FPC Duluth: Duluth Federal Prison Camp, Minnesota

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

FPC Duluth at a glance

FPC Duluth is a standalone minimum-security federal prison camp for men on the northern edge of the Twin Ports, in Hermantown beside Duluth International Airport. It held 249 people as of September 2026, in a place the Bureau of Prisons designed for 901. On July 1, 2026, the Bureau announced that the camp will transition to a Federal Satellite Low; it gave no date.

Official name	Federal Prison Camp, Duluth
BOP code	DTH
Security level	Minimum; men; standalone camp
Status	Conversion to a Federal Satellite Low announced July 1, 2026; no date given · see the closure and conversion record
Population	249 (as of September 2026)
Visiting	Saturdays, Sundays and federal holidays, 8:15 a.m.–3:00 p.m.
Inmate mail	Inmate Name & Register Number · FPC Duluth · FEDERAL PRISON CAMP · P.O. Box 1000 · Duluth, MN 55814
Send money	Lockbox · Western Union (code city FBOP, DC) · MoneyGram (receive code 7932)
Phone	218-722-8634 · Fax 218-733-4701
Street address	4464 Ralston Drive, Duluth, MN 55811 · Hermantown, Saint Louis County
Judicial district	District of Minnesota
BOP region	North Central
Housing	Dormitories · see housing and the dorms
RDAP	Not on the Bureau’s current RDAP list · see RDAP and drug treatment
UNICOR	No

There is no perimeter fence, no cells and no wall: men live in dormitories on the grounds of a decommissioned Air Force base, cross streets still named Ralston and Vandenberg, and are counted seven times a day because nothing physical stops them leaving. The camp is one of the federal prisons in Minnesota, falls under the Bureau’s North Central Region, and is one of only six standalone camps left in the federal system.

FPC Duluth is not in Duluth, and it is one of four federal prisons in Minnesota

The camp carries a Duluth name and a Duluth mailing address, but the buildings stand in Hermantown, outside the city limits, beside Duluth International Airport. The confusion has a documented cost: the 2000 U.S. Census initially counted 599 men held at the Hermantown facility as part of Duluth’s population before the error was corrected. If you are arranging a hotel or telling a rideshare driver where to go, Hermantown is the useful word.

Minnesota has four Bureau of Prisons facilities, and they are not interchangeable. Sending mail or money to the wrong one is the most common avoidable mistake families make in this state.

Facility	Code	Security	Who is held there
FPC Duluth (this page)	DTH	Minimum	Men
FCI Sandstone	SST	Low	Men
FCI Waseca	WAS	Low	Women
FMC Rochester	RCH	Administrative	Men, medical and mental-health mission

None of the four has a satellite camp attached, which is unusual: in most states the camp beds sit behind a fence somewhere else. Minnesota also runs a large state prison system that shares nothing with the federal one. If the sentence came from a state district court rather than a United States District Court, the federal Inmate Locator will not find the person.

Is FPC Duluth closing, and what is a Federal Satellite Low?

No. FPC Duluth is not closing, but on July 1, 2026, the Bureau announced that it “will transition” from a minimum-security camp to a Federal Satellite Low, without giving a date. The Bureau had announced Duluth’s deactivation in December 2024 and rescinded that in July 2025 after the Director walked the compound. As of September 2026, the conversion had not been recorded: the Bureau’s roster still lists DTH as an FPC at minimum security and does not mark it as a Federal Satellite Low. A family planning around a designation here is planning around a moving target. The record, with dates:

Date	What happened
December 5, 2024	Deactivation announced, citing “an aging and dilapidated infrastructure, including several condemned buildings that have contaminants such as asbestos and lead paint.” The camp then employed 89 people and held 736; staff were to be offered jobs at FCI Sandstone within nine months
December 2024–February 2025	Senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith wrote twice, first to then-Director Colette Peters and then to Acting Director William W. Lothrop, asking on what basis the buildings had been judged dilapidated. Staff faced commuting to Sandstone “approximately 90 minutes away,” relocating, or leaving
July 10, 2025	Director William K. Marshall III toured the camp — food service, recreation, RDAP and health services. The Bureau’s own account says the visit “was instrumental in informing his decision to rescind a prior directive that would have deactivated the facility”
July 15, 2025	The reversal was announced. About 90 jobs stayed. The population had already fallen from more than 700 to roughly 275
July 1, 2026	A Bureau press release announcing six closures added: “In addition, Morgantown FPC and Duluth FPC will transition from minimum-security camps to FSL facilities”
September 2026	The Bureau’s roster still lists the camp as an FPC at minimum security, holding 249 people. No conversion is posted, and the camp’s bop.gov page carries no notice of any of it

A Federal Satellite Low is a low-security unit, which the Bureau’s facility pages describe as “an adjacent low security satellite prison.” As of September 2026, only FCI Elkton and FCI Jesup carry one on the Bureau’s roster, each beside its parent institution; Duluth, a standalone camp, has no parent to sit beside, and the release does not say how the change would work here. If the conversion happens, the question for anyone here is not whether the address changes but whether they stay — a unit-team question, in writing, turning on security points and custody level rather than on the building.

None of this appears on the Bureau’s Duluth page; the announcements live in press releases. The population has never recovered from the 2024 emptying: 736 when closure was announced, about 275 the following July, and 249 as of September 2026, against a designed capacity of 901. A camp running at a quarter of its designed capacity has spare beds, a point for anyone arguing for a transfer closer to home.

What is the security level at FPC Duluth?

FPC Duluth is a minimum-security camp, the lowest security level in the federal system, and it stands alone rather than as a satellite of a bigger institution — the two things the Bureau’s July 1, 2026 announcement of a transition to a Federal Satellite Low would change, and which the Bureau’s roster still recorded as camp and minimum security in September 2026. There is no perimeter fence and no gun tower. What holds the compound together is accountability: sign-out sheets, a census at 7:40 a.m. and noon on working days, and stand-up counts at 4:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. Walking off is not an escape over a wall; it is a walk, and it is prosecuted as escape.

Under the Bureau’s security designation rules, camp designation turns on two things a sentencing court does not control: the security point score, and the Public Safety Factor, which overrides the score entirely — a low scorer with a PSF does not get a camp. Duluth’s own documents show both at work. The handbook states that “FPC Duluth does not house inmates who are Non U.S. Inmates,” which is what the Deportable Alien factor does in practice.

Custody classification is a separate thing from security level, and it is what determines whether someone can leave the compound. The handbook’s glossary lists four levels — Community, Out, In, Maximum — and ties two privileges to the top one: a furlough requires community custody and a release date within two years, and a gate pass is “a pass that allows inmates to work outside the confined limits of the institution.” Those are the levers to argue about at a program review, and they are reviewed every 90 to 180 days.

Who ends up here: men with fewer than ten years left and no history of serious violence, designated straight from a sentencing court or stepped down from a low or medium. The 2024 PREA audit recorded an age range of 21 to 77. On May 28, 2026, the Bureau announced a Strategic Expansion of Minimum-Security Camp Utilization: institutions would begin transferring eligible people to camps once they have a Residential Reentry Center or home-confinement date, prioritizing at first those held in low-security institutions and excluding categories the release lists, among them sex offenders and deportable aliens.

One point of law surprises many families: the sentencing judge may recommend a facility, but 18 U.S.C. § 3621(b) gives the Bureau the decision, and a judicial recommendation is not binding. A specific, reasoned recommendation is still worth having; it is not a designation. Our guide to preparing for prison covers the window between sentencing and reporting.

How does self-surrender to FPC Duluth work?

Self-surrender to FPC Duluth means driving yourself to 4464 Ralston Drive on the date and at the time in the Bureau’s designation letter and presenting at Receiving and Discharge. Most people arrive at a camp by car, and no one is handcuffed at the door. The camp’s Admission & Orientation Handbook (2012) sets out what follows.

Reporting day: where to go and when

Report on the date and at the time the designation letter gives; arriving a day early is not helpful and arriving late is a bail violation. Bring the paperwork, photo identification, and nothing else you mind losing — personal clothing goes home with whoever drove. Money should already be in the trust fund account through the national lockbox, because the camp takes no cash at the door. The handbook records that every new arrival is given “the opportunity to make one phone call during the admission process to notify persons of their admission to custody.” Tell whoever is waiting at home that this call is coming and that it will be short.

Intake on day one is a case-management interview, a social intake and a medical screening. Clothing issue comes the next day, color-coded by dormitory — yellow for 207 through green for 211 — with a razor, toothbrush and comb. Standard issue is a green shirt, green pants and black boots, which is also what a man wears to a visit; athletic clothing is barred from the visiting room.

The first thirty days

A Case Manager and a Correctional Counselor interview each new arrival “within the first seven days,” and the Admission and Orientation program runs within 30 days. The physical examination and tuberculosis test are mandatory within 14 days, and the sentence computation is ordinarily certified within 30; the Records Office holds an open house on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:30 to 11:45 a.m. for questions about it.

Two administrative rules catch new arrivals, and Duluth’s handbook is direct about both. The first is the presentence report: “Inmates are not authorized to have in their possession a copy of either their Pre-Sentence Report (PSR) or a copy of the Statement of Reasons (SOR),” and being found with one draws an incident report. It can be read with the Case Manager and notes taken, but the hard copy cannot be kept. Do not pack it. The second is the Inmate Financial Responsibility Program: a payment plan is set at initial classification, the minimum here is $25.00 a quarter, and refusing costs performance pay above maintenance level and counts against custody reduction, furloughs and halfway-house placement. That last one bites hardest at a camp, because furlough and community programming are most of what a camp is for.

Halfway house comes up early. The camp’s 2012 handbook says every man “will be considered by their respective Unit Team for Residential Reentry Center (RRC) placement within 17-19 months from their projected release date,” for a placement of “0 to 12 months”; no current Bureau program statement sets that window, so ask the unit team in writing when the review will happen. Preparing for it is the most valuable thing a family can do in the first year. See our guides to the intake process and halfway house placement, and the Bureau’s halfway house placement procedures.

Who are the notable inmates at FPC Duluth?

FPC Duluth’s best-known former inmates include Jerry Koosman, Jerry Ruzicka, Denny Hecker and Steven Leach; no one currently held here is known to be a public figure. For someone already released, the Bureau’s Inmate Locator screen gives no facility, only “Not in BOP Custody as of” and a date, while the Bureau’s record keeps the last facility of record — for a man who finished his sentence in a halfway house, a residential reentry management office, not the prison where he served. A record entry reading “Minneapolis” shows where someone was released from, not where he did his time.

Name	Register number	Status
Jerry Koosman	06864-090	Former. Last facility Duluth FPC; released June 30, 2010. The Mets pitcher of the 1969 World Series, he served a six-month sentence for federal tax offenses
Jerry Ruzicka	20861-041	Former. Last facility Duluth FPC; released November 3, 2020. The former president of Starkey Hearing Technologies began a seven-year sentence here after his conviction in the District of Minnesota
Denny Hecker	15080-041	Former. Contemporaneous Star Tribune reporting places the Minnesota auto dealer here from his February 2011 sentencing until he was moved in February 2012; his Bureau record’s last facility is RRM Minneapolis, released July 3, 2018
Steven Leach	15081-041	Former. Hecker’s co-defendant reported to the Duluth camp to begin a 27-month sentence; his Bureau record’s last facility is RRM Minneapolis, released December 27, 2012

Stuart Levine, register 17852-424, appears on some published lists as a Duluth prisoner. His Bureau record shows his release on August 5, 2016, from the Bureau’s Chicago reentry office (code CCH), and no reliable source places him at Duluth at any point.

How do I find someone at FPC Duluth?

To find someone at FPC Duluth, use the Bureau’s free public Inmate Locator. Search by the eight-digit register number if you have it, because names repeat and the locator matches the committed name rather than the name anyone actually uses. The locator covers everyone in federal custody since 1982: for someone still held it gives the facility and a projected release date, and for someone released it shows “Not in BOP Custody as of” and a date, with no facility.

Three things commonly go wrong. A newly sentenced person will not appear at Duluth until he arrives; before that he may be in a county jail under the U.S. Marshals Service, a separate system. The screen never prints “IN TRANSIT”: a record the Bureau marks that way shows “NOT IN BOP CUSTODY”. Someone out on a furlough or a gate pass still shows at the camp. And the screen names a place and a type rather than the Bureau’s usual title: a man here shows as “Located at: Duluth FPC,” and a result ending in “RRM” is a residential reentry management office, not a prison. The register number itself is explained in our guide to how register numbers work, and it never changes.

How do I write to someone at FPC Duluth?

Write to someone at FPC Duluth at P.O. Box 1000, Duluth, MN 55814, a post office box with a different ZIP code from the street address. Using 55811, the street ZIP, is the most common addressing error here.

General correspondence	Money — never to the camp
Inmate Name & Register Number FPC Duluth FEDERAL PRISON CAMP P.O. Box 1000 Duluth, MN 55814	Federal Bureau of Prisons Committed Name Eight-Digit Register Number Post Office Box 474701 Des Moines, Iowa 50947-0001

The camp’s handbook is unusually specific about the words on the envelope: “The term ‘Federal Prison Camp’ must be used in its entirety. Abbreviations and acronyms are not permitted.” Write it out. Men must also use the full committed name as it appears in Bureau records, and may not use business names or titles.

Duluth operates what its handbook calls an open-mail policy: “You may generally correspond with whomever you please.” Under the Bureau’s correspondence rules, incoming general mail is opened, inspected and may be read. Letters to people in other prisons need approval from the unit managers of both institutions.

Legal mail must be marked “Special Mail — Open Only in the Presence of the Inmate,” and must show the attorney’s own name in the return address with an indication that the sender is an attorney; anything not properly marked “will be opened as general correspondence.” Duluth’s mail room logs the sender, the register number and the time of delivery. Our guides cover attorney-client communication in the Bureau of Prisons and writing to someone in federal prison.

Two Duluth-specific details. Outgoing mail ordinarily needs a TRULINCS-generated mailing label, and mail without one is returned to the sender inside. And outgoing legal mail must be hand-delivered by the man himself, with his commissary card, at the special-mail open house on Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 10:30 to 11:45 a.m. There is none on a federal holiday, so a filing deadline after a long weekend needs planning.

Hardcover books and newspapers must come from a publisher, book club or bookstore; softcover books and magazines may come from any source at this minimum-security camp; retention is capped at five books and ten magazines. The Bureau’s incoming publications rules set the national standard. Never put money, photographs or letters in one envelope with a money order: the lockbox cannot forward enclosures, and they are lost.

How do I send money to someone at FPC Duluth?

Send money to someone at FPC Duluth through the Bureau’s national lockbox in Des Moines or through Western Union or MoneyGram; money never goes to the camp itself. Every route needs the committed name and the eight-digit register number.

Route	Detail	How fast it posts
Postal money order or cashier’s check	Federal Bureau of Prisons, Post Office Box 474701, Des Moines, Iowa 50947-0001. No cash, no personal checks	Duluth’s handbook: funds received Monday to Friday post “within 24 hours.” Non-postal instruments carry a hold
Western Union Quick Collect	City code FBOP, state code DC, with the register number and committed name	The Bureau’s money page gives two to four hours for a transfer sent 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Eastern (Program Statement 4500.13: “ordinarily” two hours); later transfers post by 7:00 a.m. the next day
MoneyGram	Receive code 7932, company name Federal Bureau of Prisons, Washington, DC	Similar to Western Union

No money changes hands at a visit. Duluth’s supplement says so twice: “There are no provisions established for visitors to deposit money in an inmate’s account during a visit,” and “NO INMATE WILL BE ALLOWED TO HANDLE ANY MONEY, FOR ANY REASON.” The only exception is a vending-machine item bought and handed over during the visit.

Before sending a large sum, know the ceiling. Commissary spending is capped at $460 a month nationally, and special orders carry limits of their own. Duluth’s 2012 handbook allows “one SPO per month not to exceed $300.00 per quarter” and requires the Warden’s written approval for any Special Purpose Order item with a unit cost over $100. The Bureau’s trust fund rules, Program Statement 4500.13 (2026), keep one order a month, with any exception approved in writing by the Warden, but raised the Special Purpose Order maximum from $300 to $600 a quarter, “inclusive of markup and shipping” — and an order must still fit inside the spending limit for its validation cycle. The one-a-month rule is what governs a radio, a watch or winter thermals: no one can spend his way into warm clothing in one transaction.

Sending money out runs through a BP-199 to the Unit Manager, processed weekly, with anything above $250 needing the Associate Warden. Balances are checked on the machine in the telephone room, using the register number and the PIN printed at the bottom of a commissary receipt. Fees, cut-off times and the paperwork each route needs are set out in our guide to sending money to a federal prisoner.

What are the visiting hours at FPC Duluth?

Visiting at FPC Duluth runs on Saturdays, Sundays and federal holidays from 8:15 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.; the outside gate opens at 8:10 a.m. and the inside gate at 8:15. These hours come from institution supplement DTH 5267.09F, dated November 30, 2022, which canceled the version issued six weeks earlier.

Monday visiting no longer exists. The camp’s own handbook still says social visits run “8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Saturdays, Sundays, Mondays, and all Federal holidays,” with gates at 7:30 and 8:00. Listings that still give those hours are out of date; they were superseded in 2022, and a Monday trip will find the visiting room closed.

The 2022 supplement conflicts with itself on late arrivals. Its body says visitors “will not be allowed to enter the Visiting Room after 2:30 p.m.” The rules attached to the same supplement are much stricter: “The Visiting Room Officers will not call an inmate for a visit after 9:15 a.m. on authorized visiting days.” Arrive when the gate opens at 8:10 a.m., and call 218-722-8634 before traveling if you cannot.

Who can visit, and how many

• The approved list holds up to 24 people, against a national guideline of ordinarily no more than ten friends and associates. Children under 16 are not counted; a married couple counts as two.
• Eight visits a month, six visitors at a time, two for anyone in the Special Housing Unit. A visit is charged when a man is called to the room, however many people are waiting. Federal holidays do not count against the total.
• Family documented in the presentence report or on a previous institution’s list can be added at any time, in writing. Friends cannot visit until the paperwork and a criminal-history check are done — weeks, not days.
• Remove a visitor at your own request and that person cannot return for six months. Think before deleting anyone in an argument.

When the room is crowded, staff clear it longest visit first, with consideration for out-of-town visitors, and the supplement sets a floor: “Ordinarily, no approved visitor shall be asked to leave who has not visited for at least two hours.” If you drove from Chicago, say so when you sign in.

What visitors can wear and bring

The 2022 dress rule is stricter than the old handbook’s, and the change is seasonal. The handbook used to permit “shorts or culottes … from May 15 through September 15”; the current supplement bans shorts outright, along with capri pants, skirts or dresses above the knee, camouflage, spandex, sleeveless tops and open-toed shoes. Covered shoulders, covered knees and closed shoes, in July as much as in January.

What may come in is a short list: a small clear coin purse, diapers and formula for an infant, a rattle or teething ring, two clear plastic bags for baby articles, a small infant seat, and emergency medication. Everything else stays outside — including food, gum, newspapers, playing cards, diaper bags, strollers, and “electronic equipment of any type to include electronic cigarettes and smart watches (Any Brand).” Leave the watch in the car. Lockers exist for visitors arriving without a vehicle, nothing is held behind the officers’ station, and no one may wait in the parking lot while someone else visits.

The rule that most often ends visits early is the re-entry rule, and Duluth’s is absolute: “Any visitor who departs the Visiting Room, to include leaving the primary visiting room to return to personal lockers, will not be authorized re-entry. ONCE A VISITOR LEAVES, THE VISIT IS TERMINATED FOR THAT PARTICULAR DAY.” Take everything you need into the room with you.

Two details are specific to Duluth. There is a children’s room and an outdoor playground, both supervised by the visiting parent, and the outdoor area closes after dark and in bad weather — a real constraint from October to April. And completed hobby-craft projects can be handed to a visitor between 2:00 and 3:00 p.m. with a day’s notice to Recreation, though the supplement says Saturdays and Sundays in one place and Saturdays only in another.

Identification and screening

Every visitor aged 16 or over shows valid government photo identification and completes a Notification to Visitor form, BP-224(52), before each visit. Screening is by metal detector, ion spectrometry and x-ray of personal containers; refusing a visitor search means denial of entry, and the supplement notes a person may be detained or arrested. Inside, contact is limited to “an embrace and a brief kiss of greeting upon arrival and departure,” and crossing legs with each other, kissing, fondling or lying on the furniture ends the visit.

Lawyers should note three local requirements: an appointment arranged through the Warden before each visit; a driver’s license and bar card; and no recording device without the Warden’s prior authorization. Attorney visits are visually supervised but not audio-monitored, and unmonitored legal calls are arranged separately through the Unit Team.

Getting there

The camp sits north of Duluth beside the airport, and every route in its own supplement converges on one turn: Stebner Road off U.S. 53, just past the Miller Hill Mall. From the Twin Cities take I-35 north to U.S. 53 north; from Superior, Wisconsin, cross the Blatnik Bridge onto U.S. 53; from the north, U.S. 53 south. Stebner Road brings you to the Visiting Center entrance road and the parking lot south of the Visiting Center.

Plan the journey around winter. Duluth International Airport is next door, and the camp’s handbook records that there is no local bus service and directs visitors to taxis. The Twin Cities are about two and a half hours south on I-35 in good conditions, and that road closes in bad ones. A visit that starts at 8:10 a.m. in January means leaving Minneapolis in the dark.

How do phone calls and email work at FPC Duluth?

Men at FPC Duluth get 510 telephone minutes a calendar month under the Bureau’s telephone regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, issued September 3, 2026, and send email through TRULINCS. Men eligible for First Step Act telephone incentives get 300 of those minutes free, and anyone who uses up 300 minutes, eligible or not, may buy the other 210. A single call should generally not exceed 15 minutes, with a warning tone at 14, and a 30-minute lockout starts when a connected call ends, so a family cannot chain calls back to back. Duluth’s own handbook still prints the old 300-minute monthly figure; the program statement replaced it.

Calls come from a dedicated telephone room, not from the dorm, and the handbook’s hours are built around the work day: roughly 6:00 to 7:30 a.m., mid-morning, and 4:30 to 9:00 p.m. on weekdays, with longer weekend blocks and five phones set aside for men on evening shifts or days off. No one may call during his own work hours, and every call drops during a count. A new arrival cannot dial at all until his name is registered in person with the Trust Fund Technician, at a daily open house from 11:30 a.m. to noon. Money moved onto the phone account cannot come back except on release, on a restriction longer than 30 days, or by Warden exception, and then only once, for the whole balance. Do not overfund it.

Family emergencies do not travel through the inmate telephone system. Duluth’s handbook is explicit: the family must call the institution’s Control Center on 218-722-8634, and a monitored call may then be arranged through the Chaplain, the Unit Team or the duty Lieutenant, using the one telephone kept in the Chapel complex for that purpose. Save that number before you need it.

Email runs on TRULINCS, the Bureau’s monitored messaging system; correspondents must be added and accept the invitation first. TRULINCS is also how outgoing postal mail gets its required mailing label here, and the 2024 PREA audit records it as a route for reporting sexual abuse. See our guides to telephone calls and TRULINCS email.

What can people buy at the FPC Duluth commissary?

People at FPC Duluth can spend up to $460 a month at the commissary under the Bureau’s trust fund rules, Program Statement 4500.13, issued May 7, 2026, which raised the limit from $360. The limit rises by $50 during the November and December holiday period, for no more than one validation period. Items outside the limit include postage stamps, nicotine replacement patches and lozenges, and over-the-counter medicines, medical products and vitamins. Listings that still give $360 are out of date.

Duluth’s own commissary sales list (2016) prints no limit. It carries two legends and no ceiling: “For local use only” and “Items do not affect spending limit.”

What it does show is what the camp stocks, and two categories stand out. The first is winter clothing, sold as special-order items: gray sweatshirts and sweatpants, long-sleeved shirts and thermal tops to size 5X. Where men work outdoors on a snow crew, thermals are not a comfort purchase. The second is typewriter supplies — a wheel-writer ribbon and lift-off tape are still listed — which tells you how legal documents get produced here.

The shopping system is local and unusually competitive. Sales run three times a day — 6:15 to 7:15 a.m., 10:30 to 11:45 a.m. and 1:30 to 3:00 p.m. — and each man shops one day a week, set by the fourth and fifth digits of his register number and rotated quarterly: 00 to 33 on Wednesday, 34 to 66 on Thursday, 67 to 99 on Friday. Tuesday is a prize. “The housing unit which places first on the weekly dorm inspections are allowed to shop in the Commissary on Tuesday,” and in a holiday week the dorm with the highest sanitation score may shop any day. Leave the line once your list is in and you wait a week; all sales are final.

What programs are available at FPC Duluth?

The Bureau’s First Step Act Approved Programs Guide (2026) marks 28 programs for FPC Duluth in its by-institution grid, none of them a residential drug program: the Bureau Literacy Program, English as a Second Language, post-secondary education, vocational and occupational training, Anger Management, Basic Cognitive Skills, Criminal Thinking, parenting, Threshold, Drug Education, non-residential drug treatment, Trauma Education, and a run of health and financial-literacy courses aimed at older men. The population runs to age 77, which explains six separate aging-and-health courses on one camp’s list. One caution: the other 87 of the 115 guide entries touching Duluth sit under “May be offered at all BOP institutions,” which is permission, not delivery. Ask the unit team in writing which of them actually runs, and in what quarter.

RDAP and drug treatment

The Bureau’s current record, in both of its halves, does not put a Residential Drug Abuse Program at FPC Duluth, and for anyone choosing a camp that is the most important fact on this page. The location list inside the August 2026 First Step Act guide, updated in June 2026, totals 57 RDAPs at 50 locations; its North Central column names Englewood, Florence FCI and USP, Leavenworth camp, Marion, Milan, Sandstone, Springfield, Terre Haute, Waseca and FPC Yankton — in Minnesota, Sandstone and Waseca only. Camps are not excluded from that list: Alderson, Bryan, Montgomery and Yankton are all on it. Duluth is not. Nor does the guide’s other half help: its programs-by-institution grid marks 28 programs for this camp, including Drug Education and non-residential drug abuse treatment, and does not mark the residential program either.

One Bureau record points the other way. The Bureau’s own news item of July 15, 2025 records Director Marshall touring “food service, recreation, RDAP, and health services” here on July 10, 2025, and the camp’s 2012 handbook describes a full residential program run from Dorm 209 by a Drug Abuse Program Coordinator and five Drug Treatment Specialists. A third document fills in the sequence. The Bureau’s standalone RDAP location sheet, updated in January 2025 and still posted on bop.gov, lists 65 programs across 53 locations and does carry FPC Duluth — marked, in its own key for programs pending closure, (CLOSING). The last list that named this camp named it as a program on its way out, in the same winter the Bureau announced the camp’s deactivation, and the list that replaced it drops the camp altogether. The July 2025 reversal of the closure is a different event from the restoration of a treatment program, and no Bureau news release has announced either.

If the year off a sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e) is the reason a camp designation matters, do not assume this one delivers it. Ask the Drug Abuse Program Coordinator, in writing, whether a residential program is running at FPC Duluth today and whether the institution is accepting RDAP referrals; get the answer on paper; and if it is no, ask for a transfer to an institution on the June 2026 list at the next program review, because that request is far easier to make before the interview window than after. Our guide to RDAP explains the eligibility rules and the timing.

The rest of the drug programming is not in doubt. The handbook describes Drug Education as a 12 to 15 hour course run at least once a quarter, with a 70 percent pass mark and only two excused absences, and non-residential treatment as a weekly 90 to 120 minute group running 16 to 24 weeks. Referral is mandatory where the presentence report shows drugs or alcohol contributed to the offense, or where the sentencing judge recommended treatment. Refusing a mandatory referral has a sharp price at a camp: the lowest pay grade, and ineligibility for community-based programming “which includes furloughs and halfway house.”

Education, work and vocational training

There is no UNICOR here. The handbook says so directly — “FPC Duluth does not have UNICOR operations” — and the controlling half of the First Step Act guide agrees, naming 54 institutions for Federal Prison Industries without Duluth among them. The guide’s grid marks Duluth anyway; where the halves disagree the named list controls, and here it and the handbook agree. Treat a Federal Prison Industries job as unavailable.

Work here is the work of running a small town: painters, plumbers, electricians, cooks, orderlies, tutors, groundskeepers, and a detail the handbook’s out-of-bounds rules call the “Landscape/Snow Crew.” Jobs are evaluated monthly in writing, and those evaluations go in the central file and are read at every program review.

Education is mandatory at the bottom end and incentivized above it. Anyone without proof of a high school diploma is enrolled in a 240-hour literacy program within 60 days of arrival. The incentives are small and specific: $25 and a certificate for finishing the GED or ESL, $5 for reaching eighth-grade level, a six-pack of soda for student of the month, and a twelve-pack for the five highest GED scores in each half of the year.

The puppy program, Threshold and a college class

Since March 2014 the camp has run a prison puppy program with Can Do Canines, the Minnesota assistance-dog charity, and it is the most distinctive thing about daily life here. Ten to fifteen men live together in one dormitory as handlers. Litters arrive at five weeks with their mother and stay until ten weeks; each puppy has two handlers who share a room with it and provide round-the-clock care. Duluth’s role in the charity’s seven-prison network is weaning, alternating litters with a Wisconsin facility so handlers at each get a break from the sleepless weeks.

Lake Superior College, six miles away on Highway 53, teaches an accredited three-credit Inside-Out Prison Exchange course inside the camp, with up to fifteen college students alongside incarcerated students, all selected by application and interview. The semester runs on first names only and every student signs an agreement not to seek personal information about anyone in the class.

The chapel runs Threshold, a roughly six-month spiritual growth program carrying 72 hours of First Step Act credit, alongside weekly services for all faith groups. Recreation covers a gymnasium, a music room, a film theater, hobby craft, and outdoor softball, soccer, bocce, horseshoes and a walking track.

What is daily life like at FPC Duluth?

Daily life at FPC Duluth is a working day on an old air base, in dormitories, with a great deal of walking outdoors between buildings. The phones, the computers, the laundry, the law library and the chapel are all separate buildings, and every trip between them is on foot on a compound that gets four months of snow.

The shape of the day

Counts run seven times on a working day and six on a weekend, and at a camp they structure everything else. These are the times the handbook sets.

Weekdays	Weekends and federal holidays
12:00 a.m., 3:00 a.m., 5:00 a.m. — overnight counts	12:00 a.m., 3:00 a.m., 5:00 a.m. — overnight counts
7:40 a.m. and 12:00 noon — work-detail census	10:00 a.m. — official stand-up count in the dorms
4:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. — official stand-up counts	4:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. — official stand-up counts

All movement stops during a count and calls are cut. The 10:00 a.m. weekend count shapes visiting: men are called to the room once it clears. The working day runs roughly 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., with commissary, sick call, the mail room, the records office and the trust fund technician each holding a short open house at a fixed hour. Almost everything here happens between 6:00 a.m. and noon.

Sick call shows how tight those windows are. Men sign up at Health Services between 6:30 and 6:50 a.m. on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday — not Thursday. Dental emergency sick call is at 7:00 a.m. on weekdays. The clinic is outpatient only, so anyone who needs a hospital goes to one in Duluth. There is a $2.00 co-payment, waived for anyone whose account has stayed below $6.00 for 30 days.

Housing and the dorms

Dormitories, not cells. The handbook names five — 207 to 211 — by the color of the clothing issued to each; the 2024 PREA audit counts six housing units. Rooms are shared and assigned at random, one locker per man, with microwaves for warming commissary food only. Quiet hours run 10:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. and room lights go off at 10:30. Entering a dorm you are not assigned to is prohibited outright, as are plants, animals in rooms, homemade shelves, cardboard boxes and feeding birds anywhere on the compound.

Winter at a camp with no fence

The camp’s own documents treat winter as an operational fact. The handbook’s safety section warns that “local weather conditions dictate care and prudence when walking or running for exercise purposes and general compound travel. Hazards such as snow and ice may be present.” The landscape detail becomes the snow crew, working in an area otherwise out of bounds; outdoor recreation, the visiting room’s outdoor area and the children’s playground all close for darkness and weather at staff discretion.

Warm clothing beyond the standard issue is bought, not given, and the special-order cap means it takes two or three shopping cycles to assemble. Start in September, not in the week of the first hard freeze, and fund the trust account early rather than in a lump.

What do inspectors say about conditions at FPC Duluth?

Inspectors have said little about FPC Duluth: one independent audit in the past decade covers the camp, on a single subject, and the District of Columbia’s Corrections Information Council has never been here. For a 901-bed facility the Bureau itself described in December 2024 as having condemned buildings containing asbestos and lead paint, that is a real gap: no public document records anyone inspecting those buildings.

The 2024 PREA audit

An independent auditor, Lynni O’Haver, was on site from May 7 to 9, 2024, and filed a final report on June 30, 2024. FPC Duluth met all 41 facility-level Prison Rape Elimination Act standards, exceeded none, and failed none; ten agency-level standards were also met.

The audit’s numbers need care. It records a designed capacity of 901; an average daily population of 391 over the preceding twelve months; a “current population” of 472; and 575 men present on the first day of the visit. Staffing was 92 employees who may have contact with prisoners, plus seven contractors and fourteen volunteers, with no deviations from the staffing plan in the preceding year.

The auditor recorded cameras and convex mirrors across the compound, and the Warden confirmed that the existing cameras had a software update during the audit period but that none were added. A recorded opposite-gender announcement plays in English and Spanish. The victim-advocacy services named for men here are the Duluth-based Program for Aid to Victims of Sexual Assault and Just Detention International.

Sexual-abuse allegation counts

Three sexual abuse allegations were made in the twelve months before the audit — one against another prisoner and two against staff. All three were investigated administratively, none criminally, and all three closed unsubstantiated, meaning the evidence did not settle the question either way. It does not mean they were false. There were no sexual harassment allegations at all.

The Government Accountability Office published per-institution allegation counts for every federal prison in May 2026, drawn from two Bureau systems. For FPC Duluth between 2020 and 2024 it recorded none against other incarcerated people and six against staff — three reported in 2021, three in 2024. Those are reported allegations, not findings; the two tables come from different databases with different cut-off dates and cannot be added; and the GAO does not adjust for population, so they cannot rank one prison against another.

Where the Inspector General has named this camp

The DOJ Office of the Inspector General has not conducted an on-site inspection of this facility. The Inspector General began a program of unannounced institution inspections in 2023 and, on its own count in May 2026, had inspected 14 Bureau institutions. Duluth is not one of them. As of September 2026, the Inspector General’s ongoing-work list showed two such inspections under way, at FCI Berlin and FCI El Reno. An engagement at FCI Estill is not an inspection: it examines completed infrastructure projects to inform later audits of the $5 billion in Public Law 119-21 money.

FPC Duluth is named in six Inspector General products and none examined conditions here. Four list the camp in a table of institutions: a 2003 review of drug interdiction, a 2004 review of release preparation, a 2008 audit of inmate health care, and a 2023 evaluation of sexual harassment and assault committed by prisoners against staff. A fifth, the 2021 follow-up survey of Bureau staff on pandemic management, publishes answers institution by institution. Asked to rate their own institution’s overall response to COVID-19, staff here split 32.3 percent effective and 38.7 percent somewhat effective against 9.7 percent somewhat ineffective and 9.7 percent ineffective. The Inspector General publishes no respondent count alongside those percentages, so they cannot rank this camp against any other.

The sixth says more. The 2009 review of the Department’s efforts to prevent staff sexual abuse of federal inmates records in its methodology, at page 15, that the team interviewed 155 Bureau employees at the Central Office, the Regional Offices and eight institutions — one of which was FPC Duluth. The report does not say which of those interviews were in person and which were by telephone, so it does not establish that the Inspector General’s team visited the compound. What it does say is why a small Minnesota camp was on the list at all. Allegations of staff sexual abuse or misconduct were reported at all but one of the Bureau’s 93 prison sites between FY 2001 and FY 2008, and the footnote to that sentence names the exception: “BOP officials at the Federal Prison Camp Duluth, Minnesota, said they had no allegations of staff sexual abuse or misconduct from FY 2001 through FY 2008,” and, according to the Warden, “Duluth has an unusually stable workforce in its line staff.” Appendix I’s table carries Duluth at zero against a Bureau-wide total of 1,585. A separate footnote records that the camp “is not included as one of the seven prisons that we reviewed.”

As of September 2026, the Inspector General also listed six Bureau-wide engagements as ongoing: evaluations of lockdowns and modified operations and of medical intake; audits of drone-contraband mitigation, of food-service equipment, and of the Bureau’s monitoring of prisoner email; and oversight of the $5 billion appropriated by Public Law 119-21. None is an inspection of FPC Duluth, and none has reported.

In short, the only independent examination of this camp in the past ten years looked exclusively at sexual safety, passed it on every standard, and said nothing about the buildings the Bureau itself called condemned two years later.

FPC Duluth in the news

Recent news about FPC Duluth centers on the Bureau’s closure, reversal and conversion announcements, a handball program and a September 2025 death in custody; older items concern the puppy program and a 2013 walkaway.

• August 2026 — WDIO reported that a handball program begun three months earlier had eight men from the camp invited into the amateur bracket of the Northshore Handball Tournament, run out of the Duluth YMCA.
• July 2026 — the Bureau announced that Morgantown and Duluth “will transition from minimum-security camps to FSL facilities,” in the same release that announced six closures and cited a deferred maintenance backlog exceeding $4 billion.
• September 2025 — a death in custody. The Bureau’s release says Terrance Wayne Buescher, 60, was found unresponsive at approximately 8:30 a.m. on September 8; staff began life-saving measures, and he “was subsequently pronounced deceased by EMS personnel.” He had been at the camp since September 16, 2024 on a 60-month sentence from the Northern District of Iowa, and the release says the FBI “was notified.”
• July 2025 — the Bureau reversed the closure decision after Director William Marshall III toured the camp, saving about 90 jobs.
• December 2024 — the Bureau announced deactivation, citing aging and dilapidated infrastructure “including several condemned buildings that have contaminants such as asbestos and lead paint.” The camp then held 736 men and employed 89 staff.
• June 2023 — the Duluth News Tribune reported on the camp’s puppy program, then nine years old, and recorded a population of 335.
• March 2013 — two men walked away. Gerald Greenfield and Michael Krzyzaniak left on March 30 and were arrested at a hotel in Burnsville six days later.

Frequently asked questions about FPC Duluth

Problems at FPC Duluth: where we can help

The problems that recur here are those of a camp whose future has been announced and re-announced three times in twenty months. These are the issues its own record throws up:

• Designation and transfer where the program a man needs is somewhere else. If the June 2026 RDAP list is right that Duluth does not run one, a transfer request is the remedy, and it turns on security points, Public Safety Factors and a Management Variable. See federal prison transfers.
• Custody classification, reviewed at every program review. Community custody unlocks furlough and outside work, and an unjustified refusal is arguable through the administrative remedy process, where the BP-9 is due 20 calendar days after the refusal.
• First Step Act time credits — whether they are being earned against the programs this camp actually delivers, and whether they are being calculated and applied.
• Halfway house and home confinement, starting with when the unit team reviews a man for placement, and transfers imposed rather than requested. A facility that emptied from 736 to 249 moves men, and a transfer away from Minnesota family is challengeable.
• Disciplinary proceedings that threaten good conduct time, and the walk-away charge, which at a camp with no fence is prosecuted as escape.
• Medical care at an outpatient clinic with a 20-minute morning sign-up window four days a week. See medical care and, where negligence has caused injury, Federal Tort Claims Act claims.
• Compassionate release under the Bureau’s reduction-in-sentence rules, and sentence computation errors measured against the Bureau’s sentence computation manual, particularly for the older men here — the 2024 audit recorded a population reaching age 77. See our federal prison early release practice.
• 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.

Conditions, schedules and programming change without notice, and this camp’s designation is under an announced change. Before you travel, send money, or rely on any figure here in a legal filing, confirm it with the institution at 218-722-8634.

Sources and currency

Bureau of Prisons documents

• FPC Duluth, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. The Bureau’s facility page, with address, contact details and population.
• Institution Supplement DTH 5267.09F, Visiting Regulations, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FPC Duluth, 2022. Visiting days and hours, visitor lists, dress, permitted items and screening; replaced Institution Supplement 5267.09B (2022). A Spanish edition is also published.
• FPC Duluth Commissary Sales List, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2016. Items stocked; no spending limit stated.
• FPC Duluth Admission & Orientation Handbook, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2012. Intake, custody, counts, mail, telephone, commissary, programs, daily routine and health services.
• Trust Fund/Deposit Fund Manual, Program Statement 4500.13, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Sets the $460 commissary spending limit and the Special Purpose Order rules.
• Inmate Telephone Regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026.
• Incoming Publications, Program Statement 5266.11, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2011. Which publications may come from any source at a minimum-security institution.
• Visiting Regulations, Program Statement 5267.09, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2023. Replaced Program Statement 5267.08 (2006), which Duluth’s supplement still cites.
• First Step Act Approved Programs Guide, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Reentry Services Division, 2026. Includes the RDAP location list updated in June 2026 and the programs-by-institution grid.
• Residential Drug Abuse Programs and Locations, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2025. The standalone list updated in January 2025, which marks FPC Duluth (CLOSING).
• Strategic Expansion of Minimum-Security Camp Utilization, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Moving eligible people with a halfway-house or home-confinement date to camps.
• Federal Bureau of Prisons Announces Facility Closures and Operational Changes, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Press release announcing the conversion of FPC Duluth to a Federal Satellite Low.
• Death at FPC Duluth, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2025. Press release on the death of Terrance Wayne Buescher.
• Director Marshall Visits FCI Sandstone and FPC Duluth, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2025.
• Community Ties, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. How to send money, with posting times for each route.
• 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.

Audits and inspections

• Ongoing Work, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2026. The Inspector General’s list of engagements under way.
• 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.
• PREA Facility Audit Report: Final – FPC Duluth, PREA Auditors of America, 2024. On-site audit of May 7–9, 2024, by Lynni O’Haver, an independent auditor subcontracted by PREA Auditors of America.
• Evaluation of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Efforts to Address Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault Committed by Inmates Toward Staff, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2023. Report 23-034; lists FPC Duluth in a table of institutions.
• Staff Perceptions of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Management of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic: A Follow-Up Survey of BOP Staff, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2021. Report 21-126; its interactive per-institution results include FPC Duluth.
• Review of the Department of Justice’s Effort to Prevent Staff Sexual Abuse of Federal Inmates, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2009. Report I-2009-004; its methodology, a footnote and Appendix I name FPC Duluth.
• The Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Efforts to Manage Inmate Health Care, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2008. Report 08-08.
• The Federal Bureau of Prisons Inmate Release Preparation and Transitional Reentry Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2004. Report 04-16.
• The Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Drug Interdiction Activities, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2003. Report I-2003-002.

News and other sources

• Up North: Handball helps incarcerated men build community beyond prison walls, WDIO, 2026. By Skyler Wilkes.
• Inmate death under investigation at FPC Duluth, Northern News Now, 2025.
• Duluth prison camp to remain open, reversing earlier decision to ‘deactivate’ the facility, MPR News, 2025.
• Stauber Announces the Federal Prison Camp in Duluth Will Remain Open and Operational, Office of Representative Pete Stauber, 2025.
• Klobuchar, Smith Call on the New Administration to Reconsider Decision to Deactivate Federal Prison Camp Duluth, Office of Senator Amy Klobuchar, 2025. Includes the senators’ December 2024 letter.
• Duluth federal prison camp to be deactivated, Duluth News Tribune, 2024. By Peter Passi.
• Puppy trainers partner with Duluth prison camp, Duluth News Tribune, 2023. By Brielle Zywicki.
• 2 Duluth Prison Camp Escapees Arrested, CBS Minnesota (WCCO), 2013. An Associated Press and WCCO report.
• FAQ Inside-Out Prison Exchange, Lake Superior College.
• 18 U.S.C. § 3621(b), (e), Imprisonment of a convicted person, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).

Sources reviewed September 2026.

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