FPC Montgomery: Federal Prison Camp at Maxwell AFB

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

FPC Montgomery at a glance

FPC Montgomery is a minimum-security federal prison camp for men on Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, holding 824 people as of September 2026. It has no wall, no perimeter fence and no guard towers, and it is not attached to a larger prison: it is one of only six standalone Federal Prison Camps the Bureau operates, and the largest of them.

Official name	Federal Prison Camp, Montgomery
BOP code	MON
Security level	Minimum; men; standalone camp
Population	824 (as of September 2026)
Visiting	Saturdays, Sundays and federal holidays, 8:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m.
Inmate mail	Inmate Name & Register Number · FPC Montgomery · Federal Prison Camp · Maxwell Air Force Base · Montgomery, AL 36112
Send money	Lockbox · Western Union (code city FBOP, DC) · MoneyGram (receive code 7932)
Phone	334-293-2100 · Fax 334-293-2329
Street address	Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery, AL 36112 · Montgomery County
Judicial district	Middle District of Alabama
BOP region	Southeast
Designated capacity	920
Housing	Three open-bay dormitory units: Birmingham, Mobile and Montgomery
Special Housing Unit	None
Medical care level	Level 2
Mental health care level	Level 2
RDAP	Yes
UNICOR	Yes · laundry plant serving Maxwell Air Force Base

It is one of the federal prisons in Alabama and falls under the Bureau’s Southeast Region. Its own Admission and Orientation handbook explains why it is there in two sentences: “The Federal Prison Camp is a guest tenant of Maxwell Air Force Base. The camp exists to provide manpower for the general maintenance of the Air Force Base.” People are designated here from anywhere in the country, because the Bureau designates by security points and program need rather than by home state.

Two federal facilities in Montgomery share one name

FPC Montgomery and RRM Montgomery are two different Bureau of Prisons facilities in the same city, and the Bureau’s own inmate locator tells them apart only by the type after the city: “Montgomery FPC” and “Montgomery RRM.”

Facility	Code	What it is
FPC Montgomery (this page)	MON	The prison camp on Maxwell Air Force Base
RRM Montgomery	CMY	A Residential Reentry Management office — the Bureau staff who administer halfway house and home confinement placements. No one is imprisoned there
Kilby Correctional Facility	—	Alabama state maximum security, 12201 Wares Ferry Road, Montgomery, with its own inmate search

The practical consequence: when a man finishes a sentence in a halfway house or on home confinement, the locator stops showing the prison and starts showing the reentry office. Jesse Jackson Jr., register number 32451-016, left this camp for a Washington, D.C., halfway house in March 2015, and the Bureau’s record of him today reads RRM Baltimore. An escape reported in June 2026 as “from a federal prison” in Montgomery is recorded by the Bureau at RRM Montgomery, not at the camp. Read the facility type, not the city.

One more Alabama distinction. This is the only standalone federal camp in the state, but not the only place in Alabama where a federal sentence is served at minimum security: FCI Talladega has a satellite camp for men and FCI Aliceville one for women. A judicial recommendation to “a camp in Alabama” can land in any of the three.

Why the camp is on Maxwell Air Force Base

The camp is on Maxwell Air Force Base because the War Department wanted cheap labor there in 1930, and the arrangement outlived everything around it. The acting Secretary of War, F. H. Payne, agreed to a prison on the field on July 31, 1930, seeing it, in the account the camp’s spokeswoman and the base historian gave the Montgomery Advertiser in July 2015, “as an opportunity for inexpensive labor.” Eight camps were built in that first wave; eighty-five years later, the spokeswoman said, Maxwell’s was the only one still in existence — the oldest prison camp still operating in the Bureau of Prisons.

It has stood in four places on the base. The first was an old Army stockade. In 1933 it moved to the ball court and was ringed with barbed wire — put there, the base historian said, “to keep curious spectators out rather than keep inmates confined.” It moved again in 1938 because the buildings, made of salvaged wood by the prisoners themselves, had become unsanitary, and reached its present site in 1940 when the field had to absorb an influx of 10,000 cadets. Much of what the camp occupies was built for the 4th Aviation Squadron, a segregated African-American unit activated at Maxwell on June 10, 1941, with 225 men, whose dining hall, administrative building and recreation buildings are part of the prison camp today.

The present relationship is set out in the camp’s own handbook, and it governs the working day: the camp is a guest tenant, and it exists to provide manpower for general maintenance of the base. Work details include grounds and landscaping on Maxwell Air Force Base and Gunter Annex and the UNICOR laundry plant and its drivers. Men going out carry only what an authorized-items list allows, plus one beverage, which “must be consumed prior to returning to the institution.” Two rules follow from working among people who are not incarcerated: “Unauthorized contact with civilian and military personnel is strictly prohibited,” and “You may not give to or receive anything from another inmate or civilian/military worker at Maxwell/Gunter AFB.”

The boundary list reads like a campus with lines drawn on it: the River Road and anything across it, the dog kennels unless you are a handler, the soccer field, the fence along the golf course, the river embankment beyond the walking track. Two other federal prisons carry a military address on the Bureau’s roster — FMC Carswell at a naval air station and FCI Fort Dix at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst — but this is the only standalone camp among them.

What is the security level at FPC Montgomery?

FPC Montgomery is minimum security, the lowest level in the federal system and the hardest to qualify for. Getting here is not a matter of being a first-time or non-violent offender. Under the Bureau’s designation rules, a man goes to minimum security only if his security point score is 0 to 11 and not one of the nine Public Safety Factors applies. The program statement states what those factors are for: they “are applied to inmates who are not appropriate for placement at an institution which would permit inmate access to the community (i.e., MINIMUM security),” and “[t]he application of a PSF overrides security point scores.” (Program Statement 5100.08.)

That sentence decides most camp cases. A man can score three points and still be sent to a low-security FCI because one Public Safety Factor attached at sentencing, and only the Designation and Sentence Computation Center can waive one. Our guide to federal prison security levels explains the scoring; federal prison transfers covers what can be argued later. 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.

A second classification matters as much, and few people arrive knowing it. Security level decides which prison; custody level decides how much of the outside world a man can touch once he is there. This camp’s handbook says “[a]ll newly committed inmates are assigned a custody level of Out custody upon arrival,” and that “[t]o participate in any community based activity, including furloughs and RRC placement, Community custody must be obtained.” The first review for that reduction “will generally be accomplished after an inmate has been at the facility for six months.” A man who reports in January is ordinarily not considered for a furlough until July.

On the ground, minimum security here means three open-bay dormitories, no cells, no segregation cells — the visiting supplement says in terms that “FPC Montgomery does not have a special housing unit” — and boundaries marked with signs rather than fences. Walking on the grass between the housing units is prohibited and can draw an incident report. Nothing physically stops a man leaving, which is why the disciplinary code carries Code 200, “Escape from a work detail, non-secure institution, or other non-secure confinement.”

How does self-surrender to FPC Montgomery work?

Self-surrender to FPC Montgomery works as it does across the federal system: the court sets the date and reporting time; the Bureau’s Designation and Sentence Computation Center in Grand Prairie, Texas, picks the institution and sends notice, usually through the probation officer; and the person reports to Receiving and Discharge. Most people who arrive at a camp drive themselves there. None of it is run by this camp or negotiable at the gate.

The judge recommends; the Bureau designates. In January 2026 a federal judge refused a defendant’s motion to be allowed to surrender to this camp. A recommendation in the judgment is worth making, because the Bureau records and weighs it, but the choice turns on security level, Public Safety Factors, bed space and distance from the release address. Local reporting on one man now held here recorded that the Bureau “worked to put Deming in a facility close to his family so he could have visitation.”

What to bring, and what not to

Bring the reporting paperwork and no identification. The handbook is explicit: “You cannot have any form of identification in your possession while you are incarcerated.” Driver’s licenses, birth certificates and social security cards should be mailed to the Unit Team afterward, held in the central file and handed back at release — and the handbook tells men to make sure at least two forms are there, because employment on release depends on having them. Anything carried in beyond what the Bureau has already approved is shipped home at the man’s expense.

Money is the one thing that works differently for a self-surrender. The Bureau sends all inmate funds to a national lockbox in Iowa and local mail rooms are barred from taking money — but there is a short list of exceptions and the first is “[f]unds received from a self-commitment inmate.” A man reporting under his own steam can bring money and have it receipted into his account at Receiving and Discharge.

The first thirty days

A bed is assigned on arrival “based upon the current demographics in each housing wing,” and a Safety Orientation and Unit Security Overview is given the same day, “no later than by the end of the day (lights out).” The handbook and the inmate Rights and Responsibilities are handed over at intake screening. The formal Admission and Orientation program follows “ordinarily within four weeks”; men waiting for it have the same telephone privileges as everyone else.

The clocks start at once: admission physical within 14 days, dental screening within 30, initial classification with the Unit Team within 28. Anyone out of Bureau custody for more than 30 days, which includes every self-surrender, gets the complete examination rather than the abbreviated one. The sentence computation arrives from Grand Prairie “generally within 60 days,” and it is the document to read closely, because jail credit and the projected release date are both on it. A permanent work detail is assigned after A and O by the Camp Liaison, “based primarily on institution needs,” and a man must hold a job 90 days before asking for another.

Who are the notable inmates at FPC Montgomery?

Charles Kushner, Jeffrey Skilling and Jesse Jackson Jr. are among the best-known men who have served time at FPC Montgomery, and Robert Deming III is held here now. The register numbers below let you check each record in the Bureau’s Inmate Locator.

Name	Register number and status in Bureau records	Case
Greg E. Lindberg	34828-058. Not here — in custody at FCI Atlanta, projected release April 28, 2033	Insurance executive. Served 633 days here after his 2020 bribery conviction and left in July 2022 when the Fourth Circuit vacated it. Reconvicted in May 2024 and sentenced on May 26, 2026, to a combined 12 years
Robert Deming III	78931-510. Currently held here; projected release January 3, 2029	Former Biloxi, Mississippi councilman; 72 months, imposed August 2024, for a drug conspiracy run through his vape shops
Charles Kushner	26526-050. Former — released August 25, 2006, after 14 months here and the balance in a Newark halfway house	Real estate developer; pleaded guilty in 2005 to tax evasion, illegal campaign contributions and witness tampering. Pardoned in December 2020; confirmed as Ambassador to France in May 2025
Jeffrey K. Skilling	29296-179. Former — released February 21, 2019	Enron chief executive; conspiracy, insider trading, false statements to auditors, securities fraud
Jesse L. Jackson Jr.	32451-016. Former — left here March 26, 2015, for a halfway house; released from Bureau custody September 18, 2015	Illinois congressman; 30 months for conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud
Kevin Trudeau	18046-036. Former — released January 18, 2022	Infomercial marketer, imprisoned for criminal contempt of court
Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager	00906-054 and 00905-054, consecutive numbers. Both released January 30, 1981, this camp still recorded as the last facility for each	The owners of Studio 54, convicted of tax evasion
John Paul Jr.	04923-018. Former — released October 12, 1988, this camp recorded as his last facility	IndyCar driver, convicted of racketeering in 1986
John N. Mitchell and Charles Colson	No locator record — the Bureau’s locator begins in 1982	Attorney General and special counsel to President Nixon. Mitchell served 19 months here, paroled January 1979; Colson seven months, to 1975

Greg Lindberg left this camp in July 2022 when his conviction was vacated, but he was retried and convicted, pleaded guilty in a second case, and is held at FCI Atlanta with a release date eight years out. A former NFL receiver who appears on most lists of this camp returns no locator record under that name.

A former South Carolina sheriff placed at this camp by a widely shared post in August 2026 is recorded by the Bureau’s locator at FCI Lewisburg in Pennsylvania.

How do I find someone at FPC Montgomery?

To find someone at FPC Montgomery, use the Bureau’s free public Inmate Locator, the only authoritative answer, and search on the eight-digit register number where you have it, because the number is unique and names are not. The locator reaches back to 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.

One caution belongs to this city: the facility field reads “Montgomery” for both the camp and the reentry office, so read the facility type as well as the name. A blank result usually means state custody, pretrial detention under the U.S. Marshals Service, or a committed name the person does not use.

How do I write to someone at FPC Montgomery?

To write to someone at FPC Montgomery, put the committed name and register number on the first line and spell out FEDERAL PRISON CAMP in full — the handbook insists on it.

Letters and legal mail	Freight and non-USPS parcels
Inmate Name & Register Number FPC Montgomery Federal Prison Camp Maxwell Air Force Base Montgomery, AL 36112	Staff Name FPC Montgomery Federal Prison Camp Attn: Warehouse Maxwell AFB, Bldg. 1251 Montgomery, AL 36112

The return address has to carry the dorm and wing as well as the name and number, and the handbook warns that “[m]ail not properly identified will not be processed for delivery to the U.S. Postal Service and will be returned to sender.” Outgoing mail leaves once a day, from a depository outside the inmate telephone room, emptied at 7:15 a.m. Monday to Friday excluding holidays. Incoming first class mail reaches the dormitories by 3:30 p.m., and attendance at mail call is compulsory. Express and overnight mail, COD and private carriers are not accepted here at all.

Legal mail is different, and at this camp the difference runs both ways. Under the Bureau’s correspondence rules, incoming attorney mail is opened only in the client’s presence, and only where the sender is clearly identified as an attorney and the front is marked “Special Mail — Open only in the presence of the inmate”; without the marking it is read as ordinary correspondence, and the handbook puts the burden on the incarcerated man to tell his lawyer. Going out, legal mail cannot be dropped in a box: it must be hand-delivered by the sender to mail room staff between 10:30 and 11:30 a.m., Monday to Friday, with his identification card. A lawyer who needs something posted on a Friday afternoon should know the window has already closed. More on attorney-client communication in the Bureau of Prisons, and on writing to someone in federal prison.

Two limits people trip over: no more than 60 postage stamps may be held at once, and hardcover books and newspapers may come only from a publisher, book club or bookstore. Never put money in a letter.

How do I send money to someone at FPC Montgomery?

To send money to someone at FPC Montgomery, use the Bureau’s lockbox in Des Moines or one of two wire services; money never goes to Maxwell Air Force Base. Every route needs the committed name together with the eight-digit register number. The camp’s handbook states that “[l]ocal institution mail rooms will no longer accept funds received from outside the institution.”

Route	Where it goes	How fast it posts
Postal money order, cashier’s or certified check, bank draft	Federal Bureau of Prisons Committed Name Eight-Digit Register Number Post Office Box 474701 Des Moines, Iowa 50947-0001	U.S. postal money orders and U.S. government checks post without a hold. Everything else carries an automatic 15-day hold; foreign instruments payable in U.S. dollars are held 45 days
Western Union Quick Collect	Code city FBOP, DC. The account number is the register number immediately followed by the last name, no spaces or dashes	Two to four hours if sent between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. Eastern; otherwise by 7:00 a.m. the next day
MoneyGram ExpressPayment	Receive code 7932, company name Federal Bureau of Prisons, Washington, DC. Up to $300 online	The same, and processed seven days a week including holidays

No cash and no personal checks; both are refused, and anything enclosed with the money order is discarded at the lockbox. Put the committed name and register number on the instrument and the envelope, with your own return address, because that is the only way funds come back if they cannot be posted.

The Bureau’s trust fund rules, Program Statement 4500.13 (2026), set the hold at 15 days, or 45 for foreign instruments, and a U.S. postal money order carries no hold at all. The program statement, the newer document, controls over the camp’s 2022 handbook, which still warns that instruments other than money orders “may take up to 60 days to clear.” Sending money to a federal prisoner sets the routes side by side. Men here cannot handle cash at all — “[c]urrency, in any form (coins, paper, or debit cards) is not authorized.”

What are the visiting hours at FPC Montgomery?

Visiting at FPC Montgomery runs on Saturdays, Sundays and federal holidays, 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. No visitor is allowed onto the base or into the visiting room after 2:00 p.m., and visitor processing at the camp stops at 2:30 p.m. That schedule appears in both of the camp’s own documents — Institution Supplement MON 5267.08I, dated March 11, 2014, which replaced the August 2013 edition, and the 2022 handbook.

The Bureau publishes no current visiting schedule for this camp, and two of the three visiting documents its facility page links do not open: the “Special Visiting Schedule & Procedures — Modified visitation due to COVID-19 (Beginning Oct 3, 2020)” and the Spanish-language “Regulaciones de Visitas.” The Spanish supplement, the same edition as the English, is posted at a slightly different address. The English supplement that opens is twelve years old. Telephone 334-293-2100 before you travel.

Who can visit, and how many

• The visiting list holds up to twenty-five approved visitors aged sixteen and over — more than twice what many institutions allow — and a verified member of the clergy may be added on top of the twenty-five. It goes to the Correctional Counselor within the first two weeks, and “[i]nmates may make changes to their visiting list without limitation.”
• Immediate family here means parents and step- or foster parents, brothers, sisters, spouse and children only. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, in-laws and cousins are not immediate family and are turned away if they are not on the approved list; friends must have known the person before he was incarcerated, and only the Warden can waive that.
• Form BP-629 goes from the incarcerated man to the visitor, and the visitor returns it directly to the Correctional Counselor; forms handed in by the inmate are not accepted.
• Normally four adult visitors at a time. The room is rated for 550 people, and when it fills, visits are terminated with regard to how often a person visits and how far the visitor traveled.
• Attorneys must ordinarily give 24 hours’ notice; the Unit Team verifies the bar card, has the attorney complete forms BP-224 and BP-241 and provides constant visual supervision. Special visits go to the Unit Manager on a BP-148, ordinarily seven days ahead.

Physical contact is defined narrowly and enforced: “A short embrace and kiss at the beginning of the visit and at the end of the visit is the only physical contact that will be allowed during this visit except for holding hands.” Once a visitor steps out of the room, the visit is over. Movement to and from the visiting room stops thirty minutes before every count.

What visitors can wear and bring

Skirts, shorts, skorts and culottes may be no shorter than two inches above the knee, including any slit. Prohibited: sleeveless clothing on men or women, halter and tank tops, see-through fabric, spandex, strapless or backless dresses, bare midriffs and any offensive logo. Undergarments are required, including bras. No hats or scarves other than approved religious headwear; no flip-flops or open-toe shoes, and footwear stays on inside. Camouflage is barred, as are green, brown, khaki and tan — the colors of the institution uniform. The code applies to children.

On an air base, the dress check happens before you get near the prison. “The bus escort officer will make the determination of proper clothing attire prior to departing from the Maxwell AFB visitor’s center.” A visitor wearing the wrong thing is turned back at the base, not at a gate house, and the shuttle does not wait.

You may carry a small clear plastic change purse with vehicle keys, feminine hygiene articles and vending money, and for an infant a small clear diaper bag and one umbrella-type stroller. No toys, for any child. Vending machines are the only source of food, and medication needs permission from the Operations Lieutenant or the Institution Duty Officer — as does any support dog.

Identification, the base gate and the shuttle

Visiting this camp means being cleared onto an active Air Force installation first, and that is where most wasted journeys happen. Security Forces process every visitor at the gate, and the required documents are not just photo identification: a valid driver’s license or other approved photo ID, a valid vehicle registration and valid vehicle insurance. A rental car with the paperwork in the glovebox is fine; a borrowed car with nothing in it is not. Any denial by base security “will be strictly enforced by FPC Montgomery staff.”

The 2022 handbook, in both its English and Spanish editions, names the Maxwell Boulevard gate only; the 2014 supplement names the Bell Street gate only. Follow the newer handbook, but call first, because nothing published since 2022 settles it.

You do not drive to the prison. Visitors park inside the base and board a bus or van run by Maxwell Air Force Base, not by the Bureau. The first shuttle leaves about 8:00 a.m. and they run until 2:00 p.m., when inbound visits stop; at 2:15 p.m. staff begin asking for volunteers to leave early. Identification must show a date of birth for everyone sixteen and over, every visitor is photographed on a first visit, and refusing a search ends the visit. Our guides to searches, shakedowns and contraband and to federal prison visitation, and the Bureau’s national visiting regulations, cover the rest.

Getting there

From Interstate 65 northbound, take the Herron Street exit, follow the signs to Maxwell Air Force Base to Maxwell Boulevard at the second traffic light, turn left and travel about one mile to the Maxwell Boulevard entrance. From Interstate 65 southbound, take the Clay Street exit, turn left one block past the first light, turn left again at the next, then left onto Maxwell Boulevard for about a mile. The handbook lists Montgomery Regional Airport, (334) 281-5040, and Montgomery Greyhound Services, 950 W. South Boulevard, (334) 286-0658. The 2026 PREA audit gives the camp’s street address as 1001 Willow Street.

How do phone calls and email work at FPC Montgomery?

At FPC Montgomery, calls go out, never in. The number must be on an approved list, and the call is placed from the telephone room — which at this camp is a building of its own, number 1225 on the institution’s building directory, with the general mail depository outside it.

Under the Bureau’s telephone regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, issued September 3, 2026, the allowance is 510 minutes a calendar month: 300 free to anyone eligible for First Step Act telephone incentives, and 210 more that anyone, eligible or not, may buy after using up the first 300. That replaces the limit in the camp’s 2022 handbook, which says men are “limited to 300 minutes per calendar month.” Individual calls should generally not exceed 15 minutes, with at least 30 minutes between calls — the same gap the handbook sets. The extra holiday minutes older sources describe belonged to the 2008 policy. See federal inmate phone calls.

An unmonitored call to a lawyer is arranged in advance: a request on an Inmate Request to Staff form at least one day ahead, showing that writing or visiting is not adequate. Then the handbook gives the shortcut that actually works — “it is recommended inmates have the attorney send a letter to a member of the inmate’s unit team indicating they have a need to communicate with the inmate concerning legal matters, and the dates and times the attorney would be available.” The Unit Manager is normally the approving official.

Email runs on TRULINCS, which families reach through CorrLinks, and the person inside must add your address before you accept the invitation. The terminals here also carry a Department of Justice sexual abuse reporting mailbox that goes directly to the Office of the Inspector General rather than to anyone at this camp. Email with an attorney is not privileged. See CorrLinks and TRULINCS.

What can people buy at the FPC Montgomery commissary?

The monthly commissary spending limit at FPC Montgomery is $460, set by the Bureau’s trust fund rules, Program Statement 4500.13, issued May 7, 2026, which records the increase from $360. The limit rises by $50 during the November and December holiday period, for no more than one validation period. Items excluded from the limit include postage stamps, nicotine replacement patches, over-the-counter medications and vitamins, copy cards and paper, footwear including sneakers and safety shoes, mattresses, and a secured media device. Listings that still give $360 are out of date. The camp’s own handbook gives no number at all — it tells men to “check the program statements located in the Inmate Law Library for revisions,” which does not help a family budgeting from outside.

Shopping runs Monday to Wednesday, 9:00 a.m. to noon and 1:00 to 3:30 p.m., once a week on an assigned day; in a week with a holiday the schedule condenses into three days and a man’s day can move. The rules on the order form are unforgiving: “If you are not in the commissary area when your name is called, you will lose your shopping privileges for the week,” and “No changes or substitutions will be allowed at the window.” Account balances are not checked during sales.

The Bureau’s commissary order form for this camp is from 2017, so treat its prices as shape rather than cost. What they show is a camp rather than a penitentiary: a Wilson tennis racquet at $91.00, an MP3 player at $88.40, a G-Shock watch at $75.00, and a typewriter ribbon at $12.95 — which tells you how legal work still gets done in a place where Black’s Law Dictionary is the only printed book in the law library. The national rules sit on our federal prison commissary page.

What programs are available at FPC Montgomery?

FPC Montgomery’s programs include RDAP, a commercial driver’s license course, Department of Labor apprenticeships, GED classes in English and Spanish, a UNICOR laundry and a service-dog training program; the Bureau’s August 2026 First Step Act Approved Programs Guide marks 47 programs for the camp.

RDAP and drug treatment

Drug treatment is the largest thing this camp does. The psychology department is a Chief Psychologist, two Drug Abuse Program Coordinators and eight Drug Treatment Specialists — eleven people at a camp of 824, nine of them working on addiction. Birmingham Unit is the treatment unit: only men on the waiting list, in the program, or who have completed it live there, and men who finished RDAP elsewhere and transferred in are “routinely expected to reside in Birmingham Unit as well.”

How much of it runs is a question the Bureau’s own documents answer two ways. The April 2022 handbook says “FPC Montgomery’s RDAP operates two 500-hour Residential Drug Abuse Programs (RDAPs). Because of our two RDAPs, we are able to extend treatment services to more inmates, in groups that start regularly throughout the year, typically every two to three months.” The Bureau’s current RDAP location list — inside the August 2026 First Step Act Approved Programs Guide, updated in June 2026, totaling 57 programs at 50 locations — names this camp once. Ask the coordinator in writing and get the answer in writing.

The mechanics are national and set out in the Bureau’s drug treatment rules. Completion can mean up to a year off the sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e) for people convicted of non-violent offenses, but that decision is made outside the institution, and Community Treatment Services in the halfway house is a required part of finishing. Treatment here is delivered in English.

Education, vocational training and UNICOR

The program families ask about first is the commercial driver’s license course, and it is real: the handbook describes a CDL program “programmed for a class ‘B and A’ license,” taking about five months, after which a student who passes may sit the state written and road tests. Alongside it are a two-part, 70-hour logistics course and a 30-hour forklift course. Department of Labor apprenticeships run in auto mechanics, small gas engine repair, plumbing, landscaping, carpentry, electrical work, HVAC, cooking, horticulture and dog training.

GED instruction is offered in English and Spanish, with 240 mandatory literacy hours; completion brings a certificate, a $50 cash award and a graduation ceremony. The electronic law library sits in Building 1249 on LexisNexis; typewriters are provided but ribbons come from the commissary, copies cost 15 cents a page, and it may be used only outside working hours unless a man holds a written work proscription for a court deadline. Our guides to prison education and vocational training go further.

UNICOR here is a laundry plant on the air base, washing linens for organizations across Maxwell — towels, bath mats, sheets, pillow cases, and items from the base hospital. The shift is 6:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. The handbook prints five pay grades running from 23 cents an hour to $1.15, with promotions 90 days apart. Five waiting lists govern hiring, and refusing to take part in the Financial Responsibility Program is a ground for dismissal from the factory.

Faith-based, reentry and the service dogs

There are dogs in the dormitories. The camp runs Inmates Providing Animal Care and Training, IMPACT, which raises puppies to become service dogs for Canine Companions for Independence; the handbook warns that “there will be dogs on the compound and in the units” and sets rules for everyone else — do not feed them, do not whistle at or distract a dog that is working, which its jacket signals, and ask the handler before touching one. Dog Trainer is one of the Department of Labor apprenticeships, so a handler can leave with a credential as well as a reference.

Religious Services is one Chaplain and one Chaplain Assistant supported by contract clergy, volunteers and lay ministers, with open house Monday to Thursday, 3:00 to 3:45 p.m. The camp’s April 2022 handbook says the halfway-house placement process for eligible men “ordinarily begins 17-19 months prior to the projected release date.” Non-citizens are told at initial classification whether their country has a prisoner transfer treaty with the United States, and a consular visit cannot be withheld even from a man in disciplinary status.

A note on First Step Act programming. The Bureau’s August 2026 approved-programs guide marks 47 programs for this camp on its by-institution grid, from apprenticeship training and the literacy program through anger management, criminal thinking, veterans’ reentry and a long list of courses aimed at older men. Only two are named for this institution in the guide’s own narrative pages: Federal Prison Industries and RDAP. Everything else on the grid is approval to offer, not a report that a class is running.

What is daily life like at FPC Montgomery?

Daily life at FPC Montgomery starts before dawn and is built around work on the base. The schedule below comes from the camp’s 2022 handbook.

	Weekdays	Weekends and federal holidays
Official counts	12:01 a.m., 3:00 a.m., 5:00 a.m., 4:00 p.m. standing, 10:00 p.m. standing	The same, plus a 10:00 a.m. standing count
Wake-up	5:15 a.m. over the public address system	—
Meals	5:30–6:30 a.m.; 10:30–11:15 a.m. by detail; evening meal after the 4:00 p.m. count clears	Coffee hour 6:45–7:45 a.m.; brunch after the 10:00 a.m. count; evening meal after the 4:00 p.m. count
Sick call sign-up	6:00–6:20 a.m., Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday only	None
Work call	6:30 a.m. base details; 7:00 a.m. in-camp details; 11:30 a.m. second work call	—
Commissary and trust fund sales	Express 9:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. and 1:30–3:30 p.m.; regular 4:30–7:00 p.m., Monday to Thursday	Closed
Visiting	None	8:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m.
Recreation yard and hobby craft	5:30 a.m. to 9:45 p.m., every day of the week
Lights out	Immediately after the 10:00 p.m. count

The three overnight counts are taken with flashlights, the handbook says, “to ensure all inmates are alive, well, and present.” The units are Birmingham, Mobile and Montgomery, and D-Wing in both Birmingham and Mobile is equipped for most disabilities. The cubicle rules are long and enforced, down to shoes heels-out under the lower bunk and no glass mirrors. Showers are off limits from 7:30 a.m. to noon on weekdays. The quarterly band room allows no electric or electronic equipment at all — “Inmates will not be authorized to purchase music equipment with the exception of one harmonica.”

Recreation is unusually full for a federal prison, which is most of what people mean when they call a camp easy: a walking and running track, handball and racquetball courts, basketball, softball and soccer fields, a covered patio with televisions, a leisure center with pool tables and cardio equipment, hobby craft, and movies at 5:00 and 7:00 p.m., with staff on duty seven days a week. None of that changes the fact that a man here cannot attend his mother’s funeral without a furlough, cannot hold cash, and can be on a bus to a higher-security prison the same afternoon.

On medical care, read the schedule twice: sick call sign-up is a twenty-minute window at 6:00 a.m. on four days a week, with none on Wednesdays, weekends or federal holidays. There is a $2.00 copay for any visit a man asks for himself, waived for emergencies, injuries, chronic care and men recorded as indigent, and appearing at the clinic without a referral for something that is not an emergency is treated as being out of bounds.

What do inspectors say about conditions at FPC Montgomery?

Inspectors have said almost nothing about conditions at FPC Montgomery. The DOJ Office of the Inspector General has not conducted an on-site inspection of this facility. Nor has the District of Columbia’s Corrections Information Council, which inspects the federal prisons where DC residents are held. The only recurring independent examination this camp receives is the audit required every three years by the Prison Rape Elimination Act, which is by design about sexual safety and nothing else. The 2026 audit records accreditation by the American Correctional Association within the past three years, and none by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care or CALEA.

The 2026 PREA audit

The PREA audit was conducted by Cynthia Swier of Corrections Consulting Services, on site from March 17–19, 2026; her final report is dated April 17, 2026, and runs to 148 pages. Two standards were exceeded, 43 met and none unmet. It is the most detailed public description of the camp.

Capacity and population	Designated capacity 920, not exceeded at any point in the preceding year; 833 at the audit; average daily population 791; 739 held on the first day on site
Turnover	978 admissions in twelve months, 871 of them staying 30 days or more; average length of stay 300.5 days; ages 20 to 78
Buildings and housing	30 buildings; three open-bay dormitory units; no single cells, no multiple-occupancy cells and no segregation cells of any kind
Staff, contractors, volunteers	120 staff who may have inmate contact, 4 hired in the preceding year; 4 contractors; 21 volunteers, none present during the on-site days
Population characteristics, day one	42 had disclosed prior sexual victimization at screening; 30 had a cognitive or functional disability; 12 were blind or had low vision; 11 deaf or hard of hearing; 11 physically disabled; 9 limited English proficient
Forensic examinations	At a local hospital or clinic, not on site; victim advocacy by agreement with the Family Sunshine Center, Montgomery
Allegations in the audit year	Zero sexual abuse and zero sexual harassment, inmate-on-inmate and staff-on-inmate alike

The two standards rated as exceeding requirements say something about who is held here. One was the standard on people with disabilities and limited English proficiency: the camp posts signage in large text and bright colors in English and Spanish, employs bilingual staff, holds a LanguageLine Solutions contract, and bars the use of other incarcerated men as interpreters in sexual-abuse matters. The other was risk screening — though the auditor also recorded that some men she interviewed at random “did not remember the risk assessment being conducted after the initial time.”

Three entries in that report give no figure specific to the camp. The 253 investigators it records answer for the whole agency rather than this camp; the figure for men identifying as lesbian, gay or bisexual reads zero because they “are not tracked”; and the transgender and intersex field reads “N/A per Executive Order 14168.” On staffing, the Warden’s memorandum gives the causes of deviation from the staffing plan as “retirements, promotions, separations, funding, hiring freeze and sequestration.”

What the sexual-abuse numbers show

The Government Accountability Office published per-institution allegation counts for every federal prison in May 2026. For this camp across 2020 to 2024 it records one allegation of sexual abuse in which another incarcerated person was the alleged perpetrator, in 2020, and none since; and seven in which a Bureau employee was the alleged perpetrator — one in 2021, one in 2022, three in 2023 and two in 2024. The 2026 PREA audit’s own twelve-month window recorded none of either kind.

Read those numbers with their limits attached. An allegation is not a finding; GAO says most allegations across the Bureau from 2014 through 2022 ended unsubstantiated, meaning the evidence did not settle the question, which is not the same as false. GAO does not adjust for population anywhere in the report, so the counts cannot rank one prison against another, and a low count can mean either that little happened or that little was reported. The two tables are not additive. What can fairly be said is the direction: seven of the eight allegations GAO records here named a staff member.

The Inspector General record

Six Inspector General products name FPC Montgomery. None of them inspects it, and only two say anything specific about the place.

• September 2021, a follow-up survey of staff perceptions of the Bureau’s pandemic management, published as an interactive set of per-institution results. Its answers for Montgomery are unlike the Bureau’s: 46.4 percent reported none of the listed effects on their work, against 15.0 percent Bureau-wide. It is a staff-opinion survey, not an examination of conditions.
• February 2008, an audit of inmate health care whose appendix reproduces the Bureau’s institution list. It gives Montgomery FPC as Care Level 2 with 911 people. The Bureau’s 2024 care-level charts give the camp Level 2 for both medical and mental health care.
• A July 2021 press release announcing the arrest of a former officer assigned here (below). The remaining three — a 2023 evaluation of inmate-on-staff sexual harassment, a 2004 audit of release preparation and a 2003 evaluation of drug interdiction — list this camp without making a finding about it.

Six Bureau-wide Inspector General engagements were open as of September 2026; two of them bear directly on a camp: an evaluation of the use of lockdowns and modified operations at Bureau institutions, posted June 9, 2025, and an audit of the Bureau’s monitoring and controls over inmate email, posted February 2, 2026. None of the six is an inspection of FPC Montgomery, and neither of those two has reported.

What the court record shows

The Middle District of Alabama sees more of this camp than any inspector does, and its opinions record two facts about it. The first is a rate. Defending a 2018 Eighth Amendment suit brought by two men who said a colony of bats was living in the roof space above their housing unit, a correctional counselor declared that between December 1, 2017 and August 1, 2018 the whole camp filed 62 administrative remedies, none of them about bats. Both suits were dismissed for failure to exhaust. The handbook’s pest section still tells men that “[m]ice, frogs, roaches, bats, birds, are not pets.”

The second is what happens to First Step Act petitions filed from here, and it is consistent. In Pena v. Washington (M.D. Ala. June 1, 2026) the court dismissed a section 2241 petition without prejudice for want of jurisdiction because it was not ripe: credits cannot be applied until they equal the remainder of the imposed term under 18 U.S.C. § 3624(g)(1)(A), and combining discretionary Second Chance Act days with earned credits to reach that threshold “would circumvent the FSA’s statutory structure by creating artificial ripeness.” In Marquez v. Washington (M.D. Ala. September 15, 2025) the court held that the Administrative Procedure Act does not bar habeas review where the petitioner attacks a Bureau regulation rather than an individual decision — then dismissed anyway for failure to exhaust, because when the Regional Director did not answer the BP-10 within 30 days the petitioner “could have — and in this circuit, should have — considered that nonresponse a denial.” Those opinions record the warden as Milton Washington; the March 2026 PREA audit names Ray Coleman as Acting Warden.

FPC Montgomery in the news

Recent news about FPC Montgomery centers on Greg Lindberg’s 2026 resentencing and the September 2024 food refusal; older items concern a former officer’s 2021 indictment and a 2018 sentence for driving at an officer.

• May 26, 2026 — a former resident resentenced. Greg Lindberg, who served 633 days at this camp before the Fourth Circuit vacated his 2020 bribery conviction, was sentenced in Charlotte to a combined 12 years and ordered to pay more than $1.6 billion in restitution.
• September 11–16, 2024 — a food refusal, and 27 men bused out. On the morning of September 11 men here stopped going to the dining hall over the Bureau’s handling of First Step Act earned time credits; they fed each other in the units instead, and the protest ran until dinner on September 14. The Bureau’s Office of Public Affairs said the camp “had been placed on modified operations status” as a precaution and “returned to normal operations on Monday, September 16, 2024.” The same statement recorded that 27 men were transferred to FCI Atlanta for disciplinary reasons pending investigation and a hearing; five weeks later they were still in disciplinary housing there. That is the mechanism families should understand: at a camp with no segregation cells, the sanction for a collective act is a bus to a higher-security prison.
• July 26, 2021 — a former officer indicted. The Inspector General announced the arrest of Christopher McWilliams, a former correctional officer assigned to this camp, on one count of theft of government property for cash advances taken on a government credit card in late 2019. An indictment is an accusation; no public disposition had been reported as of September 2026.
• July 26, 2018 — 84 months for driving at an officer. Elvis Mark Hartrick was sentenced to seven years for assaulting a correctional officer with a deadly weapon. Staff found three packages near a secluded fence line in September 2017 and waited; Hartrick and another man arrived in a work truck, loaded them, and Hartrick accelerated at the unarmed officer, who jumped clear. The packages held cell phones, tobacco and alcohol.

Frequently asked questions about FPC Montgomery

Problems at FPC Montgomery: where we can help

The problems we help with at FPC Montgomery are a camp’s problems, and its own record shows where they cluster: earned time credits, community access, and the sanctions that can move a man off the base altogether.

• First Step Act time credits — whether they are being earned, calculated and applied. This is the largest source of litigation from this camp, it produced the September 2024 protest, and the Middle District of Alabama has twice explained why petitions fail: they are filed before the credits equal the remaining sentence, or before the BP-11 has been filed. Both problems are fixable in advance. See our federal prison early release practice.
• Designation and the Public Safety Factor that keeps someone out of a camp, or is applied after arrival; and the six-month wait for Community custody, with the furlough, community-program and halfway house decisions that depend on it. See security levels and Public Safety Factors and federal prison transfers.
• Disciplinary proceedings. At a camp with no segregation cells an incident report is not a local matter: the sanction is a transfer, and the 27 men bused to FCI Atlanta in 2024 were still in disciplinary housing five weeks later. Walk-away and failure-to-report exposure under Code 200 and 18 U.S.C. § 751 belongs in the same bracket.
• Medical and dental care that has stopped happening. This camp was the subject of a Federal Tort Claims Act dental case the Eleventh Circuit sent back for reconsideration in 2016, and its medical care level on the public record, Level 2, comes from the Bureau’s 2024 care-level charts. Start with a written request to Health Services, then the administrative remedy process, which runs on a deadline at every level; see medical care in federal prison and Federal Tort Claims Act claims.
• Administrative remedies themselves. Sixty-two were filed camp-wide in an eight-month stretch in 2018, and the court record here is full of petitions lost at the BP-10 and BP-11 stages.
• 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

• FPC Montgomery, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. The Bureau’s facility page.
• FPC Montgomery Admission and Orientation Handbook, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2022.
• Panfleto de Admisión y Orientación, FPC Montgomery, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2022. Spanish edition of the handbook.
• FPC Montgomery Commissary List, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2017.
• Institution Supplement MON 5267.08I, Visiting Regulations, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FPC Montgomery, 2014. Replaced MON 5267.08H (2013).
• Reglamento de Visitas, Institution Supplement MON 5267.08I, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FPC Montgomery, 2014. Spanish edition of the visiting supplement.
• Inmate Security Designation and Custody Classification, Program Statement 5100.08, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2006, as amended in 2026.
• Trust Fund/Deposit Fund Manual, Program Statement 4500.13, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Sets the $460 commissary spending limit and the holds on deposits.
• Inmate Telephone Regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Replaced Program Statement 5264.08 (2008).
• Inmate Furloughs, Program Statement 5280.09, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2011.
• First Step Act Approved Programs Guide, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Reentry Services Division, 2026.
• 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.
• Institution Care Levels for Medical Assignment and Institutional Mental Health Care Levels, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2024. Released under Freedom of Information Act request 2024-03455 and published by the Washington Lawyers’ Committee.

Audits and inspections

• PREA Audit Report: FPC Montgomery, Corrections Consulting Services, 2026. On-site audit of March 17–19, 2026, by Cynthia Swier.
• 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.
• Ongoing Work, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2026.
• Audit of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Monitoring and Controls over Inmate Email Communications, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2026. Ongoing.
• Evaluation of the Use of Lockdowns and Modified Operations at Federal Bureau of Prisons Institutions, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2025. Ongoing.
• 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.
• 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.
• The Federal Bureau of Prison’s Efforts to Manage Inmate Health Care, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2008. Audit 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. Audit 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.

Court records

• Pena v. Washington, No. 2:25-cv-886 (M.D. Ala.), U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, 2026. Order of June 1, 2026, dismissing a First Step Act petition as unripe.
• Owner of Multinational Investment Company Sentenced in $2B Fraud, Money Laundering, and Bribery Schemes, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, 2026. Greg Lindberg’s sentence.
• Williams v. Washington, No. 2:25-cv-73 (M.D. Ala.), U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, 2025.
• Marquez v. Washington, No. 2:24-cv-765 (M.D. Ala.), U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, 2025. Order of September 15, 2025, dismissing for failure to exhaust.
• Former Biloxi City Councilman Sentenced to Six Years in Prison for Drug Conspiracy Involving Vape Shops, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Mississippi, 2024. Robert Deming III’s sentence.
• Votrobek v. Sanders, No. 2:20-cv-823 (M.D. Ala.), U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, 2024.
• Former BOP Correctional Officer Indicted and Arrested for Theft of Government Property, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2021. The arrest of Christopher McWilliams.
• Hope v. Woods, No. 2:18-cv-239 (M.D. Ala.), U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, 2021. One of the two 2018 suits over bats in a housing unit.
• Lee v. Woods, No. 2:18-cv-265 (M.D. Ala.), U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, 2021. The second of those suits.
• Federal Inmate Receives 7 Year Sentence for Assaulting a Correctional Officer, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Middle District of Alabama, 2018. Elvis Mark Hartrick’s sentence.
• Iacullo v. United States, 657 F. App’x 916 (11th Cir. 2016), U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, 2016. The Federal Tort Claims Act dental case.

News and other sources

• Federal Prisoners Who Sparked Protest Still Being Held in Isolation, Prisonology, 2024. By Walter Pavlo.
• Former Biloxi Councilman Robert Deming III begins serving prison sentence following guilty plea to federal drug charge, FOX10 News, 2024.
• Incarcerated Protesters Say Federal Prisons Refuse to Release People on Time, The Appeal, 2024.
• Prisoners Among Us at Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery Advertiser, 2015. By Rebecca Burylo; the camp’s history, quoting camp spokeswoman Trina Speights and base historian Dr. Robert Kane.
• 18 U.S.C. § 751, Prisoners in custody of institution or officer, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e), Imprisonment of a convicted person, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 18 U.S.C. § 3624(g)(1)(A), Release of a prisoner, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).

Sources reviewed September 2026.

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