USP Florence – High: Inmates, Visiting, Programs

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

USP Florence – High at a glance

USP Florence – High is the high-security federal penitentiary for men inside the Federal Correctional Complex at Florence, Colorado, beside ADX Florence and FCI Florence, and held 839 men as of September 2026.

Official name	USP Florence – High (USP Florence) · U.S. Penitentiary
BOP code	FLP · complex FLX
Security level	High; men
Population	839 (as of September 2026)
Visiting	Saturday, Sunday and federal holidays, 8:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m. · Special Housing Unit: by video conference
Inmate mail	Inmate Name & Register Number · USP Florence – High · U.S. Penitentiary · P.O. Box 7000 · Florence, CO 81226
Send money	Lockbox · Western Union (code city FBOP, DC) · MoneyGram (receive code 7932)
Phone	719-784-9454 · Fax 719-784-5157
Street address	5880 State Highway 67 South, Florence, CO 81226 · Fremont County
Judicial district	District of Colorado
BOP region	North Central
Designated capacity	971
Special Housing Unit	Yes
RDAP	Yes
UNICOR	No
Camp	None; the complex’s satellite camp belongs to FCI Florence, and no satellite low is attached

It sits on State Highway 67 in Fremont County, 45 miles south of Colorado Springs and 35 miles west of Pueblo, in the Bureau’s North Central Region, and is one of the federal prisons in Colorado. One fact separates it from every other penitentiary in the system: the Bureau’s August 2026 First Step Act Approved Programs Guide lists it as the only institution other than FCI Terre Haute that runs the residential STAGES program for men with borderline personality disorder, and as one of just four U.S. penitentiaries anywhere with a Residential Drug Abuse Program.

The prison was renamed, and three prisons share one address

The Bureau now calls this institution USP Florence – High. That is the name on its facility roster, the name its own facility page carries, and the name the Inmate Locator shows. “USP Florence” on its own is the older label, still used by most directory sites, court filings and news reports. Both mean the same prison; if you are searching, try both. The renaming happened because the address is shared: three federal prisons and a camp sit inside the Federal Correctional Complex at 5880 State Highway 67 South, with nothing in common except the ZIP code and the map pin.

Institution	Code	Security level	Its own phone number
USP Florence – High (this page)	FLP	High	719-784-9454
ADX Florence (USP Florence ADMAX)	FLM	Administrative — the Bureau’s only supermax	719-784-9464
FCI Florence	FLF	Medium, and the complex’s satellite camp belongs to it	719-784-9100
FCC Florence (the complex itself)	FLX	Not a housing designation	—

Confusing the two penitentiaries here can cost a family a wasted flight. The Inmate Locator’s result names the institution and its type, and the two read almost alike: “Florence – High USP” is this institution, “Florence ADMAX USP” the supermax next door; the codes FLP and FLM sit only in the record behind the screen. Read that line before you book anything. A man at Florence – High can have a contact visit on a Saturday morning. A man at the ADX, on the same road, cannot have a contact visit at all.

Mail is separated the same way: this penitentiary uses P.O. Box 7000, the ADX P.O. Box 8500. Mail sent to the wrong box inside the complex does eventually move, but one man told inspectors in 2017 that because he was housed at the USP while still classified to the ADX, “the mail gets sent to ADX and then to USP Florence,” taking two weeks to a month. That was legal mail.

What is the security level at USP Florence – High?

USP Florence – High is a high-security institution, which in the Bureau’s vocabulary means a United States Penitentiary: a double perimeter with towers or electronic detection, multiple-occupancy cells in secure housing units, the highest staff-to-inmate ratio outside the ADX, and close control of internal movement. There are only a handful of security levels in the federal system — minimum, low, medium, high and administrative — and the Bureau has no “level 6.”

How a man is designated to a penitentiary

Not by a judge, and not by the prison. The Designation and Sentence Computation Center in Grand Prairie, Texas, scores every newly sentenced person under the Bureau’s security designation rules, Program Statement 5100.08, and the score decides the security level. A high-security score is what puts a man in a penitentiary rather than an FCI.

Two things override the arithmetic, and they are where a lawyer’s work lands. A Public Safety Factor is a fact about the case — a sex offense, a serious escape, deportable-alien status, a life sentence, a threat to government officials — that sets a floor on the security level no matter how low the points come out. A Management Variable is the Bureau’s own written override, used to place a man above or below his score for a stated reason; it expires and has to be renewed. Both are on the classification paperwork, both are revisited at program review, and both can be argued. The strongest moment to influence any of it is before sentencing, through the presentence report and a written recommendation to the court, because the Bureau reads both. Our guide to designation explains the scoring.

Why here and not the ADX or the FCI next door

Three different decisions, made by three different parts of the Bureau. A medium-security score sends a man to FCI Florence. A high-security score sends him here. Neither of those is a referral to the ADX: administrative-maximum placement is a separate process with its own hearing, its own criteria and its own approving official well above the complex, and it turns on what a man is judged likely to do rather than on points alone. The ADX Florence page sets that process out in full.

Movement between the three runs in both directions, and it runs through this prison. Men step down out of the ADX into units here before going anywhere else in the system, and men are referred up from penitentiaries across the country into the STAGES unit. That is the practical reason a family can be told “he is at Florence” twice in a year and be talking about two different prisons.

The Special Management Unit is gone. The paperwork is not.

Read this before relying on the visiting rules the Bureau publishes for this institution. USP Florence – High once ran a Special Management Unit, the long-term behavioral program for men whose gang activity or disciplinary record was judged to need heightened management. It has not been here for about a decade.

The Inspector General’s 2017 review of restrictive housing recorded the closure in a footnote: “during that time in FY 2015, the SMU at USP Florence, which had confined 358 SMU inmates in April 2014, closed.” Bureau officials told the OIG in October 2016 that some of those men went into other institutions’ general populations and others to the SMUs at USP Lewisburg or USP Allenwood. The Government Accountability Office’s February 2024 audit of restrictive housing puts the sequence in order: the Bureau “closed its three remaining SMUs in Lewisburg and Allenwood, Pennsylvania, and in Florence, Colorado, between 2014 and 2019,” moved the Lewisburg unit to USP Thomson in 2019, and closed Thomson in February 2023.

As of the last public accounting — that report, recording the position in September 2023 — the Bureau had no Special Management Unit in operation anywhere, having closed the last one at USP Thomson in February 2023. It told the GAO it “has already suspended the SMU program and is working to identify an appropriate replacement,” and had made no decision about reopening one. The program statement governing Special Management Units, Program Statement 5217.02 (2016), has not been rescinded.

The visiting supplement the Bureau still links from this facility’s own page, Institution Supplement FLP 5267.08D (2013), is written around that unit. It reserves the visiting room “primarily” for cadre inmate visiting, routes Special Management Unit visits to video conference stations, limits SMU visitors to verified immediate family and caps them at five two-hour visits a month booked a week ahead with the Unit Manager. None of those paragraphs can apply to anyone now at this prison. If you have planned around them, stop and call the institution before you travel.

Which specialized units does USP Florence – High run?

USP Florence – High runs two specialized units, and neither appears on the Bureau’s public page for this facility: a residential mental health treatment unit that exists in only two prisons in the country, and the unit where men leaving the supermax finish the most restrictive chapter of their sentences.

The STAGES unit

STAGES stands for Steps Toward Awareness, Growth, and Emotional Strength. The Bureau’s August 2026 First Step Act Approved Programs Guide describes it as “a unit-based residential Psychology Treatment Program for individuals with a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder,” using a modified therapeutic community, cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavior therapy and skills training, and carrying 500 hours of earned time credit. The guide lists exactly two locations: FLP and THA — this prison and FCI Terre Haute.

It exists because of a lawsuit. The settlement in Cunningham v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, No. 1:12-cv-01570 (D. Colo.), approved on December 29, 2016, required the Bureau to stand up alternatives to the ADX for men with mental illness: secure mental health units at USP Atlanta and USP Allenwood, and the STAGES program here. The Justice Department’s January 2016 restrictive-housing report described it as operating “at USP Florence, adjacent to the ADX in Colorado, with a total capacity of 18 inmate participants.” What the unit is like comes from the only two independent visits on the public record; the figures below are theirs, not the Bureau’s.

• Every participant is paired with a companion, and both are single-celled. Companions are men from general population who go through an extensive interview process, live on the unit, work as paid peer specialists, and are certified by the Department of Labor when they finish. (District of Columbia inspection, April 2023)
• The unit is sealed off from the rest of the prison: its own recreation yard, meals on the unit, programming on the unit. New participants do that programming “while inside of cages,” and earn the right to program outside them as they complete stages. (April 2023)
• The unit is small and thinly staffed. Capacity was 12 at the April 2017 tour, with nine participants and four companions, expected to rise to 18 once staff were hired; the waiting list was 30 men. The ratio is meant to be one psychologist to six participants, and at the tour three psychologists were on the unit with two leaving the following week. The Inspector General reported that Central Office ran the STAGES and Step Down waiting lists on a one-in, one-out basis. (April 2017 tour; Inspector General, 2017)
• Men who complete it go to another facility or into general population, usually to the Transitional Care Unit at USP Allenwood. (April 2023)

A man whose record is a long chain of incident reports, suicide watches and restrictive-housing placements tied to a borderline personality diagnosis is the profile the program is built for, a referral can come from restrictive housing at any institution including the ADX, and no release date is required. Ask the unit team and psychology services at his current prison, in writing. It is voluntary, so no one is placed in it against his will.

The ADX step-down units

Men do not go straight from the supermax into the open system. The last two phases of the ADX Florence step-down program are served here, so a move from the ADX to this prison is part of the program, not the end of it.

District of Columbia inspectors toured the unit on April 28, 2017, and recorded what staff told them. The step-down is designed as a two-year process: a year of clear conduct is Phase 1, Phase 2 is the Joker Unit at the ADX for about six months, and Phases 3 and 4 are served here on Bravo B, a unit the inspectors also recorded as the Special Security Unit, where a man is celled with another for three to six months before moving on. Phase 3 brings three hours of out-of-cell time a day and 300 phone minutes a month, with computers, telephones and showers outside the cells. Phase 4 brings double-celling for at least six months, more out-of-cell time and GED programming, and completing it is what makes a transfer to a less restrictive program possible.

Institutional policy requires a man to be celled alone for his first three months on a step-down unit — and inspectors found a man denied step-down partly for refusing a cellmate less than a month after he arrived, when policy said he should have been alone.

Who are the notable inmates at USP Florence – High?

As of September 14, 2026, Bureau records, searchable through the Inmate Locator, placed every man in the first table below at USP Florence – High (facility code FLP); the best known include Adam Dean Fox, Fotios “Freddy” Geas and Vincent Basciano. Most published lists for this prison mix men who moved to the ADX years ago with men who were never here at all; the second table shows where Bureau records place them.

Name	Register	Case	Bureau record, September 14, 2026
Adam Dean Fox	11843-509	Co-leader of the 2020 plot to kidnap the Governor of Michigan; 16 years, W.D. Mich., December 27, 2022	Here; release May 26, 2034
Fotios “Freddy” Geas	05244-748	Killed James “Whitey” Bulger at USP Hazelton in October 2018; 25 consecutive years, N.D. W. Va., September 2024, on top of a life sentence	Here, life
Vincent Basciano	30694-054	Acting boss of the Bonanno crime family; convicted May 16, 2011 in the Eastern District of New York of ordering the 2004 murder of Randolph Pizzolo. The jury declined a death sentence; life plus ten years	Here, life
Amor M. Ftouhi	55707-039	Stabbed a Flint Bishop Airport police lieutenant on June 21, 2017 after crossing from Canada; life, E.D. Mich., April 18, 2019, for terrorism transcending national boundaries	Here, life
Ronald Herron	78527-053	Brooklyn Bloods leader who recorded as Ra Diggs; twelve life terms plus 105 years, E.D.N.Y., April 2, 2015, for racketeering and three murders	Here, life
Kevin Perez	45770-510	Bronx drill rapper known as Kay Flock; 30 years, S.D.N.Y., December 16, 2025, for racketeering conspiracy and attempted murder in aid of racketeering	Here; release August 12, 2047
Xaviar Michael Babudar	69098-510	The Chiefs supporter known online as ChiefsAholic; 17 years six months, W.D. Mo., September 5, 2024, for money laundering, transporting stolen property and bank robbery	Here; release May 9, 2038

Men listed elsewhere as held here

Each of these men is still listed somewhere as held at USP Florence – High. Bureau records place none of them here; several are at ADX Florence, the supermax on the same road.

Name	Register	Where Bureau records placed him on September 14, 2026
Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, Sayfullo Saipov, El Shafee Elsheikh, Ahmed Ressam, Naser Jason Abdo, Dairo Antonio Úsuga David and Arturo Gallegos Castrellón	—	All at USP Florence ADMAX (FLM), the supermax on the same road, not at this prison
Monzer al-Kassar	61111-054	FCI Florence (FLF), the medium-security institution in the same complex; release December 28, 2032
Omar Portee	30063-037	USP Florence ADMAX, though widely reported as having moved from the ADX to this prison in 2021
Ross William Ulbricht	18870-111	Released from Bureau custody on January 21, 2025; his last Bureau facility was USP Tucson, not Florence
Gary Leon Ridgway	02072-122	Released from Bureau custody on October 23, 2015 with this prison as his last Bureau facility. He is a Washington state prisoner who was held here from May 14, 2015 and flown back to the Washington State Penitentiary at Walla Walla in late October 2015
Walli Mujahidh	40738-086	Released from Bureau custody on March 6, 2026; his last Bureau record is RRM Seattle, a residential reentry office

How do I find someone at USP Florence – High?

To find someone at USP Florence – High, use the Bureau’s free Inmate Locator and search by the eight-digit register number if you have it: the locator matches the committed name on the judgment rather than the name a family uses, and common surnames return long lists. 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.

Then read the result. A result reading “Florence – High” is this prison. A result reading “Florence ADMAX” is the supermax, ADX Florence. A result reading “Florence” with facility type FCI is the medium-security institution, FCI Florence. Our guide to how federal register numbers work explains how the number is assigned. No result at all usually means state custody, pretrial detention under the U.S. Marshals Service, or a differently spelled committed name.

How do I write to someone at USP Florence – High?

Write to someone at USP Florence – High at P.O. Box 7000, Florence, CO 81226 — a post office box, not the highway address — with the committed name and the eight-digit register number on the first line; mail without a register number is returned to the sender.

Mailing address	Inmate Name & Register Number USP Florence – High U.S. Penitentiary P.O. Box 7000 Florence, CO 81226

General correspondence is opened, inspected for contraband and may be read. Legal mail is opened only in front of the man it is addressed to and is not read — but only if the sender is clearly identified on the envelope and the front is marked “Special Mail — Open only in the presence of the inmate.” An attorney’s letter without that marking is handled as ordinary mail, and the burden of telling the lawyer to mark it sits on the person inside. See the Bureau’s correspondence rules, attorney-client communication in the Bureau of Prisons and our guide to writing to someone in federal prison.

Mail handling here has a documented history. District of Columbia inspectors raised complaints about mail on the first day of their April 2023 inspection; executive staff told them the next morning that mail room officers “were not trained properly,” and the Bureau confirmed in its published response that “an impromptu training was conducted during the CIC’s visit for Correctional Systems staff regarding proper handling of incoming and outgoing mail.” If a letter goes missing, note the date, keep the envelope and start a written record at once — the administrative remedy process runs on deadlines.

Never put money in a letter. Funds enclosed in correspondence are rejected.

How do I send money to someone at USP Florence – High?

Money for someone at USP Florence – High goes to the Bureau’s national lockbox in Des Moines, Iowa, or through one of two wire services, never to the prison; all three routes need the committed name and the eight-digit register number. No cash and no personal checks.

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

A local complication here does not arise at most prisons, and it is the most-reported grievance at this one. Every District of Columbia resident interviewed in April 2023 described the institution freezing inmate funds: if the person sending money also sends money to someone incarcerated anywhere else in the Bureau, the money is encumbered and cannot be spent “until the inmate is transferred or released.” The Bureau’s published response is that encumbrances are made at the warden’s discretion or as a disciplinary sanction, that FCC Florence “reviews transactions where multiple outside contacts are involved, specifically with incoming and outgoing funds, to combat the introduction of contraband,” and that a temporary encumbrance is lifted once a review finds no illicit conduct. Both accounts sit in the same report. Keep every receipt, and ask the unit team in writing for the reason and the review date.

Inspectors also recorded men saying that refusing the Inmate Financial Responsibility Program (see the Bureau’s IFRP rules) brought a commissary restriction and five minutes of telephone time a week, a Florence-specific practice they dated to early March 2023. The Bureau denied it four times in the same document: “Commissary restrictions and phone restrictions are not applied for the reason of FRP non-compliance.” The Council’s own footnote records that even the most stringent financial-responsibility sanctions in Bureau policy exclude telephone credits. If this happens, that footnote is the argument.

What are the visiting hours at USP Florence – High?

Visiting at USP Florence – High runs 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Saturdays, Sundays and federal holidays, with no weekday visiting for general population and no evening visiting at all. The hours come from the institution’s own visiting supplement, FLP 5267.08D, approved by Warden Charles A. Daniels on September 19, 2013, which replaced the 2010 version; see also the Bureau’s national visiting rules.

That supplement is thirteen years old and is still the document the Bureau links from this facility’s page. It is reliable on what rarely changes — days, hours, dress code, identification, directions — and unreliable on anything touching the Special Management Unit, which closed here around 2015. Call 719-784-9454 before you travel.

Men in the Special Housing Unit visit by video conference station, one two-hour visit a day on visiting days, ending 30 minutes before the room closes. Men held over pending transfer are housed in the SHU, so their visits are by video too, as are visits for anyone approved for or awaiting placement in the ADX Control Unit. See video visiting.

Who can visit, and how many

• Four adults and six children may visit one man at a time. There is no limit on how often an approved visitor may come, as long as the visit is inside visiting hours and there is space.
• Immediate family — mother, father, step-parents, foster parents, brothers and sisters, spouse and children — go on the list once the relationship is verified, which can happen before the criminal-history check, though the check must still be done. Friends and associates are capped at ten and normally need a relationship that predates the sentence; only the warden or a designee can waive that.
• The application is form BP-629, which only a unit team member may mail out and which comes back signed and with a release authorization. A criminal conviction does not automatically bar a visitor, but the warden has to approve, and anyone on probation, parole or supervised release normally needs written approval from their supervising officer first.
• Children under 16 cannot visit unless a responsible adult is with them. Visitors aged 16 or 17 arriving alone need written permission from a parent, guardian or adult immediate family member.
• If the room gets crowded, staff end visits, starting with visitors who live within 50 miles. Leaving the room for any reason ends the visit for the day.

What visitors can wear and bring

The supplement sets the standard as “appropriate for a court room environment.” Barred: camouflage, khaki-colored clothing, hospital scrubs, shorts or capri pants more than two inches above the knee, low-cut, sleeveless and see-through tops, tube, tank, halter and crop tops, cap sleeves, backless clothing, swimsuits, sweat suits, break-away pants, open-toe shoes and anything skin-tight. Dresses must reach the natural break at the back of the knee, slit included. Sundresses, jackets, overcoats and excessive jewelry are out, as are hats, bandanas and scarves except religious headgear. Khaki is the inmate uniform color here, which is why it is on the list.

You may take in one wallet, clear change purse or small zip-lock bag no larger than eight inches by six, up to $20 per person, a comb, heart or prescribed medication, jewelry you normally wear, and a diaper bag; medication and diaper bags stay at the officer’s station. Chewing gum and breath mints are specifically prohibited, as are photographs, personal items, cameras and recorders. Contact is narrower here than at most institutions: handshaking, embracing and one kiss at the start and end of the visit, and beyond that “there will be no physical touching between the inmate and the adult visitor during the visit.” Only children five or younger may sit on a lap. Vending machine food cannot be shared, and nothing bought may leave the room.

Identification and screening

Photo identification is required for everyone 16 and over — a state driver’s license, a federal identification card, a welfare card, a passport or a state identification card — and a signature alone is never accepted. Visitors and their property pass through metal detection and x-ray screening, and everyone is subject to random same-sex pat searches. Refusing any search means leaving the grounds, and coming back needs the warden’s prior approval. See searches and contraband and federal prison visitation.

Attorney visits are approved by the unit team, not the front lobby, and the attorney signs a certification that the visit is for the attorney-client or attorney-witness relationship and nothing else. During normal visiting hours legal visits happen in the attorney-client rooms at the rear of the visiting room; outside those hours a unit team member supervises in the room itself. The supplement is explicit that attorney visits “are not subject to auditory supervision,” and that if no private room is free the attorney should be offered a different date rather than a corner of the main room. Legal documents are searched before they come in, and the exchange is watched.

Getting there

The complex is 45 miles south of Colorado Springs and 35 miles west of Pueblo. From Colorado Springs, take Highway 115 south to Florence, turn south on State Highway 67 and go about two miles to the main entrance. From Pueblo, take US Highway 50 west about thirty miles to Highway 115, south about five miles to State Highway 67, then south about two miles. The nearest airport is Colorado Springs. No parking is allowed on the road in, no one may stay in a parked car, and anyone not visiting has to leave the grounds. Arrive no earlier than fifteen minutes before visiting opens: the waiting area is small.

How do phone calls and email work at USP Florence – High?

At USP Florence – High, calls go out, never in — the man inside dials a number on his approved list, which holds up to 30 — and email runs on TRULINCS, which families reach through CorrLinks. The institution’s handbook records the Bureau’s then-standard allowance: 300 minutes a calendar month, calls cut off automatically at fifteen minutes, no third-party calls, no call forwarding, no 800 or 900 numbers. That allowance has since changed. The Bureau’s telephone regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, issued September 3, 2026, rescinded the 2008 policy and set 510 minutes a calendar month: 300 free to anyone eligible for First Step Act telephone incentives, and 210 more that anyone who uses up those 300, eligible or not, may buy. A single call should generally not exceed 15 minutes. The handbook predates the change and the program statement is national policy, so 510 governs. Every call except a properly arranged unmonitored attorney call is recorded; unmonitored legal calls are set up through the case manager, not at the phone. See federal inmate phone calls.

Email is text only, and the man inside has to add your address before you can exchange messages. Email with a lawyer is not privileged: attorneys may be on the messaging list, but the Bureau monitors those messages like any other, so privileged writing has to go by marked special mail. See CorrLinks and TRULINCS.

Contact lists here have a history. In February 2023 the institution began what the Bureau described to inspectors as “a full contact review process”: anyone already active on another federal prisoner’s telephone or email account was removed and had to be re-approved case by case, with verified family in Bureau custody, approved inmate-to-inmate communication and verified legal resources named as the categories allowed back. Most District of Columbia residents interviewed that April reported losing CorrLinks and telephone contacts, and ten said that between that and the freezing of their funds they could not reach their families at all. The route back is a written request to Special Investigative Services asking for the contact to be reviewed.

A year later the same system produced litigation. A prison-reform advocate sued over being blocked from TRULINCS at seven institutions, and on June 28, 2024, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the Bureau to restore her access at six of them, this prison included, and barred it from blocking her there “absent a specific, factual determination of misconduct by Ms. Bailey or the inmate that is timely communicated to Ms. Bailey in writing.” On April 11, 2025, the court rejected the government’s argument that she had failed to state a claim as to this institution, holding that her allegation that two men here could not add her to their contact lists in March 2024 “create the inference that the BOP restricted either her TRULINCS access or her ability to communicate with inmates for purposes of her First Amendment claim.” The same opinion dismissed her Administrative Procedure Act claim as unreviewable and her retaliation claim as duplicative. Bailey v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, No. 1:24-cv-01219-PLF (D.D.C. Apr. 11, 2025). Nothing in it has been decided on the merits.

What can people buy at the USP Florence – High commissary?

The national monthly commissary spending limit that applies at USP Florence – High is $460: the Bureau’s trust fund rules, Program Statement 4500.13, issued May 7, 2026, raised it from $360. Stamps and over-the-counter medications sit outside it. This institution’s own 2014 handbook states that “the National Spending Limit is 320.00 but may be further restricted at the local level” — a figure since superseded twice. Listings that give $360 are out of date; that was the limit until May 2026. The institution’s published documents give no current local figure, so ask the unit team whether a lower local cap applies before assuming the national one.

The institution’s 2017 general-population sales list is the only published record of what is on the shelves, and it sets the shopping rules in capital letters. Shopping is weekly on an assigned day, and a man “not present when their number is called will forfeit their turn to shop for the week.” No add-ons, no substitutions, all sales final once you leave the station. Two reduced tiers are printed on it: $15.00 a month for men on commissary restriction, excluding over-the-counter items and stamps, and $10.00 for men who refuse to sign a financial-responsibility plan.

The caps on that form show how a month is rationed: 48 items total across meats, 48 across rice, pasta and beans, 48 across soups, 48 across nuts and popcorn, ten coffee and creamer items, ten drink mixes and teas, six boxes of crackers, six bags of chips, three ice creams and three twelve-packs of soda. Stamps are capped at $9.80. Thirty-nine items are marked certified religious and six halal, and the religious shelf carries a kufi, a prayer rug and a tam crown.

The list also carries a typewriter shelf: a Prestige print wheel at $18.05, a Nakajima ribbon at $4.25, a ribbon cartridge at $5.50 and a correction ribbon at 60 cents, alongside typing paper and legal pads. Men here still prepare filings on typewriters, and a man working on a motion needs money on his account for consumables families rarely think to send. Our page on the federal prison commissary covers the national rules.

What programs are available at USP Florence – High?

USP Florence – High runs a Residential Drug Abuse Program, the STAGES and Resolve programs, GED and English-as-a-second-language classes and post-secondary courses through Pueblo Community College; it has no UNICOR factory and is not a Challenge Program site.

Drug treatment and RDAP

The Residential Drug Abuse Program runs here, which is unusual for a penitentiary. The Bureau’s August 2026 First Step Act Approved Programs Guide lists 57 RDAPs at 50 locations, on a list updated in June 2026, and only four of those locations are United States Penitentiaries: Big Sandy, Canaan, Coleman II and Florence. For a man with a high-security score and a documented substance-use history that is a short list of places worth asking for, and the sentence reduction of up to a year under 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e) is available only to people convicted of non-violent offenses who complete the program. See the Bureau’s drug treatment program rules.

Listings that say Florence has no RDAP and refers men elsewhere are out of date. The same guide lists the Resolve Program here and at the ADX — the trauma-focused cognitive behavioral program, 80 hours of earned time credit. It does not list the Challenge Program here. Challenge is the residential program for high-security men with substance-use or mental health problems, and the guide names eleven penitentiaries that run it. This is not one, even though the handbook the Bureau publishes for this institution tells arriving men that Challenge “is available in all BOP penitentiaries.”

Education and vocational training

GED and English-as-a-second-language classes run six days a week, and the education department holds the law library and the education computers. The institution partners with Pueblo Community College for post-secondary courses, which the resident pays for and education staff proctor. Those are inspectors’ observations from April 2023, and the same visit recorded that twelve of seventeen District of Columbia residents surveyed were in no vocational programming at all.

There is no UNICOR factory here: the Bureau’s August 2026 guide lists every Federal Prison Industries location and no Florence institution appears. See prison education and vocational training.

Psychology, religion and reentry

Psychology Services was staffed in April 2023 by a Deputy Chief Psychologist, two staff psychologists and two treatment specialists, running three care levels: care level one on request, care level two twice a month, care level three weekly. Group offerings were anger management and a course on criminal thinking, and eight of seventeen men surveyed said they knew how to request mental health services. See mental health programs in federal prison and the Bureau’s mental health treatment rules.

Religious Services had one Muslim chaplain, three Christian chaplains and a Jehovah’s Witness volunteer in April 2023. The same visit recorded that the Islamic community is the largest religious group in the prison and that no faith-based First Step Act programs were running here. Recreation runs a leather shop, painting, a movie room, a wellness resource room, a nutrition class, a cycling class and ceramics.

One caution on the programs guide: it lists what an institution is approved to offer. Whether a class is running this month, and how long the waiting list is, is a question for the unit team, and the answer changes.

What is daily life like at USP Florence – High?

Daily life at USP Florence – High runs on counts and controlled movement: wake-up at 6:00 a.m., standing counts at 4:00 and 10:00 p.m. on weekdays, and khaki uniforms during working hours. The schedule comes from the institution’s 2014 Admission & Orientation handbook, signed by Warden J. Oliver; treat it as the pattern rather than a timetable.

	Weekdays	Weekends and holidays
Wake-up	6:00 a.m.
Standing counts	4:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m.	10:00 a.m., 4:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m.
Uniform required	7:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m., khaki shirt and pants	—
Controlled movement	Ten minutes before the hour, outside working hours	Compound secured 9:30 a.m. for the count; movement resumes after brunch

The handbook itself needs a caution. Whoever prepared it left the national template’s drafting instructions in place: its Psychology Services section still reads “The Psychology Services department at this institution is staffed by [insert brief overview of the department’s staffing],” its Resolve section still reads “This institution [has/does not have] a Resolve Program,” and its “Institution Specific Programs” heading is followed by the instruction rather than an answer. The word “Florence” does not appear in its 86 pages. What it does carry that is local is the warden’s signature, the count and movement schedule and the uniform rules.

The April 2023 inspection shows what a housing unit is like. The general population unit inspectors walked held 127 men against a capacity of 128, and staff said 30 to 35 more were arriving the next day. It had four showers with plumbing problems, and staff could not say how many worked; four telephones, which staff called the standard across the facility and men said caused fights; and vents full of dust. The Bureau’s published response says the showers have been repaired, the vents cleaned, and that all units carry four telephones with no recorded altercations over them.

What do inspectors say about conditions at USP Florence – High?

Inspectors have recorded USP Florence – High over capacity, men reporting unanswered sick-call slips and grievances, and, in 2023, two confidential surveys lost by staff; almost all of that independent record comes from the government of the District of Columbia, which may inspect wherever its residents are held. Its figures come from men who volunteered to be surveyed, drawn only from D.C. Code offenders, so the denominators are small — and they are the only independent interviews with men at this prison on the public record.

The 2023 inspection

The Corrections Information Council inspected on April 19 and 20, 2023, and published its report on September 13, 2023. It surveyed 17 of the 21 District residents then held here, at a prison holding 863 men. Everything below is what inspectors found on those two days in April 2023.

• Staff lost two Special Housing Unit residents’ confidential surveys during the interview process. The report records “multiple reports indicating the involvement of a specific officer, as well as allegations of physical abuse of residents by the same officer.” The Council named the officer to executive staff and asked for a search: “The surveys were not recovered, and the institution has not provided additional information.” The Bureau’s response confirms they were never found and proposes mailing future surveys straight to residents so staff never handle them.
• The prison was over capacity: 863 men against a rated capacity the report gives as 621 on its cover page and 631 four pages later, without reconciling the two. The Bureau’s response says an audit begun in 2020 is moving the agency onto a different measure, on which the prison “currently operates at an appropriate capacity.”
• Eleven of the seventeen men surveyed had filed a grievance, most often about medical care or the disciplinary process. Seven of those eleven never received a response. The Bureau’s answer is that due dates are tracked weekly by the associate warden and that the complex was reviewing the process.
• Twelve of seventeen said the medical department does not answer a sick call slip within 48 hours, and staff themselves said a man may wait weeks depending on the issue. Medical staffing was one physician, two paramedics, one staff nurse and one infection nurse, with laboratory and optometry contracted out; three dentists and one hygienist; three pharmacists for the whole complex; chronic care patients seen once a year.
• Staff said it takes two to three weeks for psychology to see a man in the Special Housing Unit after he asks; the Bureau’s response is that a staff psychologist is assigned there and makes rounds through the day. Men leaving the SHU said property went missing and that they never got the inventory slip policy requires; the Bureau says property comes back the same or next day and that a tort claim can be filed over loss.

The 2017 tour

On April 28, 2017, the same Council toured the STAGES unit and the step-down unit here and interviewed District residents throughout the prison. That survey is published as an appendix and never states how many men answered; individual questions drew between three and nine responses, so read every percentage in it as a fraction of single figures. Asked what was best about the prison, men compared it favorably with the ADX: less violence, fewer lockdowns, more out-of-cell time, more telephone and email. Asked what was worst, the commonest answer was the way staff treated them, and one man put the underlying problem in a sentence: “It’s difficult to get to an FCI from here.”

The 2026 PREA audit of the complex

FCC Florence was audited under the Prison Rape Elimination Act on May 19–21, 2026, by an independent auditor, Matthew Taylor of Corrections Consulting Services, LLC. The final report is dated July 3, 2026, and the complex passed: 45 standards met, none exceeded and none unmet.

Two limitations travel with that result. The audit covers the whole complex and reports almost nothing institution by institution, so a clean finding here is a clean finding for four facilities at once. And it contradicts itself on the most basic number in it: its own tables record 19 allegations of sexual abuse and 40 of sexual harassment in the preceding twelve months, while its narrative under standard 115.22 states that “the facility reported in the PAQ that over the past 12 months it received fifteen (15) allegations of sexual abuse and sexual harassment, and that all fifteen (15) allegations received an administrative or criminal investigation.” Fifty-nine against fifteen, in one document. Of the nineteen abuse allegations, ten were staff-on-inmate. One inmate-on-inmate allegation was substantiated; none of the staff-on-inmate allegations was, and two of them were still open when the auditor left.

Complex-wide it records 84 buildings, 29 housing units, 207 segregation cells, 793 staff who may have contact with people in custody, accreditation by the American Correctional Association but not by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care, and that the complex was over capacity at some point in the preceding year. For this institution alone it gives a designated capacity of 971, an average daily population of 813 over the twelve months to May 2026, an average stay of 512.5 days, 1,082 admissions and ages from 22 to 77. Sexual assault forensic examinations are done at a local hospital, not on site. See the Bureau’s sexual abuse prevention rules.

The Inspector General

The Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General names this facility twice in its Review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Use of Restrictive Housing for Inmates with Mental Illness, published July 12, 2017 — once as one of the two institutions running STAGES, and once to record that the Special Management Unit here closed in fiscal year 2015. Its site visit within the complex was to the ADX, and the report makes no finding about conditions at USP Florence – High. The DOJ Office of the Inspector General has not conducted an on-site inspection of this facility. By its own count in May 2026 (Report 26-055), its inspections since 2023 had reached fourteen Bureau institutions, and USP Florence – High is not among them. The Government Accountability Office came closer: it chose FCC Florence as one of five sampled facilities for its February 2024 audit of restrictive housing, GAO-24-105737, interviewing men and reviewing grievances across the complex, and found that four of the five had repeat deficiencies in Bureau program reviews. Like the PREA audit, it reports at complex level.

The most recent independent, on-site, institution-specific conditions oversight of a penitentiary designated for 971 men and holding 839 as of September 2026 was carried out over two days in April 2023 by the inspectorate of a city 1,673 miles away, on a sample of seventeen men.

USP Florence – High in the news

Recent news about USP Florence – High centers on four deaths in custody between April 2025 and August 2026; older items concern two deaths the Bureau reported in March 2021 and the April 2008 riot.

• August 2026 — a death in custody. The Bureau announced that George Hall, 55, was found unresponsive at approximately 12:10 p.m. on Monday, August 24, 2026; responding employees initiated life-saving measures, and he “was subsequently pronounced deceased by EMS personnel.” He was serving 120 months imposed in the Southern District of Florida for assault with a dangerous weapon on another inmate, and had been here since August 6, 2026. The FBI was notified; no cause of death was announced.
• June 2026 — a death in custody. The Bureau announced that Ryder Holliday, 28, was found unresponsive at approximately 7:10 p.m. on June 21, 2026, was transported by EMS to a local hospital and placed on life support, and “was subsequently pronounced deceased by hospital personnel on June 24, 2026.” He had been here since May 11, 2026, serving 365 months imposed in the Western District of Texas for a methamphetamine conspiracy; the facility code in his Bureau record, register number 78120-510, is FLP.
• December 2025 — a death in custody. The Bureau announced that Timothy Sowinski, 57, was found unresponsive at approximately 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, December 7, 2025; responding employees initiated life-saving measures, and he “was subsequently pronounced deceased by medical personnel.” He had been here since September 29, 2025, on a 13-month sentence from the Western District of Pennsylvania for violating supervised release; the facility code in his Bureau record, register number 39026-068, is FLP.
• April 2025 — a death in custody. Theodore Clifton Matthews, 43, was found unresponsive at approximately 2:15 a.m. on Monday, April 7, 2025. The Cañon City Daily Record’s account of the Bureau’s media release that day says staff began life-saving measures and called emergency medical services, and that Matthews “was subsequently pronounced deceased by medical personnel.” He was serving 210 months for racketeering conspiracy in Maryland and had been here since July 5, 2024, with a release date in December 2026. Asked for figures on deaths in custody, a Bureau spokesman told CBS News Colorado that he did not have them.
• March 2021 — the Bureau posted two news releases reporting the deaths of people held at USP Florence; the Bureau’s releases are listed on its press release page.
• April 2008 — the largest riot in the prison’s history. Aryan Brotherhood members marking Hitler’s birthday began shouting racial abuse at Black prisoners on the recreation yard, and about 200 men fought. Officers took nearly thirty minutes to muster in sufficient numbers and shot two men dead, Brian Scott Kubik and Phillip Lee Hooker. Staff pushed one group into the gymnasium and secured them there without officers for about four hours, during which four men severely beat another who had refused to take part. Five men went to the hospital, thirty were treated inside, and more than 200 rounds were fired along with tear gas, pepper balls and sting grenades. The Bureau’s own investigative report has never been published.

Frequently asked questions about USP Florence – High

Problems at USP Florence – High: where we can help

The problems that recur at USP Florence – High are the ones a high-security designation and an unedited 2014 handbook create: a security score or Public Safety Factor that put a man behind the highest walls in the system, a program the guide says is approved here that the unit team cannot start, and restrictive housing that outlasts its reason. Each of them runs on a deadline that is easy to miss.

• Encumbered funds and contact-list removals. Both are documented practices here, both are reviewable, and both start with a written request to the unit team or Special Investigative Services and then the administrative remedy process (how to file a BP-9). Seven of the eleven men who filed grievances at the 2023 inspection never got an answer, and an unanswered remedy has its own deadline for moving up a level.
• Designation and transfer. A security score, a Public Safety Factor and a Management Variable are three different things, all written down and all arguable under the Bureau’s designation rules. See federal prison transfers.
• Getting into RDAP or STAGES. Both run here, both have waiting lists, and both turn on a referral made at the right time and in writing. See RDAP and early release.
• Medical care that is not happening — the leading grievance subject in 2023. The route runs from a written request to staff through the remedy process and, where negligence caused injury, a Federal Tort Claims Act claim.
• Disciplinary proceedings that threaten good conduct time, and SHU placements that outlast their justification, including protective custody.
• First Step Act time credits, compassionate release under the Bureau’s reduction-in-sentence rules, and sentence computation errors; see federal prison 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, and legal representation is provided by Elizabeth Franklin-Best.

Sources and currency

Bureau of Prisons documents

• USP Florence – High, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Name, address, mailing address, contact details, region and judicial district.
• Death at USP Florence, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. George Hall’s death.
• Death at USP Florence, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Ryder Holliday’s death.
• Death at USP Florence, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2025. Timothy Sowinski’s death.
• USP Florence General Population Commissary Sales List, Federal Bureau of Prisons, USP Florence – High, 2017. Shopping rules, category limits, restriction tiers and prices.
• USP Florence Inmate Admission & Orientation Handbook, Federal Bureau of Prisons, USP Florence – High, 2014. Daily schedule, counts, movement, telephone allowance and spending limit; an unedited national template with no institution-specific content.
• Visiting Regulations, Institution Supplement FLP 5267.08D, Federal Bureau of Prisons, USP Florence – High, 2013. Visiting hours, visitor limits, dress code, authorized items, identification, attorney visits and directions; replaced Institution Supplement FLP 5267.08C (2010).
• Press Releases, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2021. Includes the two releases, posted in March 2021, reporting deaths at USP Florence.
• Trust Fund/Deposit Fund Manual, Program Statement 4500.13, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. The commissary spending limit, deposit routes and holds.
• Inmate Security Designation and Custody Classification, Program Statement 5100.08, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2006. Amended through 2026. Security point scoring, Public Safety Factors and Management Variables.
• Special Management Units, Program Statement 5217.02, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2016. SMU referral and levels.
• Inmate Telephone Regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. The 510-minute monthly allowance, call length, the gap between calls and the exclusion of unmonitored legal calls; replaced Program Statement 5264.08 (2008).
• First Step Act Approved Programs Guide, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Reentry Services Division, 2026. The August 2026 edition: RDAP, STAGES, Resolve, Challenge and Federal Prison Industries locations, hours and credit.
• Population Statistics, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026.

Audits and inspections

• PREA Audit Report: FCC Florence, Colorado, Matthew Taylor, Corrections Consulting Services, LLC, 2026. Onsite visit May 19–21, 2026: capacity, population, admissions, physical plant, staffing and allegation data.
• 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. Its count of the institutions the Inspector General has inspected since 2023.
• Bureau of Prisons: Additional Actions Needed to Improve Restrictive Housing Practices (GAO-24-105737), U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2024. The closure of the Special Management Units; FCC Florence was one of its sampled facilities.
• USP & ADX Florence, District of Columbia Corrections Information Council, 2023. Inspection of April 19–20, 2023, with the Bureau of Prisons’ responses.
• USP Florence ADMAX Inspection Report and BOP Response, District of Columbia Corrections Information Council, 2018. Includes the USP Florence – High survey report and the April 28, 2017 tour of units here.
• Review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Use of Restrictive Housing for Inmates with Mental Illness (Report 17-05), U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2017. Its site visit at this complex was to ADX Florence.
• Report and Recommendations Concerning the Use of Restrictive Housing: Final Report, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Deputy Attorney General, 2016. The STAGES program at USP Florence and its capacity.

Court records

• Bronx Street Gang Leader and Rapper Kevin Perez, a/k/a “Kay Flock,” Sentenced to 30 Years for Gang-Related Shootings, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York, 2025. Kevin Perez’s sentence.
• Bailey v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, No. 1:24-cv-01219-PLF, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, 2025. The June 28, 2024 order restoring TRULINCS access at six facilities, and the April 11, 2025 opinion on the motion to dismiss.
• KC Chiefs ‘Superfan’ Sentenced to 17 Years for Bank Robberies, Money Laundering, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Western District of Missouri, 2024. Xaviar Babudar’s sentence.
• First of Two Convicted at Trial in Michigan Governor Kidnapping Plot Sentenced to 16 Years in Prison, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, 2022. Adam Fox’s sentence.
• Canadian Man Sentenced to Life in Prison for Committing Act of Terrorism Transcending National Boundaries, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, 2019. Amor Ftouhi’s sentence.
• Leader of Bloods Street Gang Sentenced to Life in Prison for Racketeering, Murders, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of New York, 2015. Ronald Herron’s sentence.
• Cunningham v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, No. 1:12-cv-01570, U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, 2012. The settlement, approved on December 29, 2016, that created the STAGES program at USP Florence – High.

News and other sources

• Breaking News: Inmate Dies at United States Penitentiary Florence, Cañon City Daily Record, 2025. The Bureau’s media release on the death of Theodore Clifton Matthews, register number 54093-037.
• Inmate Dies at Federal Prison in Southern Colorado, CBS News Colorado, 2025. The Bureau said it did not have data on in-custody deaths.
• New Details Regarding Race Riot at USP Florence, Prison Legal News, 2010. By Brandon Sample; the April 20, 2008 riot.
• 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