FCI Schuylkill: Visiting, RDAP and What Inspectors Found

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

FCI Schuylkill at a glance

FCI Schuylkill is a medium-security federal prison for men at Minersville, Pennsylvania, with a minimum-security satellite camp beside it. As of September 2026 it held 1,262 people: 987 inside the fence and 275 at the camp. It sits in Schuylkill County, in the anthracite coal country of eastern Pennsylvania, and serves the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

Official name	Federal Correctional Institution, Schuylkill
BOP code	SCH
Security level	Medium; men
Population	1,262 (as of September 2026) · 987 at the FCI, 275 at the camp
Visiting	Saturdays, Sundays and federal holidays, 8:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m., FCI and camp · see visiting hours
Inmate mail	FCI: Inmate Name & Register Number · FCI Schuylkill · Federal Correctional Institution · P.O. Box 759 · Minersville, PA 17954 Camp: Inmate Name & Register Number · FCI Schuylkill · Federal Correctional Institution · Satellite Camp · P.O. Box 670 · Minersville, PA 17954
Send money	Lockbox · Western Union (code city FBOP, DC) · MoneyGram (receive code 7932)
Phone	570-544-7100 · Fax 570-544-7224
Street address	Interstate 81 & 901 W, Minersville, PA 17954 · Schuylkill County
Judicial district	Middle District of Pennsylvania
BOP region	Northeast
Designated capacity	714 at the FCI · 296 at the camp · see capacity figures
Housing	Multiple-occupancy cells at the FCI · open-bay dormitories at the camp
Special Housing Unit	Yes · 48 segregation cells
Medical care level	Level 2 · health services by an outside contractor
RDAP	Yes, at the FCI · not at the camp
UNICOR	Yes · electronics recycling
Camp	Minimum-security satellite camp for men, adjacent to the institution

The institution belongs to the Bureau’s Northeast Region. The District of Columbia’s Corrections Information Council has inspected it twice, in April 2014 and again in April 2025, and the later report describes staffing, lockdowns, medical care and programs in detail.

Two prisons share this address. Check which one first.

FCI Schuylkill and its satellite camp share one address but not one mailbox, so check which side a person is on before you write. The institution has no street number: the Bureau lists it at the junction of Interstate 81 and Route 901 West. Mail to the prison and mail to the camp go to two different post office boxes, staff mail goes to a third, and freight goes to the highway address. Get the box wrong and the letter comes back.

	FCI Schuylkill	The satellite camp
Security	Medium	Minimum
Population, September 2026	987	275
Inmate mail	P.O. Box 759, Minersville, PA 17954	P.O. Box 670, Minersville, PA 17954 — add the line “Satellite Camp”
Uniform	Khaki	Green
What a visitor may not wear	Khaki	Green or camouflage
RDAP	Yes	No

The two sides run on the same visiting days and the same point system but are separate operations with separate handbooks, separate visiting rooms and separate administrators. A camp resident’s paperwork goes to the Camp Administrator; an FCI prisoner’s goes to a Unit Manager. Schuylkill is one of nine federal institutions in Pennsylvania, and it belongs to no complex: one warden, one set of walls, one camp. Our guide to federal prisons in Pennsylvania sets out the full state roster.

What is the security level at FCI Schuylkill?

FCI Schuylkill is a medium-security prison, and its satellite camp is minimum security; the May 2025 PREA audit records the custody levels as “Medium/Minimum and Com/In/Out.” Under the Bureau’s security designation rules, the camp takes a low point score and no Public Safety Factor; the FCI takes everyone else designated here, and a Public Safety Factor overrides the point total, which is usually why a low scorer is inside the fence rather than out at the camp.

How crowded the prison is depends on which of two official documents you use, both from the same two weeks in spring 2025. The Corrections Information Council recorded a rated capacity of 1,340 on April 23–24, 2025. The PREA auditor, on site May 6–8, recorded a designated capacity of 714 at the FCI and 296 at the camp — 1,010 in all. The two are 330 beds apart and nothing published reconciles them. On the audit’s numbers the FCI stood at about 140 percent of its designed capacity, which is where the same inspectorate found it in 2014, and the audit answers yes when asked whether the facility had been over capacity at any point in the previous twelve months.

The buildings are cellular inside and dormitory at the camp. The audit counted ten housing units across 29 buildings — eight of multiple-occupancy cells, two open-bay dormitories, no single-cell units at all — plus 48 segregation cells. The inspectors describe “eight housing units with sixty cells per unit,” and the general-population unit they walked through held 114 men against a capacity of 120, with eight showers, five telephones and six TRULINCS terminals for all of them. What the first weeks look like is set out in our guide to the intake process.

Why is FCI Schuylkill so often locked down?

FCI Schuylkill is often locked down because it is short of staff and its Special Housing Unit keeps filling up; that is what the inspectors who visited in April 2025 were told inside the prison.

The Corrections Information Council’s report on its visit of April 23 and 24, 2025, puts it in five words: “FCI Schuylkill operates with insufficient staffing.” On lockdowns the finding is unanimous among the people they spoke to: “Every DC Code offender who spoke with the CIC referenced the lockdowns’ impact on programs. Residents stated they were confined to their units and cells for weeks and months.” Management described the mechanism: “Executive staff reported that the SHU frequently reaches full capacity, necessitating modified operations and requiring residents to remain confined to their units and cells.” When the segregation unit is full, the rest of the prison absorbs the overflow by being locked in.

The Bureau does not dispute that lockdowns happen. In its written response of March 12, 2026, the Assistant Director for Correctional Programs wrote that “the use of lockdowns and modified operations is, at times, a necessary measure,” that the institution prefers modified operations “restricting movement in specific areas while allowing others to continue with normal programming,” and that GED classes and the drug program are among those kept running.

A lockdown stops programming, stops most movement, and in the Bureau’s usual practice suspends visits. If you are driving three hours or more, telephone before you leave.

Who are the notable inmates at FCI Schuylkill?

The best-known man currently held at FCI Schuylkill is James Coonan, the former leader of the Westies; John Stanfa, often listed here, is not, and has not been for years.

Name	Status	Case
James Coonan	Currently held here. Register number 13874-054; the locator gives a projected release of November 2, 2029	Leader of the Westies, the Irish-American gang that ran Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. Indicted with nine co-defendants in September 1987; convicted by a jury on ten counts and acquitted on one; sentenced to a total of 75 years once mandatory consecutive terms were counted
Dwight Grant, the rapper Beanie Sigel	Former — register number 57613-066, released December 5, 2014, with the Philadelphia reentry office rather than the institution recorded as his facility	Charged in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania as “Dwight Grant a/k/a ‘Beanie Sigel'” and sentenced to two years for federal tax offenses

John Stanfa, the former Philadelphia crime family boss, is held elsewhere: his Bureau record gives register number 18048-037, a projected release of LIFE, and the facility code LEX — the Federal Medical Center at Lexington, Kentucky.

On July 9, 2025, the Second Circuit decided a question in Coonan’s case that reaches every federal prisoner whose crimes predate November 1, 1987. He had asked for a sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1), the provision the First Step Act amended so that prisoners could file their own motions. The court held that an old-law prisoner cannot: the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, which created § 3582, “is inapplicable in cases that arise from conduct occurring before November 1, 1987,” the First Step Act “did not change the Sentencing Reform Act’s limitations,” and such a prisoner is “ineligible for relief” under that section altogether. The court did not weigh his health, his age or his 38 years served; it held he could not ask. United States v. Coonan, 143 F.4th 119 (2d Cir. 2025). The opinion records that he has been before the United States Parole Commission in 2012, 2021 and 2023 and has never been granted parole, and gives the Bureau’s projected mandatory release date as June 1, 2030; the locator now gives November 2, 2029.

How do I find someone at FCI Schuylkill?

To find someone at FCI Schuylkill, search the Bureau’s public Inmate Locator by register number wherever you have one. The eight-digit number is unique; the name is not, and the locator matches the committed name on the judgment rather than the name a family uses. The locator covers everyone in federal custody since 1982: for someone still held it gives the facility and a projected release date, and for someone released it shows “Not in BOP Custody as of” and a date, with no facility.

For anyone held here it reads “Located at: Schuylkill FCI”, from a record coded SCH, and the locator does not separate the camp from the prison, so a family can be writing to the wrong box while looking at a correct result. If nothing comes back at all, the likeliest explanations are a state case, pretrial custody held by the United States Marshals Service outside a Bureau prison, or a judgment that spells the name differently. See how register numbers work.

How do I write to someone at FCI Schuylkill?

Write to someone at FCI Schuylkill at P.O. Box 759 for the prison or P.O. Box 670 for the camp, and open with the committed name and the eight-digit register number.

For someone at the FCI	For someone at the satellite camp
Inmate Name & Register Number FCI Schuylkill Federal Correctional Institution P.O. Box 759 Minersville, PA 17954	Inmate Name & Register Number FCI Schuylkill Federal Correctional Institution Satellite Camp P.O. Box 670 Minersville, PA 17954

Under the Bureau’s correspondence rules, ordinary mail is opened, checked and may be read. Privileged mail is opened in front of the addressee and not read — but only where the envelope identifies the sender as counsel and is marked as special mail to be opened in his presence; an unmarked letter from a lawyer is ordinary mail. Our guide to attorney-client communication in the Bureau of Prisons explains the rule, and writing to someone in federal prison covers the rejections.

Two local points. The Bureau’s facility page for Schuylkill links the national legal-activities program statement rather than a local supplement, so the local rules on the law library, typewriters and photocopying are not published as they are at many institutions. And the visiting supplement bars any exchange of paper in the visiting room, including legal paperwork, which means a lawyer cannot hand a client a document across the table.

How do I send money to someone at FCI Schuylkill?

Money for someone at FCI Schuylkill goes to the Bureau’s central processing address in Des Moines, Iowa, or through one of two wire services, never to Minersville, and every route needs the committed name and the eight-digit register number.

Route	Where it goes
Postal money order	Federal Bureau of Prisons Committed Name Eight-Digit Register Number Post Office Box 474701 Des Moines, Iowa 50947-0001. The handbook requires a money order made out to the full committed name and complete register number
Western Union Quick Collect	Code city FBOP, DC
MoneyGram	Receive code 7932, company name Federal Bureau of Prisons, Washington, DC

The prison itself takes no money. The visiting supplement says prisoners “are not authorized to handle money,” and a visitor may bring in only a clear change purse with a single credit card, because the vending machines run on cards rather than coins. Spending is capped under the Bureau’s trust fund rules — see the commissary section, where the institution’s own documents give three different spending limits. Our guide to sending money to federal inmates covers each route.

What are the visiting hours at FCI Schuylkill?

Visiting hours at FCI Schuylkill are Saturdays, Sundays and federal holidays, 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., at both the prison and the camp, with everyone out of the visiting room by 3:30 p.m. The controlling document is Institution Supplement SCH 5267.09D, dated September 30, 2024, and signed by the warden under the Bureau’s visiting regulations; it replaced the 2020 version.

The institution’s own Admission and Orientation handbook, updated in July 2023, still tells prisoners that “general population visiting is held Friday through Sunday and Holidays, from 8:30 AM to 3:00 PM.” The visiting supplement is fourteen months newer, governs visiting, and says Saturday and Sunday only; the camp handbook agrees with the supplement. If someone inside has told a family that Friday works, he is reading the older document.

One timing rule needs planning: “During weekends and holidays, all inmate movement to and from the Visiting Room will be terminated at 9:30 AM in preparation for the 10:00 AM official stand-up count.” A visitor who has not been processed through by 9:30 waits for the count to clear before the prisoner can be brought out. Arrive early.

Given the lockdowns the inspectors recorded here, telephone 570-544-7100 before you set out.

Who can visit, and the six-point month

Visiting here is rationed by points, so do the arithmetic before anyone books travel. Each prisoner has six points a month. A weekend visit costs two, a separately approved weekday visit one, and federal holidays nothing. Six points is three weekend days, and when they are gone the Web Visiting Program stops further visits until the month turns.

• Five visitors at a time, including children, and no more than three of them adults. Exceptions need written approval from the Captain and the Associate Warden for Programs, or from the Camp Administrator.
• Immediate family named in the presentence report go on the list without a numerical limit. Friends and associates are capped at ten and must have known the prisoner before he came in; going above ten needs the Warden.
• Everyone, family included, files form BP-A0629 with the counselor, who runs a criminal-history check. A form and check already on file from within the past year can be reused.
• False information on that form, or an unreported conviction, means a refusal and a six-month wait before reapplying. A criminal record on its own is not decisive: “A criminal record will not be the sole factor in approving or disapproving a proposed visitor.”
• Someone already approved to visit another prisoner here will not normally be approved to visit a second, absent the Warden’s agreement.
• Children under 18 must be with an approved adult who is visiting the same prisoner. A child over five may not sit on the prisoner’s lap.
• A minister of record costs no points, and a prisoner may have one at a time. Other clergy visits do count, and have to be requested 14 days ahead through the chaplain.
• Someone in the Special Housing Unit visits by video: weekends and holidays from 8:30 a.m., no processing after noon, finished by 2:00 p.m., two hours and two visitors maximum, requested on form BP-A0148 and approved by the Captain and Associate Warden.
• A disciplinary sanction of “no contact visits” puts the prisoner in a separate room speaking through a two-way telephone.

The visiting rooms are rated at 120 at the FCI and 130 at the camp. If a room fills, staff ask for volunteers to leave early and only then terminate visits, weighing how often the prisoner is visited, how far the visitors came and how long they have been there. Once a visitor leaves the room, that is the day finished.

What visitors can wear and bring

The clothing rule that catches people is measured while sitting down: no dress or skirt “that exposes the knee or above while in a seated position.” Also refused: see-through blouses, sleeveless tops and tank tops, miniskirts, excessively tight pants, shorts on anyone sixteen or over, and any footwear that exposes the toes or the heels, which rules out flip-flops, sandals and clogs. Hats including baseball caps are barred unless religious, sunglasses unless prescription, and — unusually — watches of any kind. At the FCI no visitor may wear khaki, the color of the prisoners’ uniform; at the camp no visitor may wear green or camouflage, for the same reason.

What may come in is a clear change purse or billfold holding one credit card, plus infant supplies: five diapers, one pacifier, formula in see-through bottles and baby food in see-through containers. Strollers and carriers are not allowed and the medical department normally supplies a wheelchair. Life-saving medication is declared to the visiting room officer, who keeps it for the visit. Everything else — handbags, telephones, car keys — stays locked in the car, because “[n]o personal property will be secured in the Front Lobby.” There is a private area for nursing, which the supplement identifies as the vacant attorney visiting room.

Identification, screening and the black light

Everyone sixteen and over shows valid federal or state photo identification and signs the contraband declaration on form BP-A0224, after being asked aloud whether they are carrying drugs, firearms, ammunition or explosives on them or in the car. Every visitor clears a metal detector. Pat searches are random, “at a ratio to be determined by the Operations Lieutenant prior to the start of each visiting day,” so the odds are set before you arrive, not by the officer at the desk.

Then comes the hand stamp, which this institution checks more often than most. The lobby officer stamps every approved visitor with invisible ink, and the stamp is read under ultraviolet light in the front lobby sallyport, at the control center, and again by the escorting officer at the door of the visiting room. At about 3:00 p.m. everyone stays seated until the prisoner’s name is called, and the stamp and photograph are checked on the way out of the room, again at the control center, and a final time before the outer door opens. A visitor in a religious veil is identified by a staff member on the way in and out. Our guide to searches, shakedowns and contraband explains the powers behind this, and federal prison visitation covers the national rules.

Getting there

The Bureau publishes no directions to this prison: its visiting supplement lists an attachment headed “Visiting Rules, Regulations and Directions to Approved Visitors,” but the PDF the Bureau puts online does not include it, and the facility page gives no route. What it does publish is an address that is a highway junction rather than a street: Interstate 81 and Route 901 West, Minersville, Schuylkill County.

The best published guidance on the journey comes from the inspectors. Their 2025 report puts the prison “approximately 175 miles from Washington, DC.” The report on their 2014 visit printed a blunter line as a heading: “177 Miles from DC: 3.5 Hours by Car, Inaccessible by Bus/Train.” Distance was one of the concerns they counted that year, and three of the twenty men they interviewed said they received no visitors at all. The prison still sits at an interstate exit in coal country, and a visitor needs a car to reach it.

How do phone calls and email work at FCI Schuylkill?

Calls from FCI Schuylkill go out, never in, and the allowance is 510 minutes a calendar month, the Bureau-wide limit under its telephone regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, issued September 3, 2026. Of those, 300 are free to anyone eligible for First Step Act telephone incentives, and anyone who uses up those 300, eligible or not, may buy the other 210. A single call should generally not exceed 15 minutes.

Schuylkill’s own handbook, from July 2023, disagrees with that on three points, and it is the handbook a new arrival is handed. It says “[i]nmates are limited to 300 minutes per month”; that “[o]rdinarily, inmates will be allowed an extra 100 minutes per month in November and December”; and that “[t]he waiting time between telephone calls is 45 minutes.” The program statement controls on the first two: the allowance is 510, and the holiday supplement belonged to the 2008 policy that was rescinded. The 45-minute wait is a local rule and may still be in force; ask about it, because it is longer than the interval the national policy contemplates.

Two mechanics are specific to this prison. The month does not start on the first: each person’s minutes reset on a day fixed by the fifth digit of his register number, from the 1st for a 0 through the 28th for a 9. And access is thin during the working day — one telephone per unit runs 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., with two more switched on only from 6:00 to 7:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and 4:00 to 10:00 p.m. on weekdays. On weekends all the phones run 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. In April 2025 the inspectors counted five telephones in the unit they walked, for 114 men.

Email runs on TRULINCS and reaches families through CorrLinks: text only, 13,000 characters a message, charged by the minute, and monitored, so privileged writing still has to go by marked special mail. One local feature: the staff-messaging list here includes a Justice Department sexual-abuse reporting mailbox that goes straight to the Inspector General rather than through the institution. See our page on CorrLinks and TRULINCS and our guide to federal inmate phone calls.

What can people buy at the FCI Schuylkill commissary?

The FCI Schuylkill commissary sells everything from tablets, radios and fans to kufis and typewriter ribbons, under a national spending limit of $460 a month; the institution’s own documents print two lower figures, and a family planning a deposit should know all three.

Figure	Document	Status
$460 a month	Program Statement 4500.13, issued May 7, 2026	The national ceiling. This controls
$360 a month, and $90 a week	FCI Schuylkill A&O handbook, July 2023: “The National Spending Limit is $360.00. Inmates are permitted to spend up to $90.00 every week”	The $360 is the superseded national figure. The weekly cap is local and may still operate
$180	The institution’s commissary list (2025), printed at the head of the form: “$180.00 Spending Limit”	Unexplained in any published document

Nothing the Bureau publishes says which local cap now operates at the window. The national ceiling of $460 is certain and no local limit may exceed it. If the difference between $180 and $460 matters to your household budget, ask the unit team in writing and call the institution before sending a large sum.

Shopping runs Monday through Thursday by housing unit, with the commissary closed on Friday, and each account is “validated” once a month, which is when a person’s spending period starts. One quirk rewards a clean unit: meal calls run in order of weekly sanitation rating, best unit first, except that whichever unit holds priority commissary shopping that week is called ahead of the sanitation order.

The list carries a rule that governs everything on it: “ALL ITEMS PURCHASED MUST FIT INTO YOUR LOCKER.” Kosher items are flagged with a lower-case k and halal-certified items with an H, both throughout the sheet. A tablet costs $137.80, a radio $58.50, a fan $37.05, an alarm clock $9.35, a kufi $3.50 and a typewriter ribbon $7.05. Commissary clothing sales are limited to gray and white. The national rules behind the list are on our federal prison commissary page.

One consequence of refusing the Financial Responsibility Program is set out in the handbook: a person who will not participate “cannot work for UNICOR nor receive performance pay above the maintenance pay level,” “has a spending limit of only $25.00 monthly,” and “can be placed in less desirable housing.” At a prison where the factory is one of the better jobs, that is a real cost.

What programs are available at FCI Schuylkill?

FCI Schuylkill offers the Residential Drug Abuse Program at the prison but not the camp, GED and college classes, an electronics-recycling UNICOR factory, other drug programs and religious services led by one chaplain.

RDAP and drug treatment

The Residential Drug Abuse Program runs at the FCI. Both halves of the Bureau’s August 2026 First Step Act program guide name Schuylkill for it: the narrative entry and the by-institution grid agree, and the guide’s own RDAP location list, updated in June 2026, records 57 programs at 50 locations. The institution’s 2023 handbook puts the count at 76 institutions, which is out of date; the fact that the program is here is not.

The April 2025 inspection describes the unit. It holds 96 men in two-man cells, with five telephones and four computers. There are three phases and three journals in each, 500 hours of programming in all, across nine to twelve months, with three hours a day of community meetings, journal writing and support groups. The inspectors also found that “Residents still program in RDAP during a facility lockdown or modified operations,” so the drug unit keeps running through the lockdowns that dominate complaints here.

Demand outruns supply. The inspectors found 23 District of Columbia residents in the unit and eight more waiting, and the general-population unit they inspected “mainly houses residents on the waiting list to participate in RDAP.” Of the 75 men who answered their survey, 13 said they were in the program and 54 said they were not. For a person convicted of a non-violent offense, completion can take up to twelve months off a sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e), and the referral and the timing are things a lawyer can push on. The camp does not run it. See our page on the Residential Drug Abuse Program.

Education, GED and college courses

The education department is fully staffed — seven teachers including a special education specialist — and the institution’s residents earned more than 450 certifications in the year before April 2025, with certificates available in restaurant management and food handling. Post-secondary classes were being delivered by Ohio University, Colorado State University and Adams College. The August 2026 guide names sixteen institutions, out of 118, for Pell-funded post-secondary education, and Schuylkill is not one of them; its by-institution grid does not mark Schuylkill for post-secondary education either. Both halves of the guide omit a prison where independent inspectors watched three universities deliver classes. Approval is not delivery, and the absence of an approval is not absence of a class. Ask the education department what is enrolling now, and get the answer in writing.

Under the Bureau’s literacy program, a prisoner without a verified high school diploma or GED must attend for a minimum of 240 instructional hours or until the credential is earned, and an unsatisfactory literacy assignment drops the annual good conduct time award from up to 54 days to up to 42 until another 240 hours are done. In April 2025 the inspectors found 44 DC residents enrolled in GED and 40 more on the waiting list — nearly as many waiting as studying — and they recommended that enrollment be increased. The Bureau’s answer, in March 2026, was that “FCI Schuylkill’s Education Department has a maximum number of participants at all times, specifically, 110 participants,” and that anyone may sign up at any time.

About the rest of the offering, the inspectors heard that residents “were given Adult Continuing Education (ACE) packets with no direction, tutoring, or grading upon completion of the packet.” Of 34 men asked, 28 said they were not in any educational program and 33 said they were not in vocational training. Below RDAP, drug education, the non-residential program, aftercare and twelve-step groups run, and medical staff operate a Medication-Assisted Treatment program for opioid use disorder with all staff trained to give Narcan. See prison education and vocational training.

One provision applies only to District of Columbia prisoners: District of Columbia Educational Good Time is earned for participating in GED, ESL and marketable-level occupational training rather than for finishing them, and it posts to the sentence computation on completion or withdrawal.

UNICOR, work and religious services

The factory here recycles electronics. No Bureau publication about this institution says so — the handbook prints the national list of everything UNICOR makes anywhere — but the inspectors recorded twenty District residents who “work at UNICOR recycling electronics” in April 2025, and in 2014 they found the factory employing between 240 and 300 men, 23 of them from the District, “including clerical positions that teach relevant office technology skills.” Federal Prison Industries is named for Schuylkill in both halves of the August 2026 program guide, as is its sixteen-hour Lean Basic Training course. Work there is closed to anyone refusing the Financial Responsibility Program. Our page on UNICOR explains the pay scale and the waiting lists.

Religious provision is thin for the size of the population, the inspectors found. The prison employs one chaplain, and ten faith groups share worship space. “The Orthodox Islam community is the largest religious group in the facility,” and “[t]here is currently no Imam volunteer available to lead religious services for the Muslim community.” Of the 109 District residents, 24 identified as Muslim and 27 as Christian, and 37 of 64 survey respondents said services specific to their faith were held. A certified religious diet is requested from the chaplain and lost by eating anything off the certified menu. See religious programs in prison.

What is daily life like at FCI Schuylkill?

Daily life at FCI Schuylkill runs to a fixed timetable of counts and controlled movement. Wake-up is 6:00 a.m. There are five official counts in every 24 hours, with an extra one at 10:00 a.m. on weekends and holidays, and the stand-up counts — where a person has to be on his feet at the bedside and actually seen, “even if the inmate must be awakened” — are at 4:00 p.m. and 9:15 p.m. on weekdays and at 10:00 a.m., 4:00 p.m. and 9:15 p.m. on weekends.

Wake-up	6:00 a.m.
Stand-up counts	4:00 p.m. and 9:15 p.m. daily, plus 10:00 a.m. on weekends and holidays
Controlled movement	Begins ten minutes before the hour and ends on the hour; normally five minutes, one direction at a time
Compound secured on weekends	9:30 a.m., for the 10:00 a.m. count
Uniform	Khaki from the morning meal to 4:00 p.m., Monday through Friday; green at the camp
Sick call, FCI	Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, during the morning meal. None on Wednesday, weekends or holidays
Sick call, camp	Monday through Thursday, during the morning meal. None on Friday, weekends or holidays
Commissary	Monday through Thursday by housing unit; closed Friday
Call-outs	Posted on unit boards after 4:00 p.m. the day before; missing one “may result in disciplinary sanctions”

Sources: FCI Schuylkill and SCP Schuylkill Admission & Orientation Handbooks, July 2023, and institution supplement SCH 5267.09D (2024).

The inspectors and the Bureau disagree about breakfast. The inspectors found in April 2025 that “[d]ue to lockdowns and short staffing, residents receive a cold breakfast alongside their dinner at 5:30 PM,” to be kept overnight and eaten in the morning, and they recommended “at least two hot meals per day in the cafeteria.” The Bureau answered in March 2026 that “FCI Schuylkill follows the five-week national menu. This menu provides two hot meals daily.”

The institution’s own handbook says: “FCI Schuylkill follows the National Continental Breakfast menu.” A continental breakfast is not a hot meal. The same handbook adds that “FCI Schuylkill does not offer a salad bar,” and that food service staff scan identification cards at the serving line so that no one eats twice.

Beyond that: meal calls run in order of weekly unit sanitation, cleanest first; the only pass is the facilities work pass, in force 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., and taking more than ten minutes to cross the compound on one is a disciplinary matter. Recreation, which the inspectors found fully staffed, runs craft classes of twenty to twenty-five over four to six weeks, an indoor gymnasium with basketball leagues, an outdoor weights area and a music room with a five-piece resident band in it. See recreation in federal prison.

What do inspectors say about conditions at FCI Schuylkill?

Inspectors describe FCI Schuylkill as short of staff and prone to lockdowns, with a segregation unit that fills, a two-and-a-half-year dental waiting list and a grievance process most surveyed residents had never used. The District of Columbia’s Corrections Information Council, an oversight body Congress and the DC Council created to inspect the prisons holding District residents, has been inside this institution twice — in April 2014 and again on April 23 and 24, 2025 — and published both times, the second report on September 5, 2025, with the Bureau’s written reply of March 12, 2026, posted alongside it. Schuylkill is one of the federal institutions the Council has visited more than once, and April 2025 is the later of its two visits.

The Council’s reports have limits. It inspects on behalf of District of Columbia residents and surveys only them, and its respondents are volunteers rather than a random sample, so every figure below is a count over the denominator the report itself prints and belongs to the date of the visit rather than of publication. 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 since 2023, on the Inspector General’s own count in May 2026, and Schuylkill is not among them or among those under way.

The April 2025 inspection

There were 109 District of Columbia residents here when the inspectors came, and 75 of them answered the survey; the prison held 1,207 people in all. The visit was arranged around three things families and prisoners had written in about: continuous lockdowns, obstacles to education and vocational programming, and verbal mistreatment. The report opens with one fact about the leadership: “The warden had been replaced by the associate warden (now acting warden) due to a physical altercation with another employee.” Two weeks later the PREA auditor recorded an acting warden in post. Neither document names anyone in connection with the incident.

Medical care drew the heaviest response. Of the 75 respondents, 45 said the medical department does not answer a sick-call request within 48 hours and 49 said they were dissatisfied with medical services. Care here is delivered by an outside contractor, HCA Global; the medical unit reported four vacancies, one a nurse; more than 2,000 prescriptions are filled a month; telehealth runs twice a week; and Lehigh Valley Hospital, within twenty miles, takes anyone needing an outside bed, which requires a consultation approval unless it is an emergency. On dental care, the report found: “Residents are automatically placed on a waitlist, which is currently two and a half years.” A dentist comes once a month for a week, and an appointment lasts about an hour.

On mental health, 34 of the 75 said they had been diagnosed with a mental health condition, 32 said they were not receiving their medication for it, and 17 said they knew how to request mental health services. The department is a chief psychologist and three staff psychologists, with a coordinator for veterans, disabled residents, people over 50 and those in the parenting process.

Two findings bear on whether a problem can be challenged at all. “Several residents reported not receiving grievance forms after requesting them; several others reported not receiving a response to grievances after submission” — and 56 of the 75 had never used the grievance process. On discipline the report is unanimous: “Every interviewed resident stated that under the previous warden, when a resident faced the Disciplinary Housing Officer (DHO) for an infraction and was found guilty, the previous warden would extend their sanctions beyond what the DHO initially imposed.” The Council could not physically inspect the Special Housing Unit but interviewed five men held there; of the five, one said he had no access to the law library, medical or psychology, two said no access to medical and three said no access to psychology. Four of the 109 District residents were in the unit that day, and nineteen had been there between one and three times here.

The 2014 inspection, and what changed

The earlier report, published on June 22, 2015, on a visit of April 11, 2014, describes the prison as it was then. Two findings stand out.

The first is crowding. The prison then held 1,186 against a rated capacity of 838 — 142 percent — and to find beds “some inmates were held in ten-person cells with one toilet constructed from former common rooms.” Of the twenty District residents interviewed, one had spent a year in such a cell. The Council followed up: “As of June 2015, Schuylkill no longer has 10-person cells. The previous living areas were converted to six-person and nine-person cells, and they are only used once all the two-person cells have been assigned.”

The second is how District prisoners said they were treated. Of the twenty men interviewed, over half said they were treated differently because they were from the District, and one complaint was recorded word for word: “DC guys are grouped together in education and called the ‘dummy class.'” The Bureau’s published answer was that it “does not believe D.C. offenders are treated differently or unfairly.” Eleven years later the Council wrote that “[m]ultiple residents reported that staff at FCI Schuylkill occasionally used racist and unprofessional language when addressing them and displayed bias against DC residents,” and that its staff relayed those accounts to the institution.

The 2025 PREA audit

The PREA audit was conducted by an independent auditor, Lynni O’Haver of Corrections Consulting Services LLC, who was on site May 6–8, 2025 — twelve days after the Council left — and signed the final report on May 20, 2025. The institution met all 45 Prison Rape Elimination Act standards, exceeded none and failed none. Unlike some audits, this one records outreach: the auditor corresponded with the Sexual Assault Resource and Counseling Center and with Just Detention International.

Of the 1,237 men held on the first day, 45 were limited English proficient, 24 had a cognitive or functional disability, and six had disclosed prior sexual victimization at risk screening. No one had been placed in segregated housing either because of a risk of victimization or for having reported abuse. In the preceding twelve months the institution recorded two allegations of sexual abuse, both between prisoners, and two of sexual harassment, both against staff; the abuse allegations closed as unsubstantiated, one harassment allegation closed as unsubstantiated and one was still open. Unsubstantiated means the evidence was not enough to decide either way, not that an allegation was false.

The Government Accountability Office published per-institution allegation counts in May 2026 covering 2020 to 2024. For Schuylkill they run 5, 4, 4, 1 and 3 where another incarcerated person was the alleged perpetrator, seventeen in all by year of incident; and 8, 6, 9, 1 and 2 where a Bureau employee was, twenty-six in all by year of report. The two series come from different Bureau systems with different cut-off dates and cannot be added. They are reported allegations rather than findings, they are not adjusted for the size of the prison, and a low count can mean either safety or silence.

The Inspector General on restraint video

On July 29, 2025, the Inspector General published an audit of how the Bureau oversees the use of restraints — ambulatory restraints on the wrists, and four-point restraints fixing both wrists and both ankles to a bed. It is a national audit, not an inspection of this prison, and it found “significant deficiencies with BOP oversight of its use of restraints,” including 14,772 use-of-force incidents involving restraints between January 2018 and January 2024.

One entry in it concerns Schuylkill. Bureau policy requires an institution to send the video of a restraint incident to its regional office within four working days. Auditors reviewing the Northeast Regional Office’s records found that in fiscal year 2023 the region averaged about eight days, and they printed a box listing the seven occasions on which an institution took more than 85 days. At the top of that list, and the slowest in the region that year, is “FCI Schuylkill – 105 days.”

That is a record-keeping failure rather than a finding about how anyone was treated. It still matters, because video is the evidence: a family or a lawyer questioning what happened during a use of force depends on a recording reaching someone outside the institution while it still exists.

FCI Schuylkill in the news

Recent news about FCI Schuylkill centers on the Bureau’s 2026 closure and camp announcements and a 2026 weapons indictment; older items concern two 2024 sentences for prisoners and a 2021 sentence for a former officer.

• July 2026 — the closures. The Bureau announced six institution closures, citing “decades of deferred maintenance and extreme staffing challenges.” Schuylkill is not on that list.
• May 2026 — the camp policy. The Bureau began moving eligible people into minimum-security camps once they hold a halfway-house or home-confinement date. Schuylkill’s camp has grown from 201 in May 2025 to 275 in September 2026.
• May 2026 — a weapons indictment. In an announcement on May 13, 2026, the United States Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania said that Tiago Bettencourt, 22, had been indicted over an allegation that on February 27, 2026, he possessed “a prison-made weapon, approximately a nine-inch sharpened piece of plexi-glass with a cloth handle.” An indictment is an allegation, not a finding.
• August 2024 — a 35-month sentence. Jared Sebaugh, 36, was sentenced by Judge Julia K. Munley for assaulting another prisoner in February 2023 with “a prison-made weapon consisting of a combination lock attached to a cloth strap.”
• March 2024 — a 27-month sentence. Xyvaion Lawrence, 23, was sentenced by Judge Malachy E. Mannion after an officer found him in November 2022 with “a 6-inch homemade knife, commonly referred to as a ‘shank,’ hidden in the waistband of his pants.”
• May 2021 — a staff bribery sentence. The Inspector General recorded that Paul Taylor, a former correctional officer here, was sentenced in the Middle District of Pennsylvania to 24 months and ordered to forfeit $89,700, after admitting he “received more than $89,700 in return for smuggling tobacco and related items into FCI Schuylkill” between 2011 and 2016.

Frequently asked questions about FCI Schuylkill

Problems at FCI Schuylkill: where we can help

This institution’s own record points at the same handful of problems again and again: a prison short of staff that locks down, a segregation unit that fills, a medical service run by a contractor with a two-and-a-half-year dental waiting list, and a grievance process most of the people surveyed had never used. Those are the issues that bring families here.

• Medical and dental care that is not arriving. Forty-five of 75 men surveyed in April 2025 said sick call goes unanswered for more than 48 hours, and the dental waiting list was two and a half years. The route is a written request to staff and then the administrative remedy process, which is on a clock at every stage; where injury has followed neglect, see Federal Tort Claims Act claims.
• Grievances that never start. Inspectors recorded men who asked for forms and did not get them, and others who filed and heard nothing. An unanswered remedy is not the end of the road — the regulations treat a non-response as a denial at the end of the period, and the next level can be filed. See how to file a BP-9.
• Discipline. Every resident interviewed described sanctions being extended beyond what the hearing officer imposed. A disciplinary hearing that costs good conduct time is appealable, and an added sanction with no record behind it is exactly what an appeal is for.
• Special Housing Unit placements. Executive staff here told inspectors the unit fills to capacity, and the five men interviewed inside it described losing access to medical, psychology and the law library. Protective custody questions arise on the same facts.
• RDAP. Entry, waiting-list position and the sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e) all turn on paperwork and timing, and there were eight District residents alone waiting for a place in April 2025.
• Program access and First Step Act time credits — whether credits are being earned and applied, and whether a person on a GED waiting list of forty is being held back by something a unit team can fix.
• Early release and transfers: transfer requests, halfway house and home confinement placement under the Bureau’s placement procedures, sentence computation errors and compassionate 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. Call (843) 620-1100 or contact us to talk through a specific situation.

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

Sources and currency

Bureau of Prisons documents

• FCI Schuylkill, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Addresses, telephone and fax numbers, and the documents posted for the institution.
• BOP Response – FCI Schuylkill, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. The Bureau’s reply to the Corrections Information Council’s 2025 report, published by the Council.
• FCI Schuylkill Commissary List, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCI Schuylkill, 2025. Item prices and the printed spending limit.
• Visiting Regulations, Institution Supplement SCH 5267.09D, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCI Schuylkill, 2024. Visiting days, points, dress, permitted items and screening; replaced Institution Supplement SCH 5267.09C (2020).
• FCI Schuylkill Inmate Admission and Orientation Handbook, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCI Schuylkill, 2023. Daily schedule, telephone, commissary, food service and financial responsibility rules.
• SCP Schuylkill Inmate Admission and Orientation Handbook, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCI Schuylkill, 2023. The satellite camp’s schedule and rules.
• Trust Fund/Deposit Fund Manual, Program Statement 4500.13, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. The monthly commissary spending limit.
• Inmate Telephone Regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Monthly minute allowance and call rules; replaced Program Statement 5264.08 (2008).
• First Step Act Approved Programs Guide, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Reentry Services Division, 2026. Programs by institution, including Federal Prison Industries, Lean Basic Training, post-secondary education and the RDAP locations list.
• Strategic Expansion of Minimum-Security Camp Utilization, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026.
• Federal Bureau of Prisons Announces Facility Closures and Operational Changes, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026.

Audits and inspections

• 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. Gives the number of Bureau institutions the Inspector General has inspected since 2023.
• Federal Prisons: Improvements Needed to Prevent, Detect, and Address Sexual Abuse (GAO-26-107343), U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2026. Allegation counts by institution, 2020–2024.
• FCI Schuylkill: Report on Findings and Recommendations, District of Columbia Corrections Information Council, 2025. The April 2025 inspection.
• Audit of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Oversight of the Use of Restraints (Report 25-070), U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2025. Includes the Northeast Region’s restraint-video production times for fiscal year 2023.
• PREA Audit Report: Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Schuylkill, Corrections Consulting Services LLC, 2025. Final report of the May 2025 audit by Lynni O’Haver.
• FCI Schuylkill Inspection Report, District of Columbia Corrections Information Council, 2015. The April 2014 inspection.

Court records

• FCI Schuylkill Inmate Indicted For Possession Of A Weapon, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Middle District of Pennsylvania, 2026. Tiago Bettencourt’s indictment.
• United States v. Coonan, 143 F.4th 119 (2d Cir. 2025), U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, 2025. Affirming United States v. Coonan, No. 87-CR-249, 2024 WL 3567520 (S.D.N.Y. June 26, 2024).
• Inmate At The Federal Correctional Institution At Schuylkill Sentenced To 35 Months In Prison For Assault, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Middle District of Pennsylvania, 2024. Jared Sebaugh’s sentence.
• FCI Schuylkill Inmate Sentenced To 27 Months In Prison For Possession Of A Weapon, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Middle District of Pennsylvania, 2024. Xyvaion Lawrence’s sentence.
• Former BOP Correctional Officer Sentenced for Bribery of a Public Official, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2021. Paul Taylor’s sentence.

News and other sources

• 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1), Imposition of a sentence of imprisonment, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e), Imprisonment of a convicted person, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).

Sources reviewed September 2026.

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