FCI Petersburg Medium | Federal Prison, Hopewell VA

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

FCI Petersburg Medium at a glance

FCI Petersburg Medium is a medium-security federal prison for men at 1060 River Road in Hopewell, Virginia, holding 1,596 people as of September 2026. It is one of nine Bureau institutions offering the Non-Residential Sex Offender Treatment Program, and that mission shapes its mail rules, housing, psychology department and culture.

Official name	Federal Correctional Institution, Petersburg Medium
BOP code	PEM · complex PEX
Security level	Medium; men
Population	1,596 (as of September 2026)
Visiting	Saturday and Sunday, 8:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m. · see visiting hours
Inmate mail	Inmate Name & Register Number · FCI Petersburg Medium · Federal Correctional Institution · P.O. Box 1000 · Petersburg, VA 23804
Send money	Lockbox · Western Union (code city FBOP, DC) · MoneyGram
Phone	804-504-7200 · Fax 804-504-7204
Street address	1060 River Road, Hopewell, VA 23860 · Hopewell City
Judicial district	Eastern District of Virginia
BOP region	Mid-Atlantic
Housing	Cells
Special Housing Unit	Yes · serves the entire complex
Medical care level	Level 2
Mental health care level	Level 2
RDAP	Yes
Sex offender treatment	Non-Residential Sex Offender Treatment Program · Sex Offender Management Program
UNICOR	Yes · distribution center
Camp	None · the satellite camp belongs to FCI Petersburg Low

The prison sits inside the Federal Correctional Complex at Petersburg, about 25 miles south of Richmond, beside FCI Petersburg Low. It is one of the federal prisons in Virginia and falls under the Bureau’s Mid-Atlantic Region.

Two prisons and a camp share this address. Only one of them still holds anyone.

The Federal Correctional Complex at Petersburg has two separate institutions on one campus, each with its own code, address, phone number and population count, plus a satellite camp that reports under the low-security institution’s code and has none of its own. Getting the wrong one is the most common mistake families make here, and since the summer of 2026 the most consequential.

Institution	BOP code	Address and phone	Population, September 2026
FCI Petersburg Medium (this page)	PEM	1060 River Road, Hopewell, VA 23860 · 804-504-7200	1,596
FCI Petersburg Low	PET	1100 River Road, Hopewell, VA 23860 · 804-733-7881	216, all listed under the line “Petersburg FCI-Camp”; no line for the low-security institution itself
The satellite camp	Reported under PET	Adjacent to the low-security institution	The same 216 people; the camp is the whole of the PET count

The camp belongs to the Low, not the Medium: the Bureau’s roster lists a camp for FCI Petersburg Low and none for FCI Petersburg Medium. The medium-security institution is now the only large population left on this campus.

That is because of the closure the Bureau announced on July 1, 2026, naming FCI Petersburg Low among six institutions it would close for “decades of deferred maintenance and extreme staffing challenges.” It is the one of the six that has visibly happened: as the table shows, the Low’s code now counts only the camp. The Bureau has not published where those people went, and the Medium did not absorb them — its population fell from 1,643 in August to 1,596 in September. If your relative was at the Low, run the Inmate Locator today, hold your mail until it answers, and confirm the institution before traveling. Our page on FCI Petersburg Low covers the closure itself.

What is the security level at FCI Petersburg Medium?

FCI Petersburg Medium is a medium-security institution for men. The 2023 PREA audit gives custody levels only for the complex as a whole (“Medium Administrative, Low, Minimum”); this institution holds the medium-security population and the complex’s Special Housing Unit.

Designation is decided before arrival, by the security point score on the BP-337 designation form and by any Public Safety Factor, which under the Bureau’s security designation rules, Program Statement 5100.08, “overrides security point scores.”

For this institution the factor that matters most is PSF F, Sex Offender. Four features of it surprise people, all four in the policy text:

• It floors a person at low security, not medium. Program Statement 5100.08 says someone with the factor “will be housed in at least a Low security level institution, unless the PSF has been waived.” What puts a person at a medium is the point total, a second Public Safety Factor, or a Management Variable — not PSF F by itself.
• A conviction is not required. The factor may be applied “if the Presentence Investigation Report (PSR), or other official documentation, clearly indicates the following behavior occurred in the current term of confinement or prior criminal history.”
• A plea bargain does not clear it. The policy gives its own worked example: where the presentence report describes a sexual assault and the plea was to simple assault, “application of this PSF should be entered.” A count that was dismissed or nolle prossed cannot support it.
• Only one person can lift it. “Only the DSCC Administrator is authorized to waive a PSF. A request for waiver of a PSF will be submitted to the DSCC via form 409.”

That is where a lawyer’s work lands. The presentence report is the document the designation is built from, and language in it never contested at sentencing can set a security level, a Public Safety Factor and a housing assignment for years. See our guides to the intake process, designation and federal prison transfers.

Who are the notable inmates at FCI Petersburg Medium?

Notable people held at FCI Petersburg Medium include former Army staff sergeant Frank Ronghi, Brian Tod Schellenberger and former soldier Austin Michael Burak; Zachary Rehl, former president of the Philadelphia chapter of the Proud Boys, was released from here in January 2025. Register numbers are given so you can check each record in the Inmate Locator.

Name	Register number	Status, September 2026	Case
Frank Ronghi	16788-045	Currently held here. Projected release recorded as LIFE	Former U.S. Army staff sergeant, convicted by court-martial of premeditated murder and sexual offenses against a child under 16 committed in Kosovo on January 13, 2000, sentenced to life without parole and a dishonorable discharge. The Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces held life without parole an authorized punishment: United States v. Ronghi, 60 M.J. 83 (C.A.A.F. 2004)
Brian Tod Schellenberger	23875-056	Currently held here. Projected release June 21, 2089	Sentenced on October 20, 2005, in the Eastern District of North Carolina to 100 years on four counts of sexual exploitation of children, one of possession of child pornography and one of using interstate commerce facilities in murder-for-hire
Austin Michael Burak	96115-510	Currently held here. Projected release recorded as LIFE	Former Army soldier, sentenced on September 4, 2025, in the Southern District of Georgia to two concurrent life sentences after a jury convicted him of abusive sexual contact and aggravated sexual abuse of a child at Fort Stewart in August 2017
Zachary Rehl	34945-509	Former — Bureau records show his release from this institution on January 21, 2025	Former president of the Philadelphia chapter of the Proud Boys, convicted in the District of Columbia of seditious conspiracy and other offenses for his part in the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack and sentenced on August 31, 2023, to 15 years; commuted January 20, 2025

Several people often linked to this prison are not held here.

• Darren Sharper (#34209-034) is under Residential Reentry Management Baltimore — community custody, not an institution — with a projected release date of December 27, 2028.
• David Kaye (#71353-083), the rabbi convicted in the Eastern District of Virginia in 2006, was released on October 1, 2018; Sharpe James (#28791-050), the former mayor of Newark, was released on August 30, 2010.
• Abdelhaleem Hasan Ashqar (#41500-054), released June 13, 2017, was held at FCI Petersburg Low, not the Medium. Others often linked to “FCI Petersburg” are held elsewhere: Richard Chandler (#44076-074) at FCI Sandstone, Mohamed Elshinawy (#60500-037) at FCI Otisville, Eric Justin Toth (#32508-016) at FCI Fort Dix and Jack Teixeira (#54136-510) at USP Florence ADMAX.

How do I find someone at FCI Petersburg Medium?

To find someone at FCI Petersburg Medium, use the Bureau’s free public Inmate Locator and search by the eight-digit register number if you have it: the number is exact and names are not, because the locator matches the committed name on the judgment.

Read the answer carefully here. The screen names the institution — “Petersburg Medium FCI” for this one, “Petersburg Low FCI” for the low-security institution next door — and with the Low’s published population now zero, a stale result is easy to misread. Our guide to how register numbers work explains how the number is built.

If it returns nothing, the person is usually in state custody, in pretrial detention under the U.S. Marshals Service, or recorded under a differently spelled committed name. A facility type of RRM means Residential Reentry Management supervision — a halfway house or home confinement — not a prison.

How do I write to someone at FCI Petersburg Medium?

Write to someone at FCI Petersburg Medium at P.O. Box 1000, Petersburg, VA 23804, with the committed name and register number on the first line. The complex’s 2023 inmate information handbook is emphatic on one point: “The name of the institution MUST be spelled out (Federal Correctional Complex) and not abbreviated.”

Personal and legal mail	Freight and non-USPS parcels
Inmate Name & Register Number FCI Petersburg Medium Federal Correctional Institution P.O. Box 1000 Petersburg, VA 23804	Addressed to a staff member, marked “Attn: Warehouse,” at 1060 River Road, Hopewell, VA 23860. Packages need prior authorization or they are rejected

The Bureau records the mailing address in Petersburg City; the prison itself stands in Hopewell City. The mail rules at the Medium are stricter than at the low-security institution on the same campus, and stricter than at most federal prisons. The handbook sets them out:

• Outgoing mail cannot be sealed. “Inmates housed in the Medium institution, including the Special Housing Unit, may not seal their outgoing general correspondence” — the unit officer seals it at collection, and only properly marked special mail goes out sealed. At the Low and the camp it may be sealed.
• Everything incoming is photocopied — letters, photographs, greeting cards and postcards — and what reaches the person is the copy, in color except for personal letters, which arrive in black and white. Original photographs are held 30 days and then destroyed.
• Five sheets per envelope, single-sided, 8.5 by 11 inches, white paper in a white envelope; card stock is rejected unless it is a commercial greeting card. Glitter, stickers, lipstick, crayon, marker, oily substances, perfume and cologne all cause rejection, and so, potentially, does a printed address label: mail “utilizing a label for either the recipient and/or sender may be rejected.”
• Publications, soft covers included, must come from a publisher, bookstore or book club, and books and magazines are limited to five per mailing. A publication arriving with a CD or DVD is returned whole.
• Nothing else comes in by mail: no stamps, stationery, blank envelopes or cards, spiral-bound books or hobby-craft supplies.

One further restriction exists at very few other prisons. Material that “may be risk relevant for sexual offenders (e.g., photographs of individuals who appear to be minors, sexually suggestive photographs, nude/partially nude images, children who are partially clothed)” is “considered contraband at FCC Petersburg (Medium),” restricted “from all inmates at this institution, even in instances where the inmates are allowed to possess these items at other facilities,” and anything explicit that does arrive “may be reviewed by psychology staff in the Sex Offender Management Program for determination of risk relevant material.”

In practice, ordinary family photographs need thought before you mail them: a beach picture of a grandchild, a school swim photo, a birthday party in a wading pool. Each can be rejected here and would not be at most institutions, and if one is, the notice goes to you and to the person inside and both of you can appeal. Our guide to writing to someone in federal prison covers what gets rejected system-wide.

Legal mail is opened in front of the addressee, unread, only if the sender is clearly identified and the front is marked “Special Mail — Open Only in the Presence of the Inmate”; otherwise, the handbook warns, “the mail may be opened, read, and inspected.” Legal and special mail open house at the Medium runs Monday to Friday during morning work call. See attorney-client communication in the Bureau of Prisons.

Never put money in a letter: funds enclosed in correspondence are returned to the sender, and anything else enclosed with a payment is discarded.

How do I send money to someone at FCI Petersburg Medium?

Money for someone at FCI Petersburg Medium never goes to the prison: it goes to the Bureau’s national lockbox in Iowa or through a wire service, and both need the committed name and the eight-digit register number.

Route	Where it goes	How fast it posts
Postal money order	Federal Bureau of Prisons Committed Inmate Name Eight-Digit Register Number Post Office Box 474701 Des Moines, Iowa 50947-0001	U.S. postal money orders post without a hold. Every non-postal money order and non-government check processed through the lockbox carries an automatic 15-day hold
Western Union Quick Collect	Code city FBOP, DC, with the eight-digit register number entered with no spaces or dashes followed immediately by the last name, and the committed full name on the attention line	Two to four hours if sent between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. Eastern, any day including holidays. Anything later posts by 7:00 a.m. the next morning
MoneyGram	Available Bureau-wide under the Bureau’s trust fund rules, Program Statement 4500.13, which direct institutions to give arriving people the Western Union and MoneyGram procedures to forward to family. Confirm the current receive code with the institution before sending	Comparable to Western Union

Personal checks and cash are never accepted, and a wire sent to a wrong register number that “is used and accepted and posted to that inmate” may not be returned. Our guide to sending money compares every route and its cost.

Before sending a large amount, know what it buys: commissary here runs on a two-week cycle capped at a figure the handbook still prints as $180 a period, and money above the ceiling sits in the account. Two statuses lock an account down further — Financial Responsibility Program refusal limits a person to $5.25 a month in maintenance pay and bars UNICOR work, and encumbered status allots “$6.00 per month for toiletries and postage stamps” while court obligations are paid.

What are the visiting hours at FCI Petersburg Medium?

Visiting for the general population at FCI Petersburg Medium runs Saturday and Sunday, 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., under the complex’s January 2023 orientation handbook, the newest Bureau document on the subject. Call 804-504-7200 before you travel: three Bureau documents give three different answers, and the Bureau’s own website gives none.

Which schedule controls, and what to do about it

The three documents, with the date of each:

Bureau document	Date	Visiting days it gives
Complex Supplement PEX-5267.09a, body	January 2, 2021	Friday 5:00–9:00 p.m. (processing ends 8:00 p.m.), plus Saturday, Sunday and federal holidays 8:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m. (processing ends 2:00 p.m.)
Attachment C to the same supplement — the handout sent to approved visitors	January 2, 2021	Monday, Thursday and Friday 5:00–9:00 p.m., plus Saturday, Sunday and federal holidays 8:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m.
FCC Petersburg orientation handbook	January 2023	Saturday and Sunday only, 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. No weekday evening session
bop.gov facility page	2026	The visiting schedule is published empty

The supplement contradicts its own attachment on the same day, and the handbook two years later drops weekday evenings altogether. Weekend and federal-holiday visiting is the reliable part; weekday evening visiting is not. Plan a trip around a Monday or Thursday evening on the strength of a 2021 handout and you may arrive to a closed visiting room.

The Bureau’s page does tell visitors to “call the facility to confirm the visiting schedule before departing for your visit.” The number for this institution is 804-504-7200. The Bureau posts the supplement but does not link it from the facility page.

Special Housing Unit visits run on a separate system: Monday only, by video, by appointment requested by cop-out to the SHU Lieutenant at least a week ahead, in slots of 2:30 to 4:30 p.m., 4:40 to 6:40 p.m. and 6:50 to 8:50 p.m. The visitor sits in a video room inside the general visiting room; the person in the SHU is escorted to a holding cell at the other end.

Who can visit, and how many

• Six visitors at a time, and children count: “all children, regardless of age, will be counted as an adult, as it relates to the number of visitors allowed in the visiting room.” Exceeding six takes a written request through the Unit Manager two weeks ahead, and is not ordinarily granted on a holiday.
• Immediate family on the list are unlimited and are verified from the presentence report by the Correctional Counselor; other relatives and friends together are capped at ten and need a background check, begun by the incarcerated person mailing out form BP-629 for the visitor to sign and return to the counselor. Only immediate family may appear on more than one person’s list, and lists are amended quarterly.
• A felony conviction does not automatically bar a visitor — it goes to the Associate Warden — but failing to disclose a prior conviction is itself a reason for denial. A visitor under supervision files written approval from their probation officer with the application.
• Children under 16 need not be on the list but must be with a responsible adult. A 16- or 17-year-old visiting alone needs a Parental Visiting Consent Form, which the unit team verifies by telephoning the parent.
• Ten visiting points a month: a weekend or federal-holiday visit costs two, a weekday visit one, any part of a day counts as a whole point, and unused points are canceled at month end. Extra points for a long-distance visitor must be approved by the Unit Manager and notified to the visiting room by memorandum before the visit.
• The posted safe occupancy of the visiting room is 320. Above it the Operations Lieutenant asks for volunteers, then weighs whether a visitor is local, how often they visit and how far they came; everyone gets a minimum of two hours before termination is considered.
• Non-contact visiting is not used at this complex. Handshaking, embracing and a kiss are permitted at the beginning and end of a visit.
• The Medium has a dedicated children’s play room stocked with books and toys. No incarcerated person may enter it at any time.

Attorneys work on a different schedule: legal visits Monday to Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., arranged with unit team at least 24 hours ahead on a Visiting Attorney Statement (BP-241), with a paralegal admitted on a BP-242 reviewed in advance. An attorney who visits socially is on the visiting list, costs the client points, and may not hand over documents.

What visitors can wear and bring

The color rules turn away more people at the door than anything else. No solid khaki, tan or orange at the Medium — khaki is the uniform here — and no solid gray sweats, medical scrubs, military-style or camouflage clothing.

Beyond color: shorts, culottes and skirts within three inches of the knee and no high splits; nothing see-through, tight-fitting or midriff-baring; no tank tops, spaghetti straps, halters or camisoles; sleeves for male visitors and a jacket over any sleeveless top; proper undergarments. Sandals are acceptable but the 2023 handbook rules out flip-flops, and children 12 and under may wear shorts.

You may carry in up to $40 per adult for the vending machines, in a transparent change purse no larger than 5 by 8 by 4 inches holding only money and identification. For an infant: three diapers, two sealed containers of baby food, three bottles, a crib-size blanket and one small diaper bag, which may also carry sanitary napkins. Carriers and strollers stay outside, and no food comes in — everything is from the vending machines and must be eaten during the visit.

Medication is the exception families most often get wrong. Inhalers, insulin pumps, nitroglycerin and oxygen tanks may come in, held at the officer’s station for the visitor’s own use, in the original container labeled with the visitor’s first and last name. No visitor may ever bring medication in for the person they are visiting.

Nothing may be handed over — no gifts, packages, messages or photographs, and no money left with staff. The person you are visiting may bring only a wedding band, prescription glasses and authorized religious jewelry, and at the Medium must sit facing the visiting room desk.

Photo identification must be a valid, unexpired state or government-issued photo card; birth certificates and social security cards are not accepted, and visitors under 16 with a parent or guardian are exempt. Everyone clears a metal detector and x-ray screening, and a medical condition does not exempt you: bring documentation naming the condition and the restriction at every visit, because it “does not exempt the visitor and their property from clearing the electronic screening.” All visitors face random screening with an electronic drug detection device, and refusing it means being refused entry; anyone showing signs of recent drinking — “odor, confusion, loss of balance” — is not permitted to visit. Handbags and keys go into a lobby locker or stay in the car, and on the way out every visitor is identified again by photo identification and under black light. See the Bureau’s visiting regulations and rules on searching visitors, our page on searches, shakedowns and contraband, and our guide to federal prison visitation.

Getting there

From Interstate 95 in Colonial Heights take Exit 54 toward Temple Avenue, follow Temple Avenue (Route 144 East) about three and a half miles, then turn left onto River Road (Route 725) for about three and a half miles. River Road reaches the low-security institution and the camp first; for the Medium keep going about a tenth of a mile further and turn left onto Magnolia Road. Visitor parking is left of the administration building; report to the front lobby officer.

There are no mass transit buses to the institution, so visitors arriving by Greyhound or Amtrak have to take a taxi. The Corrections Information Council put the drive from Washington at 134 miles and 2.4 hours in 2016, and at about 150 driving miles in 2022.

How do phone calls and email work at FCI Petersburg Medium?

Calls from FCI Petersburg Medium go outward only — you cannot call in — and your number has to be on an approved list of up to 30, added by the person inside through TRULINCS. The Bureau-wide allowance is 510 minutes a calendar month under the Bureau’s telephone regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, issued September 3, 2026: 300 free to anyone eligible for First Step Act telephone incentives, and 210 more that anyone may buy after using up the 300. A single call should generally not exceed 15 minutes, at least 30 minutes must pass between completed calls, and the monthly limit does not apply to unmonitored legal calls. At Petersburg the allowance resets on a date derived from the register number: fifth digit, times three, plus one, so a fifth digit of 3 resets on the tenth. That formula governs telephone minutes and the monthly revalidation date for anyone in financial-responsibility refusal status; it does not set the ordinary commissary validation date, which is the first and the fifteenth.

Phone hours here are unusually restrictive during the working day:

• Every evening, 4:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m.; weekends and holidays, 6:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
• Monday to Friday the only window open to everyone is 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Outside it a single unit phone runs 7:30 to 10:30 a.m. and 12:30 to 4:30 p.m., and only for people on the afternoon shift, a scheduled day off or vacation — so a weekday call at any other hour is not something to count on.
• Phones go down 30 minutes to an hour before and during every count.

Before anyone can call, they register their voice with the V-PIN system. Sharing an access code, three-way and conference calling, phone cards and call forwarding are all prohibited and all cost phone privileges; a replacement access code costs $5.00 on a BP-199. See federal inmate phone calls for the national rules and costs.

Email runs on TRULINCS, which families reach through CorrLinks; nothing passes until the person inside adds your address and you accept the invitation. Email with a lawyer is not privileged; privileged writing goes by marked special mail. See CorrLinks and TRULINCS.

What can people buy at the FCI Petersburg Medium commissary?

People at FCI Petersburg Medium buy from a complex-wide commissary sheet, within the Bureau’s national spending limit of $460 a month. The trust fund rules, Program Statement 4500.13, issued May 7, 2026, record the change in their own log: “Increases spending limit from $360 to $460 per month.” The limit rises by $50 during the November and December holiday period, for no more than one validation period.

Petersburg runs on a two-week cycle rather than a monthly one, which the program statement expressly allows: the limit “is automatically revalidated once per month for each inmate except where weekly or bi-weekly validation is used.” The 2023 handbook prints the local figure as “$180.00” every other week, validated on the first and the fifteenth — $360 a month, which is exactly the national ceiling superseded in May 2026. Treat it as the last number this prison printed, not the current one, and have the unit team confirm the present biweekly limit before you plan around it.

Some purchases, such as stamps and over-the-counter medications, do not count against the limit; the program statement lists them.

The shopping rules are printed on the sales sheet itself, in capitals: “EACH INMATE AT THE MEDIUM INSTITUTION IS AFFORDED THE PRIVILEGE TO SHOP ONCE BI-WEEKLY… INMATES MUST BE PRESENT IN THE COMMISSARY WHEN CALLED TO SHOP OR THEY WILL FORFEIT THEIR PRIVILEGES FOR THE WEEK. NO ADDITIONS OR SUBSTITUTIONS WILL BE TAKEN AT THE WINDOW.” Missing your call is not rescheduled, so a callout that collides with the commissary window costs two weeks, not one.

The sales sheet in force (2025) covers the whole complex, with items labeled K for kosher, H for halal, G for gluten free and S for soy free. Typewriter ribbons, print wheels, carbon paper and typing paper are all still stocked, a sign of how much legal work is still typed here. Reading glasses come in fixed strengths from 1.15 to 3.50. Our page on the federal prison commissary covers the national rules.

What programs are available at FCI Petersburg Medium?

FCI Petersburg Medium offers sex offender treatment, the Residential Drug Abuse Program, literacy and GED classes, vocational training, UNICOR work, religious services and release preparation.

The Sex Offender Management Program

The Sex Offender Management Program defines the institution, and two of its three components are not optional.

The Bureau’s First Step Act Approved Programs Guide (2026) lists the Non-Residential Sex Offender Treatment Program at exactly nine institutions, FCI Petersburg Medium among them: 144 credit hours, delivered by Psychology Services under the Bureau’s sex offender program rules, Program Statement 5324.10, voluntary, screened by a risk assessment tool, and ordinarily taken in the last 36 to 48 months of a sentence. The residential version runs at only two Bureau institutions, and Petersburg is not one.

The management program around the treatment is wider, and the handbook is blunt about which parts can be declined. It applies “regardless of whether the sexual offense behavior is associated with the inmate’s current offense,” and assessment is non-voluntary: “Assessment of recidivism risk will be completed for all inmates with a sexual offending history prior to their release.” Treatment is voluntary; monitoring is not, and someone who “engage[s] in risk relevant behavior while incarcerated” may be given a Correctional Management Plan.

A Correctional Management Plan is not a disciplinary sanction and gets no disciplinary hearing, but the Council recorded the Bureau saying in 2022 that each person referred to the program “is given a Correctional Management Plan which may include restrictions on communication, visitation, and property.” The handbook adds the part families rarely see coming: “Risk relevant information obtained from inmates, or obtained about inmates during the course of their incarceration, is not considered to be confidential,” and it may be “reviewed in association with formal evaluation procedures utilized in the determination of whether an individual meets criteria for designation as a Sexually Dangerous Person, pursuant to the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006.”

What someone says to a psychologist here can end up in a certification proceeding that keeps them in custody past the end of the sentence. That is a reason to take advice before a program interview, not to refuse one — refusal carries its own consequences for halfway house placement and the record.

How much of the population this affects has only one published answer, and it is old: the Council, reporting on an August 2014 visit, found “approximately 48%” of the Medium’s population convicted of sex offenses. Nothing newer has been published.

One more consequence, from the visiting supplement: unit teams evaluate everyone for a sex offense involving a minor, and where the criterion is met an annotation goes into the visiting computer system — “This inmate was convicted of a sex offense involving a minor” — and it drives the visiting restrictions that follow.

RDAP and drug treatment

The Residential Drug Abuse Program runs here, and the Bureau’s 2026 programs guide lists FCI Petersburg Medium among its Mid-Atlantic Region locations.

The handbook sets the timing: “Inmates interested in participating are interviewed typically between 24 to 36 months from their projected release date” — miss that window and the math stops working. And: “Only inmates found eligible to participate in RDAP will have their legal record reviewed by Central Office to determine if they will receive early release.” Program eligibility and eligibility for the year off under 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e) are separate decisions by different offices, the second only after the first.

The Council recorded the RDAP unit as accredited by the American Psychological Association, with capacity for 95 and a complex-wide waiting list of 55 in March 2016. A non-residential program and drug education are also offered, and psychology staff told the Council in 2021 that medication-assisted treatment is available. Our RDAP guide explains the program nationally.

Education and vocational training

Under the Bureau’s literacy rules, anyone without a high school diploma or GED must attend literacy classes. Adult continuing education is taught by incarcerated people under staff oversight, and there is a general library, inter-library loan through the Appomattox Regional Library, and an electronic law library running LexisNexis. Post-secondary study is by correspondence at the student’s own expense, pre-approved by the Supervisor of Education so the mailroom will accept the materials.

The 2023 handbook lists four vocational programs — Building and Trades, Custodial Maintenance, Culinary Arts and Machine Shop. Older lists name different ones, so ask the unit team what is running. UNICOR here is a distribution center rather than a factory, sorting and repackaging “at least 48 different styles of clothing hangers” for a private vendor and assembling toiletry kits, and part of it is not paid hourly at all: the Council found in 2021 that those workers are “paid a ‘piece rate,’ meaning paid by the number of units completed.” Its waiting list runs by category rather than date, First Step Act list first, and anyone in financial-responsibility refusal status cannot work there. The Bureau’s work and pay rules apply.

The 2021 inspection shows how far enrollment figures can drift. Before the visit the Bureau told the Council that 32 of roughly 1,500 people at the Medium were in the GED program; during the visit staff said 93; afterward the Bureau said one DC resident was enrolled, while ten had told inspectors in person that they were in classes. Four men studying for or tutoring the GED said testing had not resumed after seven months of classes. Executive staff called it “active and ongoing”; the Bureau’s written response said it “resumed as of March 2022.” See prison education and vocational training.

Faith-based and reentry programming

Religious Services recognizes 24 faith communities and runs an indoor chapel, an outdoor worship area and a sweat lodge. One local rule is easy to break by accident (see our guide to religious programs in prison): congregational prayer — “any prayer involving more than two persons” — is authorized only in the chapel, not in education, recreation, work details or the housing units.

The 2023 handbook starts the Release Preparation Program 30 months before release, treats refusing any core course as refusing to program — ordinarily meaning a recommendation for the minimum halfway house time — and reviews halfway house placement 17 to 19 months out, with the referral packet due at least 60 days before the requested date once a release address is approved. The Bureau’s release preparation rules, Program Statement 5325.09 (2026), which now govern, enroll people “between 18 and 24 months prior to” departure. It adds that a refuser “will not ordinarily participate in an RRC,” meaning a halfway house, but “should not be automatically excluded from consideration for RRC referral.” The Bureau’s halfway house placement procedures govern the referral itself.

Whether any of this is running is a separate question from whether it is approved. The 2021 inspection found the Medium’s Reentry Affairs Coordinator on leave during the visit, and recorded that “only two individuals at the Medium reported having ever met with the Re-entry Affairs Coordinator.”

First Step Act credits and DC Code sentences

First Step Act time credits are earned only for completing a program — “No credits will be awarded for partial completion” — and they are not available to everyone. The handbook lists the excluded groups: “They DO NOT apply to military prisoners, state boarders, inmates convicted in DC Superior Court, or inmates with a final order of deportation.”

That third category matters here. FCC Petersburg holds a large District of Columbia Code population — 127 people at the Medium alone in November 2021 — and the Council quoted the Bureau’s own rule: any person “sentenced to a term of imprisonment under the Criminal Code of the District of Columbia is, at present, not eligible to apply FSA Time Credits unless the laws of the District of Columbia are amended to authorize the application of such credits,” from the preamble to its First Step Act Time Credits final rule of January 19, 2022.

The practical result is two men in the same program, on the same unit, doing the same hours, one shortening his sentence and one not. Three men told the Council that unit staff did not understand DC Code sentences at all; one put it this way: “Counselors don’t know how to process a DC inmate. We get treated like federal prisoners when it’s in the BOP’s best interest and like DC Code Offenders when it’s not.” A related problem surfaced in 2014 and was never resolved: people serving indeterminate DC sentences were assessed for program eligibility against the back number rather than the front, which on a parolable sentence can mean being told you are too far from release to enroll in anything.

What is daily life like at FCI Petersburg Medium?

Daily life at FCI Petersburg Medium means cell housing, a khaki uniform, five counts a day and a fixed schedule for meals, work, sick call and telephones.

The shape of the day

The table below is from the complex’s 2023 handbook. Schedules change without notice; read it as the shape of a day rather than a guarantee.

	Weekdays	Weekends and federal holidays
Counts	12:01 a.m., 3:00 a.m., 5:00 a.m., 4:00 p.m., 9:30 p.m.	The same, plus 10:00 a.m. The 10:00 a.m., 4:00 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. counts are stand-up counts
Breakfast	6:00–7:00 a.m.	7:00–8:00 a.m.
Lunch	10:45 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Food service workers eat early chow, 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Dinner	After the 4:00 p.m. count clears, for about an hour
Work hours	6:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m., in khaki uniform	The weekend runs from 4:00 p.m. Friday to 6:00 a.m. Monday
Controlled movement	Five minutes before the hour to five minutes past, announced over the loudspeaker
Sick call	Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, on an 8:30 a.m. move announced for sick call only	None
Telephones	10:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. and 4:30–11:30 p.m. for everyone	6:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Recreation	The department opens at 6:30 a.m.

The uniform here is khaki; the camp wears green. Shirts tucked in, pants at the waist, see-through soles, sweatshirts and thermals under the uniform during work hours. Identification cards must be carried at all times and produced at every meal — arrive without one and you eat at last call.

Library copies cost ten cents a page, with $5.00 a month free for people who are indigent, and anything made in hobby craft must be mailed home at the maker’s expense within 30 days. Property limits are tight: three current newspapers, five magazines no more than 30 days old and five books in the room; one Walkman-type radio or MP3 player with no CD or tape function; one watch; a plain wedding band and, with approval, a religious medal without stones, both under $100 in declared value.

One local procedure is unusual. Transgender people may ask the Warden in writing to be pat searched by staff of the opposite sex, and if the request is approved, “the inmate will receive a new I.D. card with a purple ribbon added in the photo. This is the only form of verification needed to be presented prior to a pat search by the opposite sex.” The person presents the card and says, “I am requesting a female to conduct this pat search”; if a female officer is available the search stops until she arrives. The 2023 PREA audit counted 61 people at the complex identifying as transgender or intersex.

Housing and the Special Housing Unit

Housing at the Medium is cells rather than dormitories, with televisions, telephones, TRULINCS terminals and microwaves in the common area. The Corrections Information Council found six units of about 130 people each, two to four per cell, in August 2014, and seven units in December 2021. Neither figure is current.

The Special Housing Unit at the Medium is the only one on this campus: both Council reports say it serves the entire complex, the low-security institution and the satellite camp included. It was designed to hold 212 people, with an average stay of 14 days. In August 2014 it held 98, including ten holdovers awaiting transfer; by March 2016 it held 131, including 24 DC residents awaiting transfer. It takes both disciplinary cases and administrative detention, which includes protective custody.

The Council’s record of conditions there is mixed and dated. On one side: unit team rounds daily, medical twice a day with a Health Services satellite office inside the unit, psychology once a day, a law computer with LexisNexis, commissary access and cell-study education. On the other, in December 2021 eight people told inspectors the toilet paper issued in the SHU was insufficient, describing it as “a small glasses wipe” and “napkins instead of toilet paper”; the Bureau answered that the unit issues it three times a week and that “inmates are expected to utilize toilet paper for its intended purpose.” Our page on solitary confinement and special housing units covers the rules and the review clocks.

Health care, sick call and the co-pay

This is a Medical Care Level 2 and Mental Health Care Level 2 institution. Sick call runs Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday on an 8:30 a.m. move announced for sick call only, with requests collected from a Health Services box between 7:00 and 7:30 each morning and anything later held to the next day. There is no sick call on weekends or federal holidays, and no medical appointments at all on Wednesdays, which are reserved for admission and orientation examinations. Providers are assigned by the last two digits of the register number.

A $2.00 co-payment applies to visits the person initiates; preventive, chronic and emergency care are free. Chronic care patients see a physician at least every twelve months, and medical idles are capped at three calendar days.

Pill lines run Monday to Friday — insulin 6:00 to 7:00 a.m., morning 7:00 to 7:30, noon 11:30 to 12:30, insulin again after the 4:00 p.m. count and an evening line at mainline — with the weekend and holiday insulin line at 7:30 a.m. The handbook flags one thing in bold of its own: “11:30 a.m. is the only time medication pick up is available.” People who are indigent collect an over-the-counter medication form at the Wednesday 7:00 a.m. pill line and the medication at 11:30 the same day.

The dental rule is the one that costs people the most. Routine care is worked off a chronological waiting list you join by written request, and the handbook states the consequence of missing a single appointment: “If an inmate misses an appointment following the cleaning, the inmate will be removed from the Dental Treatment Waiting List. The inmate will be placed on the bottom of the list after submitting another cop-out.” One man told the Council in 2021 that “dental is about 5 years behind on waiting list”; in 2014 the Council found the facility making dentures for people who had submitted requests in 2011.

The pharmacy at the Medium serves the whole complex, and medication reaches the SHU cell-side from a cart. In December 2021 the weekday complement was one doctor, two nurse practitioners, one physician assistant and two nurses, with one or two covering nights and weekends, and two dentists for the institution. An orthopedist, a cardiologist and a general surgeon visit monthly; anything else is an outside trip. See medical care in federal prison and the Bureau’s patient care rules for how to escalate when treatment is not happening.

What do inspectors say about conditions at FCI Petersburg Medium?

Three bodies have looked at FCI Petersburg Medium: the Justice Department’s Inspector General, in nationwide reviews rather than facility inspections; the District of Columbia’s Corrections Information Council, twice, because DC residents are held here; and an independent auditor under the Prison Rape Elimination Act, most recently in 2023. Nothing in that record is less than two and a half years old.

What the Inspector General has and has not done

The DOJ Office of the Inspector General has not conducted an on-site inspection of this facility. Its inspection program had reached 14 BOP institutions on its own May 2026 count (Report 26-055). It has, though, named a Petersburg institution in four published reviews — of inmate telephone privileges in 1999, the Bureau’s disciplinary system in 2004, the international prisoner transfer program in 2011 and restrictive housing for prisoners with mental illness in 2017. The 1999 review lists the Petersburg prison its team visited in 1998 as “Federal Correctional Institution Petersburg, VA — Low,” which is FCI Petersburg Low, not this institution; the 2004 review names “the FCI in Petersburg” without saying which one. The two later reviews included site visits:

• December 2011, Review of the Department of Justice’s International Prisoner Transfer Program (E&I Report I-2012-002). The Inspector General “conducted site visits to five prisons,” Petersburg among them. The report does not date the visit.
• July 2017, Review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Use of Restrictive Housing for Inmates with Mental Illness (E&I Report 17-05). FCC Petersburg was one of seven institutions visited in 2015, selected “based on their special RHU programs or the large number of inmates with mental illness in their RHUs.” Six of the seven were understaffed by at least one mental health post.

The 2022 inspection

The Corrections Information Council visited on December 4–6, 2021, and published its inspection report on September 9, 2022. Inspectors spoke with about 40 people at the Medium, all of them DC residents who volunteered, out of 127 DC Code offenders within a Medium population of 1,502. The complex held 2,272 that month against a rated capacity of 2,210.

One finding concerns access rather than conditions. “The team was not allowed to tour housing units at either facility at FCI Petersburg. When asked to provide justification for the denial, the Warden stated that they looked no different than the residential programming units that the CIC had toured, so there was no need to see a housing unit.” The Bureau also declined to give the rated capacity of each institution separately; the 2,210 figure came from a PREA audit, not from its answer.

• Water. Four of the forty respondents at the Medium reported leaks in three different housing units. “An individual on the B North unit said that water runs down the walls in that unit so often that he has devised a system to channel the water from the walls to his trash can.” Another said lockers had been taken off the walls because of mold behind them. Inspectors could not confirm it, having been refused entry, but did record water stains and peeling paint on the staff dining room ceiling.
• Medical response. Of 35 people who answered, 21 said medical did not respond to a sick call request within 48 hours and 11 said it did; three said 2 to 3 weeks passed between the slip and the provider. Five raised concerns about deaths from lack of care; the Bureau’s own figures listed one death at the Medium that year, from natural causes.
• Staff. Asked whether unit officers are respectful and professional, 35 answered: 17 usually, 11 sometimes, 7 rarely; on responsiveness to emergencies, 36 answered 21 usually, 11 sometimes, 3 rarely. Two people said staff had refused to give them grievance forms; four described verbal harassment, one adding that “if you respond back they will write you up and send you to the hole.”
• Violence. “Individuals who spoke with the CIC reported little or no physical violence at FCC Petersburg.” That is the Council’s first listed key finding.
• Grievances, from the Council’s earlier report on an August 18, 2014, visit. The Bureau’s own administrative remedy tallies for July 2013 to June 2014: at the institution, 160 medical grievances submitted, 38 rejected without reaching the merits, 122 filed, 4 answered, 1 granted; on appeal, 101 disciplinary hearing appeals produced 6 grants and 30 medical appeals to the Central Office produced none. Rejection on procedure is the common outcome and a grant is rare, which is an argument for getting the administrative remedy paperwork right the first time rather than skipping the process. That visit also found the Medium holding 1,702 people against a rated capacity of 1,108, with “one doctor (32 staff total) for the entire Petersburg complex.”

The 2023 PREA audit

FCC Petersburg was audited under the Prison Rape Elimination Act on October 31 to November 2, 2023, by Lori M. Fadorick, an independent auditor subcontracted by PREA Auditors of America, and the final report is dated December 18, 2023.

The complex passed: 43 standards met, two exceeded — employee training, and cooperation with criminal and administrative investigations — and none unmet. Unlike the DC inspectors, the auditor recorded that “the auditors had full, unimpeded access to all areas of the facility.” It is also the most detailed public description of the complex.

Designed capacity	2,210
Population on day one of the audit	2,360
Average daily population, previous 12 months	2,451 — and the audit records that the complex was over capacity at some point in that year
Housing units	19 across the complex
Age range	19 to 88 at the Medium
Staff who may have inmate contact	467
Contractors / volunteers on site	8 / 7
Limited English proficient	124
Identifying as transgender or intersex	61
Disclosed prior sexual victimization at screening	210
Held in segregation for risk of sexual victimization	0 in the past 12 months

In the twelve months before the audit the complex recorded 19 allegations of sexual abuse — 18 between incarcerated people, one staff-on-inmate — and 13 of sexual harassment, seven between incarcerated people and six staff-on-inmate, none referred for criminal investigation. Three abuse allegations were unfounded, fifteen unsubstantiated, none substantiated, and one still open: the staff-on-inmate case. Of the harassment allegations, two were unfounded, five unsubstantiated, none substantiated and six still open — which is every single staff-on-inmate complaint. Zero substantiated allegations is only as strong as the investigations behind it, and at the time of the audit every staff-on-inmate harassment investigation was unfinished.

Two further details carry practical weight. Forensic examinations are not performed at the prison — a person who reports a sexual assault is taken to a community hospital for examination by a sexual assault nurse examiner — and the complex has a standing agreement with The James House, a local victim services organization, for advocacy there. Its 24-hour line, 804-458-2840, is printed in the handbook.

Staffing at the complex

The PREA audit’s staffing section gives two different pictures. The auditor recorded that the staffing plan “is based on 2,210 inmates,” that “the facility employs 467 staff,” that policy requires a vacancy rate no higher than ten percent over any eighteen-month period, and that the facility reported “no deviations from the staffing plan” in the previous twelve months, held there through voluntary or mandated overtime and augmentation with non-custody staff.

Then, in the same passage: “At the time on the on-site review, the Warden stated that the facility was at 72% staffing.”

Both sentences are the Warden’s, recorded by the same auditor on the same visit. A 72% staffing level is well outside the ten percent vacancy ceiling the auditor quoted from policy. The Bureau gave “extreme staffing challenges” as one of its two stated reasons for closing the institution next door three years later, and staffing is the reason a callout is canceled, a dental appointment slips, or a reentry coordinator is on leave with no one covering the post.

Litigation

No published decision adjudicates conditions at the medium-security institution itself. One recent appellate decision arises from this complex and matters to anyone considering a lawsuit here. In Longworth v. Mansukhani, 134 F.4th 755 (4th Cir. 2025) — abuse alleged at FCI Butner, harassing letters said to have followed the plaintiff to FCI Petersburg Low — the Fourth Circuit held that the Federal Tort Claims Act’s judgment bar, 28 U.S.C. § 2676, forecloses a Bivens action against the employees involved once final judgment has entered on an FTCA claim on the same subject matter. That is about sequencing, not merits: the order in which the two are resolved can extinguish one, which is why Federal Tort Claims Act claims and constitutional claims should be planned together. See the Bureau’s tort claim rules.

Tort and small claims cannot be filed at the prison. The handbook is specific: a Standard Form 95 or a small claims request must be mailed by the incarcerated person directly to the Regional Counsel at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Office, not handed to staff at Petersburg.

FCI Petersburg Medium in the news

Recent news about FCI Petersburg Medium centers on the closure of the Low next door, three deaths at the complex and a drone-smuggling indictment, all in 2026; older items concern GED testing, staff bribery and deaths in 2020 and 2022.

• July 2026 — the Bureau announced the closure of FCI Petersburg Low, one of six institutions on the list, citing deferred maintenance and staffing. Two months later the low-security institution’s published population is zero and the camp beside it still holds 216 people.
• June 2026 — the Bureau reported that Jonathan Exum, 41, “became unresponsive” at FCI Petersburg Medium at about 11:05 p.m. on June 27 and was taken to a local hospital, where he was “pronounced deceased by hospital personnel.” He was serving a 12-month term imposed in D.C. Superior Court for a supervised release violation and had been in custody at FCI Petersburg since June 24, 2026. It was the third death at the complex in six weeks: John Archie McNeill Jr., 38, at the low-security institution on June 20, and Derrick Leysath, 22, at the Medium on May 15.
• June 2026 — a federal grand jury in the Middle District of Georgia indicted twelve people for using six drones to drop contraband into ten federal prisons at least 38 times between September 2023 and May 2026, FCC Petersburg among the ten. The alleged contraband included drugs, cell phones and “objects including saw blades designed and intended to be used as weapons and to facilitate escape.” None of the four incarcerated defendants named was at Petersburg, and an indictment is an allegation only.
• May 2026 — the Bureau reported that Derrick Leysath “was found unresponsive” at FCI Petersburg Medium at about 3:45 p.m. on May 15, 2026, and, after life-saving measures, was “pronounced deceased by EMS personnel.”
• October 2020 and July 2022 — the Bureau posted two news releases reporting the deaths of people held at FCI Petersburg Medium; the Bureau’s releases are listed on its press release page.
• March 2022 — the Bureau told DC inspectors that GED testing at the Medium had resumed and that the education department was staffed at 95%.
• September 2021 — two former Bureau employees at FCI Petersburg were sentenced in the Eastern District of Virginia for bribes taken between October 2017 and April 2019: a case manager four years, a correctional officer ten months. The announcement does not say which institution of the complex they worked in.

Frequently asked questions about FCI Petersburg Medium

Problems at FCI Petersburg Medium: where we can help

The problems that recur at this institution are the ones a Sex Offender Management Program designation creates, and the ones two independent inspections found here twice: a Public Safety Factor that overrides a point score, a management plan imposed without a hearing, and medical and dental care that does not arrive. Every route out of them runs on a deadline that is easy to miss.

• Designation and Public Safety Factors. A Public Safety Factor overrides a security point score, and the Sex Offender factor can be applied on the strength of language in a presentence report without a conviction on that conduct. Only the DSCC Administrator can waive one, and the argument starts with the presentence report.
• Correctional Management Plans, which can restrict communication, visitation and property without a disciplinary hearing — and what is said to program staff is expressly not confidential. Get advice before an interview.
• Transfers after the closure next door. If one moved someone far from family, redesignation is a request that can be made and supported.
• Medical and dental care that is not happening — the leading complaint in both independent inspections of this institution. The route is a written request to staff, then the administrative remedy process, and every rung has a clock on it.
• RDAP eligibility and the year off under 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e): the 2023 handbook puts the interview typically 24 to 36 months before release, and eligibility for the program is decided separately from eligibility for early release.
• First Step Act time credits — whether they are being earned, calculated and applied correctly, and what alternatives exist for people serving DC Code sentences who cannot earn them at all — and halfway house placement, reviewed 17 to 19 months before release under the complex’s 2023 handbook.
• Disciplinary proceedings that threaten good conduct time, Special Housing Unit placements that outlast their justification, compassionate release under the Bureau’s reduction-in-sentence rules, sentence computation errors and other routes to early release.
• 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. Calls are answered 24 hours a day. Call (843) 620-1100 or contact us to arrange a paid one-hour consultation about a specific situation. Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA is the firm’s Managing Director and writes its federal prison policy material; he is not counsel of record. Legal representation is provided by Elizabeth Franklin-Best.

Sources and currency

Bureau of Prisons documents

• FCI Petersburg Medium, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026.
• FCC Petersburg Inmate Information Handbook, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2023.
• FCC Petersburg Complex Supplement PEX-5267.09a, Visiting Regulations, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2021. Replaced PEX-5267.09 (2016).
• FCC Petersburg Commissary Sales Sheet, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2025.
• Population Statistics, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026.
• Trust Fund/Deposit Fund Manual, Program Statement 4500.13, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Sets the $460 commissary spending limit.
• Inmate Security Designation and Custody Classification, Program Statement 5100.08, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2006, as amended in 2026.
• Inmate Telephone Regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Replaced Program Statement 5264.08 (2008).
• Sex Offender Programs, Program Statement 5324.10, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2025.
• Release Preparation Program, Program Statement 5325.09, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026.
• First Step Act Approved Programs Guide, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Reentry Services Division, 2026.
• Federal Bureau of Prisons Announces Facility Closures and Operational Changes, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026.
• Death at FCI Petersburg Medium, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Press release on the death of Jonathan Exum.
• Death at FCI Petersburg Medium, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Press release on the death of Derrick Leysath.
• Press Releases, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2022. Includes the October 2020 and July 2022 releases reporting deaths at FCI Petersburg Medium.

Audits and inspections

• PREA Facility Audit Report: Final, FCC Petersburg, PREA Auditors of America, 2023. Audit conducted by Lori M. Fadorick.
• FCC Petersburg Inspection Report, District of Columbia Corrections Information Council, 2022. Inspection of December 2021, with the Bureau’s response.
• FCI Petersburg Medium Inspection Report, District of Columbia Corrections Information Council, 2016. Inspection of August 2014, with the Bureau’s response.
• Inspection of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ U.S. Penitentiary Canaan (Report 26-055), U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2026. Includes the Inspector General’s count of institutions inspected since 2023.
• Review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Use of Restrictive Housing for Inmates with Mental Illness, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2017. Evaluation and Inspections Report 17-05.
• Review of the Department of Justice’s International Prisoner Transfer Program, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2011. Report I-2012-002.
• Review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Disciplinary System, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2004. Report I-2004-008, on the discipline of Bureau employees.
• Criminal Calls: A Review of the Bureau of Prisons’ Management of Inmate Telephone Privileges, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 1999.

Court records

• United States v. Jackson, No. 5:26-cr-00026 (M.D. Ga.), U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia, 2026.
• Twelve Indicted in Alleged Drone Smuggling Conspiracy at Ten Prisons, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Middle District of Georgia, 2026.
• Longworth v. Mansukhani, 134 F.4th 755 (4th Cir. 2025), U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, 2025.
• Former Army Soldier Sentenced to Concurrent Sentences of Life For Sexually Abusing Two Children, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Georgia, 2025. Austin Michael Burak’s sentence.
• Two Former Bureau of Prisons Officials Sentenced for Bribery Scheme at Federal Prison in Petersburg, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Virginia, 2021.
• Press release on the sentencing of Brian Tod Schellenberger, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of North Carolina, 2005.
• United States v. Ronghi, 60 M.J. 83 (C.A.A.F. 2004), U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, 2004.

News and other sources

• 41-Year-Old Inmate Dies After Being Found Unresponsive at FCI Petersburg Medium, WRIC ABC 8News, 2026.
• Prince George Federal Prison Closing Due to Expensive, Decades-Old Maintenance and Staffing Issues, WRIC ABC 8News, 2026.
• Bureau Of Prisons Announces Multiple Facility Closings Citing Budget, Forbes (Walter Pavlo), 2026.
• 38-Year-Old Inmate Dies in Prince George Federal Prison, WRIC ABC 8News, 2026.
• 22-Year-Old Man Dies in Prince George Federal Prison Two Weeks After He Arrived, WRIC ABC 8News, 2026.
• 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e), Imprisonment of a convicted person, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 28 U.S.C. § 2676, Judgment as bar, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).

Sources reviewed September 2026.

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