nail polish appears on that form under holiday items at $5.00, while the handbook states that “Nail polish is not sold at FCI Waseca” — the form is the later document. The national rules sit on our page about the federal prison commissary.

What programs are available at FCI Waseca?

FCI Waseca offers more programs than any comparable women’s prison, and its queues are longer than anywhere else too. In the quarter ending March 2026 a federal court’s Senior Monitor, who reports on every Bureau facility holding a class member from the closed FCI Dublin, described Waseca’s vocational offering as “the most robust of all the facilities housing CMs” — and in the same paragraph recorded vocational waiting lists running “no wait to 4 years.”

Drug treatment, RDAP and the FIT question

The Residential Drug Abuse Program runs here. FCI Waseca appears in the North Central Region column of the RDAP locations list inside the Bureau’s First Step Act Approved Programs Guide, updated in June 2026 and totaling “57 RDAPS at 50 Locations.” Completing RDAP can take up to a year off a sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e) for a woman convicted of a non-violent offense, which makes capacity the question that matters. When the Inspector General inspected in 2023 the program “should have a capacity of 72 inmates but was capped at 48 due to the number of available drug treatment specialists.” Drug Abuse Education, the non-residential program and aftercare are also offered.

Medication-Assisted Treatment for opioid use disorder is the weak point and has been for years. The psychologist post for its psychosocial component was still unfilled in January 2023 after fourteen consecutive job announcements, about 200 women were waiting for that half of the screening, and eleven women in the whole institution were enrolled and prescribed medication, seven of whom arrived already taking it. Touring in June 2025 the court monitor recorded that “MAT access is delayed or denied despite active substance use concerns.”

Female Integrated Treatment is the open question. It combines cognitive behavioral therapy for substance use, mental illness and trauma with vocational training, and a woman who qualifies for RDAP can complete it inside FIT and keep the § 3621(e) benefit. The August 2026 guide says two different things about whether Waseca has it: the programs-by-institution table at the back marks this institution for FIT, but the narrative page describing the program names five institutions — Greenville, Danbury, Tallahassee, Carswell and Phoenix — and the guide’s own map lists those same five and totals “5 FITs at 5 Locations.” Two halves say no; the grid says yes. The named list is the half the Bureau itself quotes, so treat FIT as running elsewhere — and ask the Drug Abuse Program Coordinator in writing, because the answer decides whether she transfers.

Education, vocational training and UNICOR

The court monitor published this institution’s inventory for January to March 2026, the most recent public list of what is actually taught here. Education offers GED, English as a Second Language, Adult Continuing Education, the Barton Reading and Spelling literacy program, Preparing for Success after Prison and PROWD.

Track	What is offered
Apprenticeships	HVAC, pipefitter, housekeeping, cook, landscape, teacher’s aide, recreation assistant, electrical, baker
Vocational training	Cosmetology, horticulture, certified nursing assistant, doula, personal trainer, landscape technician, turf and grounds management, recycling and reclamation, animal handler through the PAWS service-dog program
Waiting lists	Education 0 to 9 months; vocational no wait to four years; psychology programs 10 weeks to one year

Source: Wendy Still, Senior Monitor, 4th Quarterly Status Report (2026), in California Coalition for Women Prisoners v. U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons, No. 4:23-cv-04155-YGR (N.D. Cal.).

At a prison most women leave well before four years, a four-year waiting list means a course listing promises little. The same report itemizes what closed in that one quarter: SERVSAFE shut for all three months for want of funding for the testing component, the second consecutive quarter; ACT WorkKeys shut pending a new contract; the Peer Support Specialist apprenticeship shut for lack of staff; GED, ESL and horticulture closed on seven days between them because staff were on leave or working correctional posts; and RDAP closed on March 4, 2026 “as a result of fog watch.”

UNICOR here is a textile sewing factory, and when the Inspector General visited it employed “over 200 inmates” — roughly a quarter of the prison — with apprenticeships for pattern makers and sewing machine repairers, producing military shorts. Then, in the quarter ending March 2026, the monitor recorded: “UNICOR Sewing was closed for the entire quarter because the program was being mothballed.” That is one quarter from one source and does not mean the factory has closed for good, but UNICOR is the best-paid work in the federal system and anyone planning around that income should ask what it is doing now. Work there is conditional anyway: half the pay is taken against court-ordered obligations, and declining the Inmate Financial Responsibility Program keeps her off the waiting list.

Trauma treatment and parenting at a women’s prison

Resolve is the Bureau’s cognitive-behavioral treatment for trauma-related mental health needs, and it is the program this population most needs. The August 2026 guide marks it here in both halves of the document — the grid and the named list inside the program description. It runs in stages: a Trauma in Life workshop, assessment, a Seeking Safety group, then longer therapy.

Whether it is running is a different question. In January 2023 the Inspector General found that Waseca’s “Resolve Program, a therapy program designed to address trauma-related mental health needs, is not running, as there is no coordinator for the program on staff.” The same passage records that STAGES — the residential program for women with serious mental illness and a primary diagnosis of borderline personality disorder — was “essentially inactive as the institution has been unable to hire a coordinator for the program after 15 consecutive job announcements,” even though bedspace and two treatment specialists had already been allocated to it.

The women-specific menu on paper is long. The guide marks Waseca for Family Programming for Women, Women’s Life Skills, Women’s Career Skills, Women’s Career Exploration, Women’s Basic Financial Literacy and Women’s Sexual Safety among its credit-earning programs, and for Square One: Essentials for Women, Women’s Relationships I and II, the Women’s Reflections Group and Women’s Aging: Aging Well among its productive activities. The National Parenting Program and the Foundation program are marked here too, and Foundation is the one to ask about first: it is written for newly arrived women working out which programs to choose. The guide also marks Waseca for K2 Awareness, an activity about the drug the Inspector General identified as this prison’s contraband problem, and for Trauma Education, in an institution where 40 of the 719 women present on day one of its 2023 audit had disclosed prior sexual victimization at intake.

Religious Services runs the Threshold program, and requests to join fasts and ceremonial meals must reach the chaplain no more than ninety and no fewer than sixty days beforehand — a window that closes quietly on people who ask late. See the Bureau’s placement procedures and our guides to halfway houses and home confinement.

The guide lists what is approved to be offered, not what is running, and because the regulations count “temporary operational or programmatic interruptions” as successful participation, women here earn time credits whether or not the classes run. Staff enroll women closest to release first, so a long sentence with few assessed needs can mean years on a list.

What happens if someone is pregnant at FCI Waseca?

She tells Health Services as soon as she suspects it, she gives birth in a hospital outside the prison, and she is exempt from the requirement to hold a work assignment while it lasts — the handbook lists “pregnancy/post-partum status” alongside medical idle and convalescence as the only grounds for exemption. Under 28 C.F.R. § 551.22 the Warden must ensure that every pregnant prisoner receives medical, case management and counseling services, and that medical staff “arrange for the childbirth to take place at a hospital outside the institution.”

Waseca employs a licensed social worker whose duties, as the handbook sets them out, include assisting pregnant women, counseling “regarding lawful options to terminate or maintain the pregnancy,” explaining the MINT and Residential Parenting programs, and planning for where the baby will go. She also handles Reduction in Sentence requests, the internal route to compassionate release, and holds weekly open house hours. Anyone advising a pregnant woman here should start there, in writing.

Pregnancy, restraints and the birth itself

Restraints are governed by section 301 of the First Step Act, now 18 U.S.C. § 4322, which forbids restraining a federal prisoner from the moment a healthcare professional confirms a pregnancy until the end of postpartum recovery — the twelve weeks after delivery, or longer if the clinician says so — including the whole time in hospital. Three narrow exceptions exist: an immediate and credible flight risk, an immediate and serious threat of harm, or a clinical judgment that restraint is medically appropriate. Even then only the least restrictive restraints may be used, and the statute bars restraints around the ankles, legs or waist, binding the hands behind the back, and four-point restraints.

Two enforcement hooks travel with that rule. Written notice of it must reach her within 48 hours of the pregnancy being confirmed, and any use of restraints must be reported by the Warden to the Director within 30 days. If the notice was never given, say so in the first administrative remedy filed, and say it while the twenty-day clock is still running.

Where the baby goes

Not to a nursery at Waseca, because no federal prison has one. MINT — Mothers and Infants Together — is a residential program run in contract reentry centers in the community, and a woman has to be referred out to it, generally from the last two months of pregnancy through at least three months after the birth. The Bureau’s Female Offender Manual bars a referral in three cases: a pregnancy that began on furlough, more than five years left to serve, or a plan to place the baby for adoption. The Residential Parenting Program, run under an agreement with the Washington Department of Corrections, is the other and more generous route, but it is open only to women scored at minimum security with Out or Community custody — a category this institution does hold. Either referral depends on a social worker starting it, which is why the request goes in writing and the copy is kept.

Free hygiene products and gynecological care

Section 611 of the First Step Act requires the Bureau to make tampons and sanitary napkins available “for free, in a quantity that is appropriate to the healthcare needs of each prisoner,” and the Female Offender Manual turns that into five named products the warden must supply at no cost: staff may not ration them, they must sit in a common area accessible at all times of the day, monthly issuance is prohibited, and a unit that runs out must be restocked within 24 hours.

Waseca’s handbook says it complies, in words that give a woman something to hold staff to: “Sanitary pads (regular and super), tampons (regular and super), and panty liners are issued by the institution and made available to all inmates on the housing unit in inmate restrooms.” Note where that puts them — in the restroom, on the unit, not behind a counter. A woman told to ask an officer, handed a fixed monthly allocation, or told to buy her own is being treated contrary to the Bureau’s own policy, and that is a clean administrative remedy.

Broader women’s health here is where the record is weakest. When the court monitor’s medical experts toured in June 2025 they found sick call running four days a week in a thirty-minute window from 6:30 to 7:00 a.m.; that a woman needed permission from her work, school or program supervisor to attend and “permission is not always granted”; and that a woman who fell ill later in the day was “frequently told to wait until the following day.” Their list for this institution included delays in obtaining mammograms and other diagnostic tests, untreated urinary tract infections and alopecia, seizure medication not adjusted or monitored, an inadequate supply of adult diapers, women denied medication because the commissary was out of stock, and sick call waits of seven hours or more. They recommended the institution “increase the number of sick call days from four to seven days per week.” See our page on medical care in federal prison.

What is daily life like at FCI Waseca?

Daily life at FCI Waseca means six counts a day, ten-minute movement windows and, for most women, a room shared with three others. The schedule below is from the institution’s 2023 handbook; treat it as the rhythm rather than a guarantee.

	Weekdays	Weekends and federal holidays
Wake-up	6:00 a.m., with the morning meal	7:00 a.m.
Meals	Breakfast 6:00 a.m.; lunch about 11:00 a.m.	Continental breakfast 7:00 a.m.; brunch after the 10:00 a.m. count clears
Dinner	After the 4:00 p.m. count clears, seven days a week
Counts	Midnight, 3:00 a.m., 5:00 a.m., 4:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m.	The same, plus 10:00 a.m.
Stand-up counts	4:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m.	10:00 a.m., 4:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m.
Movement	Ten minutes to cross the compound on each announced move; no loitering, including in the salon area and Center Hall
Recreation	6:30 a.m. – 8:30 p.m. daily, subject to staffing and weather

Source: FCI Waseca Admission & Orientation Handbook (2023).

Five units hold twelve floors between them. On six of the eight above-ground floors women live four to a room with two bunk beds and no lockable door; the other two and all four basement floors are open-concept, the sleeping area spanning the whole floor, with communal bathrooms and showers throughout. Units A, B, C and D allow no visiting between ranges; Unit E does.

Recreation is broad for a low-security institution: a gymnasium, indoor space for aerobics and yoga, outdoor courts and a year-round walking track, a music room and hobby craft. There is also a community flower garden in season, where women tend beds through the summer and water them from collected rainwater.

What do inspectors say about conditions at FCI Waseca?

Inspectors have documented FCI Waseca in more detail than almost any other federal prison, because it is where the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General began its unannounced inspections. Between Monday, January 30, and Saturday, February 4, 2023, it conducted what its report calls “the OIG’s first unannounced inspection of a Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) prison.” Everything the Inspector General has since found at Tallahassee, Sheridan, Lewisburg, Devens, SeaTac and Canaan is measured against what seven inspectors and two contract clinicians saw here over six days. The Bureau got four hours’ notice: the OIG telephoned at about 8 a.m. on January 30 to say an inspection would begin at noon. In its own later accounting, dated September 10, 2025, the OIG wrote that “[s]ince 2023, the OIG has conducted such inspections at 13 BOP institutions,” and listed FCI Waseca first. A further report, on USP Canaan, followed in May 2026.

The first inspection: what the OIG found in 2023

Waseca was chosen because it looked easy. The OIG wanted “an institution of relative operational simplicity” that “scored as ‘low risk'” on the risk-assessment tool it was piloting, and it wanted a women’s prison “given the significant number of sexual assault and harassment investigations that the OIG has been handling recently.” Waseca fitted. The report’s summary: “despite this low risk profile, we identified many significant issues.”

The headline finding was where women slept. Four of the twelve housing floors are basements, and the inspectors found beds under exposed pipes — patched, wrapped in plastic, visibly damaged, close enough that a woman on a top bunk “could hit their heads on the pipes if they sat up in bed.” Women told the OIG the pipes regularly leaked onto their beds. Facilities staff explained that roof drainage runs through the basements and strains in heavy rain and snowmelt. The Warden said he knew, and had nowhere else to put them: the prison was then at about 113 percent of capacity, 806 women against 712 beds.

Roofs were the second finding. The flat roofs over food service, health services, recreation and the Special Housing Unit all leaked. Leaks had damaged medical and dental equipment, forced those offices to be temporarily vacated, interrupted meal service, ruined part of the gymnasium floor and made SHU cells unusable at times; the institution warned the food-service and recreation roofs might not hold the weight of future rain and snow. Waseca put the bill at $3.5 million in its funding requests, though the same report describes it elsewhere as “over $3 million.” It had been asking since 2019 and had received nothing by March 2023, the Regional Director explaining that he could not prioritize these roofs over repairs elsewhere.

Then staffing, which drives everything else. In January 2023, 191 of 255 positions were filled — 75 percent — with Correctional Services at 67 percent. Health Services had five vacancies, four open more than a year, including a mid-level practitioner post vacant for three years and seven months. Correctional staff worked an estimated 14,143 overtime hours in a year, the equivalent of 6.8 full-time posts, with shifts as long as sixteen hours. And on 93 percent of the weekdays in that year at least one non-correctional staff member was pulled into a correctional post: Facilities on 79 percent of weekdays, the Unit Team on 66 percent, Education on 52 percent. A Facilities manager said his department could only “put out fires”; a Unit Team member said her caseload approached 150 women; an Education supervisor estimated GED students were getting three to five hours of instruction a week against the 7.5 hours policy requires. One cause is geography: a GS-8 Step 1 correctional officer here is paid “$4,682 less than it would be if FCI Waseca were located approximately 11 miles to the north,” inside the Minneapolis–St. Paul locality pay area.

The rest, in short. The institution had 162 analog cameras with poor night vision, poor zoom and blind spots the inspectors confirmed. Its drug problem was synthetic cannabinoids and diverted buprenorphine-naloxone strips arriving mostly in the mail; the Warden was reluctant to photocopy all non-legal mail because women “could become distressed if they were allowed to receive only black and white photocopies of photos of their children,” and his request to limit incoming books to verified publishers was refused by the Regional Office. Fifty women were in the SHU on February 2, 2023. Thirty-eight staff misconduct investigations were open, averaging 221 days, one more than two years old, with a single lieutenant working them full time. And a quarter of all prescribed psychiatric medication doses went unadministered that January because women did not attend pill line.

Two things the report also says. Staff and women alike told the OIG they generally felt safe, and the Bureau’s own January 2023 poll found 86 percent of women here rating the institution safe. And the OIG made no recommendations — not because nothing was wrong, but because it had already recommended the Bureau fix these things system-wide.

What has changed since, and what has not

One thing changed immediately. After reading the draft report, the institution moved women off the top bunks nearest the pipes and told the OIG it does not intend to assign anyone to those bunks again; the Bureau’s written response of May 3, 2023 says the same. The rest has not been revisited. The Inspector General has not inspected FCI Waseca again, and as of September 2026 it was not on the Inspector General’s list of inspections under way. Its 2023 findings are still cited as current: in May 2026 the OIG’s evaluation of First Step Act funding repeated that “[d]uring our January 2023 inspection of FCI Waseca, we found that waitlists for several FSA programs exceeded 300 names.” The District of Columbia’s Corrections Information Council has never inspected this prison.

That means the Inspector General’s account of conditions inside this prison is more than three years old, and the only things standing beside it are the Prison Rape Elimination Act audit described next and a court monitor who is here for a different reason entirely.

The 2023 PREA audit

FCI Waseca was audited under the Prison Rape Elimination Act on site from November 28 to 30, 2023, by Lynni O’Haver, an independent auditor subcontracted by PREA Auditors of America; the final report is dated January 11, 2024. The facility passed: 41 standards met, none exceeded, none unmet, no corrective action required.

Designed capacity	712
Average daily population, 12 months to November 2023	793, and over capacity at some point in that year
Population on day one of the audit	719
Age range	21 to 72
Custody levels held	Low, Minimum, Community In/Out
Staff who may have inmate contact	188, with 10 contractors and 25 volunteers authorized
Disclosed prior sexual victimization at intake screening	40 of the 719 present on day one
Identifying as transgender or intersex	37 of the 719 present on day one
Limited English proficient	9

Three findings matter to a woman here. No cross-gender strip or visual body cavity search was conducted in the audit year, and the auditor judged the number of female staff “more than adequate” across all shifts. All 24 women interviewed at random said they had privacy while showering and using the bathroom, though only 20 of the 24 confirmed that opposite-gender staff announced themselves before entering the unit. And the institution has a written agreement with the Committee Against Domestic Abuse, a non-profit serving south-central Minnesota, which provides confidential crisis counseling and accompaniment during a forensic examination and an investigative interview. The handbook gives its address as P.O. Box 466, Mankato, MN 56002 and its hotline as 1-800-477-0466, with a caution: that number cannot be dialed directly from the inmate telephone system, and staff must escort her to a designated phone for the call.

Staff sexual abuse: the government’s own counts

A prison can pass every PREA standard and still be a place where a great many women say staff assaulted them. The numbers come from three government sources. Start with the audit itself: in the twelve months before November 2023 the institution recorded eleven allegations of sexual abuse, two inmate-on-inmate and nine staff-on-inmate. All eleven were investigated administratively. None was investigated criminally. Of the nine staff allegations, four were found unfounded, four unsubstantiated and one was still open; none was substantiated. The auditor reviewed all eleven files and marked the standard met.

The Inspector General’s inspection, covering the year to January 2023, found six Waseca staff alleged to have committed staff-on-inmate sexual misconduct, five of those investigations still open. It added a caution that should travel with any of these figures: the volume of investigations “should not be used, alone, to assess the pervasiveness of sexual misconduct or lack thereof.” Then the Government Accountability Office published the five-year series, institution by institution, in Federal Prisons: Improvements Needed to Prevent, Detect, and Address Sexual Abuse on May 5, 2026.

Reported allegations of sexual abuse at FCI Waseca	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024	Total
A BOP employee was the alleged perpetrator	2	1	11	7	13	34
An incarcerated person was the alleged perpetrator	2	1	2	2	4	11

Source: GAO-26-107343 (2026), Tables 7 and 8. Staff allegations are counted in the year reported; inmate allegations in the year the incident occurred. An allegation is not a finding.

Read those rows against each other. Over five years, three times as many women at Waseca said a member of staff had abused them as said another prisoner had. The staff figure jumped from one in 2021 to eleven in 2022 — the year before the Inspector General arrived — and reached thirteen in 2024. GAO does not adjust these counts for the size of a prison, and sixteen of its rows split one institution across two names because of the April 2024 renamings, so the table cannot rank one prison against another. And in the twelve months the PREA auditor examined, not one of the nine staff allegations she reviewed was referred for criminal investigation. The Justice Department has prosecuted at least one former employee here: Mark McShane, a former correctional officer, was sentenced on October 11, 2018, before Senior U.S. District Judge Donovan W. Frank in St. Paul to 14 months for sexual abuse of a ward, for a relationship with a woman in custody here between November 2016 and January 2017.

Underneath all of it is a structural finding the Inspector General recorded. Some male staff told inspectors they were reluctant to monitor communal bathrooms at all, for fear of a baseless allegation. Women knew it, and the OIG was told that bathrooms had become where drugs were used and exchanged, where fights happened, and — in an inmate email a supervisor had read — where a woman wrote that a suicide would be easy to complete because staff do not go there. A prison designed as a college, with communal bathrooms on every floor and 162 analog cameras, produced a space no one watches.

What a federal court’s monitor found here

When FCI Dublin in California closed in 2024 after years of staff sexual abuse, the women held there became class members in California Coalition for Women Prisoners v. U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons, No. 4:23-cv-04155-YGR (N.D. Cal.), and were scattered across the system. A consent decree took effect on March 31, 2025 and installed a Senior Monitor, Wendy Still, who reports publicly to the court each month and each quarter on every facility holding a class member. Many of those women came to Waseca, which is why this prison now appears in federal court filings four times a year.

The Monitoring Team toured FCI Waseca from June 2 to 5, 2025; its medical experts interviewed 44 class members on site. Their medical findings are set out above. Two more belong here. The Special Investigative Services lieutenant — the officer who investigates inmate and staff misconduct here — refused to be interviewed by the court’s monitoring team, which recorded that it found this “concerning.” And a woman interviewed in the Special Housing Unit said she had pressed the emergency call button in her cell while panicking and needing psychology, and that no one came.

The Monitor’s most recent quarterly report, covering January to March 2026 and filed on June 30, 2026, shows the staffing gap.

FCI Waseca, January–March 2026	Authorized	Filled	Vacant	Vacancy rate
Medical	24	18	6	25%
Public Health Service	1	0	1	100%
Mental health	14	5	9	64.29%

Nine of the fourteen mental health posts at a prison holding about 856 women were unfilled, including both psychiatrist positions. Across every facility housing class members the mental health vacancy rate was 25.3 percent; Waseca’s was two and a half times that. In June 2025 the Monitor had already recommended that the Bureau “limit the intake of Class Members with mental illness at FCI Waseca until adequate staffing levels can be achieved.”

One finding runs the other way. Of every Bureau facility the Monitor examines, only this one hands a woman a form to sign confirming she received administrative remedy forms on placement in the Special Housing Unit. The Monitor called it “proof of practice that the facility is in compliance with the Consent Decree” and recommended every other federal prison adopt it. If your relative goes to the Special Housing Unit here, that form exists; ask for it.

FCI Waseca in the news

Recent news about FCI Waseca centers on deaths in custody, a September 2024 drug-exposure incident and the treatment of women moved from FCI Dublin; older items concern the 2023 inspection and a 2018 staff prosecution.

• July 2026 — Death at FCI Waseca. In the Bureau’s words, on July 28, 2026, at approximately 10:30 a.m., Hilda Rosalie Howard, 35, “became unresponsive”; “responding employees initiated life-saving measures,” and she “was subsequently pronounced deceased by EMS personnel.” The FBI was notified. She had been sentenced in the District of Minnesota to 80 months and had been here since April 3, 2026.
• October 2024 — two attorneys representing women from the closed FCI Dublin interviewed about 90 of them here, describing repeated lockdowns driven by the drug problem, Special Housing Unit placements they considered disproportionate, and women unable to tell their children where they had gone. The Bureau replied that staff review every SHU case weekly and that women in the SHU keep access to visits and calls.
• September 2024 — nine women were taken to a local hospital on September 4 “exhibiting signs of drug use” and two employees were evaluated for potential exposure. The institution went onto modified operations and stayed there more than two weeks. The Bureau’s population figure that month was 884.
• February 2024 — Jessica Wallowingbull, 29, was found unresponsive in her cell and died; the Bureau reported it as an apparent suicide. It was the second death in nine months; Starsha Silva, 36, died in May 2023 after what the Bureau called a medical emergency.
• May 2023 — the Inspector General published the inspection described above, the first of its kind in the federal prison system.
• October 2018 — a former correctional officer at the institution was sentenced to 14 months for sexual abuse of a ward.

Frequently asked questions about FCI Waseca

Problems at FCI Waseca: where we can help

The problems that recur here are documented in this institution’s own inspection, its PREA audit, a federal court monitor’s filings and the Government Accountability Office’s data on this facility.

• Mental health treatment that does not arrive. Nine of fourteen posts were vacant in early 2026, both psychiatrist positions among them, and psychology waiting lists ran to a year. Getting a need assessed and recorded early is what moves someone up a list.
• Medical care and the sick-call window: four mornings a week, thirty minutes, and a supervisor’s permission to attend. The route is a written request to staff, then the administrative remedy process; where neglect has caused injury, see Federal Tort Claims Act claims.
• Reporting staff sexual abuse, and what happens afterward. Routes exist that do not run through the institution: the Inspector General’s reporting mailbox on TRULINCS, the Committee Against Domestic Abuse hotline, and counsel.
• Special Housing Unit placements that outlast their justification, and the loss of in-person visiting that comes with them. See placements in the Special Housing Unit and disciplinary proceedings that threaten good conduct time.
• First Step Act earned time credits — whether they are being earned, calculated and applied, particularly where a woman is on a waiting list she cannot get off.
• Transfers and designation, including RDAP transfers and redesignation closer to home in a system with five low-security prisons for women. Our guide to federal prison transfers explains how the request is made, and our federal prison early release practice covers the rest.
• Pregnancy, restraints, MINT and Residential Parenting referrals, and the free-hygiene rule — all enforceable, and all dependent on staff who may not raise them.
• Challenges to the conviction or sentence itself, through a direct appeal or a § 2255 motion.

Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. handles federal criminal defense, appeals and post-conviction matters nationwide, and advises families on Bureau of Prisons issues at institutions across the system. Call (843) 620-1100 or contact us to talk through a specific situation.

Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, the firm’s Managing Director, writes and maintains the federal prison policy material on this site. He is not counsel of record; legal representation is provided by Elizabeth Franklin-Best.

Sources and currency

Bureau of Prisons documents

• FCI Waseca, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. The Bureau’s facility page, with address, contact details and population.
• Institution Supplement WAS-5267-09d, Visiting Regulations, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCI Waseca, 2025. Visiting days and hours, visitor lists, dress, permitted items and screening; replaced the 2021 supplement.
• FCI Waseca Commissary List, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCI Waseca, 2025. Items stocked and prices.
• FCI Waseca Voluntary Surrender Information, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCI Waseca, 2023. Reporting instructions, directions and the lockbox warning.
• FCI Waseca Inmate Admission and Orientation Handbook, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCI Waseca, 2023. Mail, telephone, commissary, work, programs, health services, the daily schedule and the social worker’s duties.
• Institution Supplement WAS-5267.09a, Visiting (Spanish edition), Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCI Waseca, 2017. The Spanish-language supplement the Bureau still posts.
• Trust Fund/Deposit Fund Manual, Program Statement 4500.13, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Sets the $460 commissary spending limit.
• Female Offender Manual, Program Statement 5200.09, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2025. Hygiene products, MINT, the Residential Parenting Program and restraints.
• Inmate Telephone Regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Replaced Program Statement 5264.08 (2008).
• First Step Act Approved Programs Guide, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Reentry Services Division, 2026. Includes the RDAP locations list updated in June 2026, the Female Integrated Treatment program page and the programs-by-institution grid.
• Death at FCI Waseca, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCI Waseca, 2026. Press release on the death of Hilda Rosalie Howard.
• About Federal Inmate Records, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. What the Bureau’s public inmate records cover and how a release or transfer is shown.
• Federal Bureau of Prisons Announces Facility Closures and Operational Changes, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Press release.

Audits and inspections

• Evaluation of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Use of First Step Act Funding and Implementation of First Step Act Programs at Its Institutions, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2026. Report 26-057; repeats the 2023 Waseca waitlist finding.
• Federal Prisons: Improvements Needed to Prevent, Detect, and Address Sexual Abuse, U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2026. Report GAO-26-107343, with per-institution allegation counts for 2020–2024.
• Ongoing Work, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2026. The Inspector General’s list of engagements under way.
• Inspection of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Federal Detention Center SeaTac, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2025. Report 25-081; counts the inspections since 2023 and lists FCI Waseca first.
• PREA Facility Audit Report: FCI Waseca, PREA Auditors of America, 2024. On-site audit of November 28–30, 2023, by Lynni O’Haver, an independent auditor subcontracted by PREA Auditors of America.
• Inspection of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Federal Correctional Institution Waseca, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2023. Report 23-068, the Inspector General’s first unannounced inspection of a federal prison.

Court records

• 4th Quarterly Public Status Report, January 1–March 31, 2026, Senior Monitor Wendy Still, 2026. Filed in California Coalition for Women Prisoners v. U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons, No. 4:23-cv-04155-YGR (N.D. Cal.); staffing, program closures and waiting lists at FCI Waseca. Posted by class counsel, Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld.
• 3rd Public Monthly Status Report, June 2025, Senior Monitor Wendy Still, 2025. Filed in the same case; includes the Monitoring Team’s June 2025 tour of FCI Waseca. Posted by class counsel.
• Feeding Our Future Ringleader Sentenced to 500 Months, U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Minnesota, 2026. Aimee Marie Bock’s sentence.
• Former Correctional Officer Sentenced To 14 Months In Prison For Having Sex With An Inmate, U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Minnesota, 2018. Mark McShane’s sentence.
• White Supremacists Sentenced to Life in Prison for Murderous Crime Spree, U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Oregon, 2014. Holly Ann Grigsby’s life sentence.

News and other sources

• Former FCI Dublin women burst out sobbing, placed in isolation at Minnesota prison, KTVU FOX 2, 2024. By Lisa Fernandez.
• Federal prison in Minnesota on lockdown for more than 2 weeks due to drug use incident, CBS News Minnesota, 2024.
• Waseca women’s prison has been on lockdown for two weeks, Star Tribune, 2024. By Jp Lawrence.
• Inmate dies at Waseca federal prison, KEYC News Now, 2024.
• First Step Act of 2018, Pub. L. No. 115-391, §§ 301, 611, Public Law (Congress.gov).
• 18 U.S.C. § 3621(b), (e), Imprisonment of a convicted person, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 18 U.S.C. § 4322, Use of restraints on prisoners during the period of pregnancy, labor, and postpartum recovery prohibited, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 28 C.F.R. § 551.22, Pregnancy, Code of Federal Regulations (Legal Information Institute).

Sources reviewed September 2026.

Reviewed for legal accuracy by Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney·September 2026