USP Hazelton: Visiting, Mail, Lockdowns and Oversight

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

USP Hazelton at a glance

USP Hazelton is a high-security federal penitentiary for men in Bruceton Mills, Preston County, West Virginia, with a minimum-security satellite camp below it on the same hill. As of September 2026 it held 1,253 people: 1,100 in the penitentiary and 153 at the camp.

Official name	United States Penitentiary, Hazelton
BOP code	HAZ · complex HAX
Security level	High; men · the satellite camp is minimum
Population	1,253 (as of September 2026) · 1,100 at the penitentiary, 153 at the camp
Visiting	Saturday and Sunday, 8:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m.; no visitor processed after 2:00 p.m. · see visiting hours
Inmate mail	USP: Inmate Name & Register Number · USP Hazelton · U.S. Penitentiary · P.O. Box 2000 · Bruceton Mills, WV 26525 Camp: Inmate Name & Register Number · USP Hazelton · U.S. Penitentiary · Satellite Camp · P.O. Box 2000 · Bruceton Mills, WV 26525
Send money	Lockbox · Western Union (code city FBOP, DC) · MoneyGram (receive code 7932)
Phone	304-379-5000 · Fax 304-379-5039
Street address	1640 Sky View Drive, Bruceton Mills, WV 26525 · Preston County
Judicial district	Northern District of West Virginia
BOP region	Mid-Atlantic
Housing	Twelve units of 64 two-man cells
Special Housing Unit	Yes · non-contact visits
Medical care level	Care Level 2
Mental health care level	Care Level 2 · see inspections
RDAP	No · neither the penitentiary nor the camp
UNICOR	No · the factory has closed
Camp	Yes · minimum security, on the same hill

It opened in 2004 and is one of four federal prisons at a single address, 1640 Sky View Drive, alongside FCI Hazelton, in the Bureau’s Mid-Atlantic Region. At about 185 miles from Washington it belongs to the complex that the District of Columbia’s inspectors describe as holding the largest number of D.C. Code offenders in the federal system. It is the prison where James “Whitey” Bulger was killed within twelve hours of arriving in October 2018, and the Justice Department’s Inspector General counted 14 deaths here by suicide, homicide, accident or unknown cause between fiscal years 2014 and 2021, a figure matched only by USP Terre Haute and exceeded only by USP Atlanta. For the state’s other institutions, see federal prisons in West Virginia.

HAZ, HAF and HAX are three different records

HAZ, HAF and HAX are three different Bureau records, and mixing them up is the mistake families and newsrooms make about Hazelton. The Bureau keeps its records by facility code: HAZ is this penitentiary and its camp; HAF is FCI Hazelton, the medium-security institution down the road, which also carries the Secure Female Facility on its books; and HAX is the complex as a whole, an administrative record rather than a place anyone is held. The Inmate Locator shows the name on the record, not the building: a result reading “Hazelton USP” can mean a man in the penitentiary or a man at the camp, and the locator will not say which.

Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras, was held at the penitentiary, not the FCI: the facility code in his Bureau record (91441-054) is HAZ, and he was released on December 1, 2025.

Three practical differences follow. Mail for the penitentiary and the camp goes to P.O. Box 2000; the FCI uses P.O. Box 5000 and the women’s facility P.O. Box 3000. The switchboard for the penitentiary and camp is 304-379-5000; the FCI answers 304-379-1500. The visiting supplement, handbook and PREA audit are written for the whole complex; the rules below are the ones that apply to the penitentiary and the camp. Our page on FCI Hazelton covers the FCI and the Secure Female Facility.

What is the security level at USP Hazelton?

USP Hazelton is a high-security penitentiary — the top of the Bureau’s four ordinary levels, holding people in the “In” and “Maximum” custody classifications — and the camp beside it is minimum security. Under the Bureau’s designation rules, Program Statement 5100.08, a man scores into high security at 24 or more points, but points are only half of it: the Sentence Length Public Safety Factor sends anyone with more than 30 years left, including a non-parolable life sentence, to a high-security institution whatever the score, unless it is waived. That explains a large share of who is here, and it means the route out for many men is a waiver argument or the passage of time rather than good behavior alone.

Physically, the penitentiary is twelve housing units of 64 two-man cells, about 128 men to a unit. The Bureau publishes no rated capacity for it; the Corrections Information Council has printed 960 at its 2014 visit, 881 in February 2023 and 1,213 in September 2025, against populations of 1,608, 1,647 and 1,412 on those dates. Unit A2 houses the Challenge Program. The May 2026 PREA audit counted no single-cell housing units anywhere on the hill and 232 segregation cells across the four facilities. Movement is run by dividing the population into two color-coded sides, red and blue, and outside working hours the compound moves on ten-minute controlled moves announced by staff.

The Special Housing Unit shapes daily life here because it is full. Bureau staff told the Council in September 2025 that the SHU was overcrowded “due to an increase in protective custody cases,” that every SHU cell was double-bunked, and that general-population units are placed on “pending SHU” status — locked down in full — while men designated for the SHU wait in their ordinary cells for a bed. In February 2023 the Council found the whole penitentiary on modified lockdown, 45 minutes out of the cell for eight cells at a time, because the SHU was full; men told inspectors that some people “check into the SHU upon arrival, often hoping to transfer to another facility.” The Bureau’s reply of July 24, 2026, says the practice has narrowed: “the entire facility is not locked down due to pending SHU inmates; only the specific unit is secured until space is available,” and that it lacks the staff to open a unit for men awaiting the SHU.

Two rules from the Bureau’s SHU policy, Program Statement 5270.12 (2024), matter to anyone waiting for a SHU bed. Restrictive housing outside the SHU itself “must be proposed by the Warden to the Regional Director, and ultimately approved by the Assistant Director, Correctional Programs Division, before activation.” And a man in the SHU is owed a records review within three work days, a hearing within seven days and every 30 days after, and five hours of out-of-cell exercise a week. A placement that has outrun those reviews belongs in writing through the administrative remedy program; our guides to the SHU and protective custody cover the policy.

Who are the notable inmates at USP Hazelton?

USP Hazelton’s best-known prisoner was James “Whitey” Bulger, killed here in 2018. None of the eighteen people that encyclopedias and directory sites list as current inmates of this penitentiary is held under its code today; the table gives the people most often asked about and where the Bureau’s record places them.

Name	Connection to USP Hazelton	Bureau record
James “Whitey” Bulger (02182-748)	Transferred here on October 29, 2018; killed in his cell the next morning	Deceased at HAZ, October 30, 2018
Fotios “Freddy” Geas (05244-748)	Pleaded guilty to killing Bulger; sentenced September 6, 2024, to 25 years, consecutive to his life term	USP Florence, the high-security penitentiary (code FLP), not the ADX
Paul J. DeCologero (23952-038)	Sentenced in August 2024 to more than four years for assault in the Bulger killing	USP McCreary, projected release July 30, 2030
Juan Orlando Hernández (91441-054)	Former president of Honduras, held here until his pardon	Released from HAZ, December 1, 2025
Gary Cederquist (96873-510)	Former Massachusetts state police sergeant, six years for a license-bribery scheme; reported in January 2026	Code HAZ, projected release November 17, 2030 — the record does not say penitentiary or camp
Richie Farmer (16226-032)	Former Kentucky agriculture commissioner; reported to the camp in March 2014	Moved to a Lexington halfway house in December 2015; released March 9, 2016
James Alex Fields Jr. (22239-084)	Serving life on federal hate-crime convictions	USP Allenwood
Patrick Andrews (12550-007) and Kevin Bellinger (03532-007)	Sentenced to life for stabbing Jesse Harris to death on the recreation-yard move of October 7, 2007	USP Beaumont and the ADX at Florence respectively

James “Tim” Norman and Juan García Ábrego, named as current inmates in a January 2026 Boston Herald report, are held elsewhere: the Bureau’s records place Norman at USP Terre Haute and García Ábrego at the Oklahoma City transfer center. Alfredo Beltrán Leyva, Nidal Ayyad, Eljvir Duka, James Rosemond, Aljermiah Mack, Zachary Chesser, James T. Murphy and Vernon Lance Thomas are at eight other prisons.

How do I find someone at USP Hazelton?

To find someone at USP Hazelton, search the Bureau’s Inmate Locator by first and last name or, better, by eight-digit register number, and read the location it gives: “Hazelton USP” means this penitentiary or its camp, “Hazelton FCI” the medium-security institution or the women’s facility. A common name returns every match in federal custody since 1982, so the number on the judgment is the reliable key; our explainer on how register numbers work shows where to find it. The locator does not show the housing unit, a lockdown, or whether he is in the SHU; for those, call 304-379-5000 and ask for the unit team.

How do I write to someone at USP Hazelton?

Write to someone at USP Hazelton at P.O. Box 2000, Bruceton Mills, WV 26525, with the committed name and register number on the first line, exactly as below. The penitentiary and the camp share the box; the extra line tells the mailroom which building.

For someone in the penitentiary	For someone at the satellite camp
Inmate Name & Register Number USP Hazelton U.S. Penitentiary P.O. Box 2000 Bruceton Mills, WV 26525	Inmate Name & Register Number USP Hazelton U.S. Penitentiary Satellite Camp P.O. Box 2000 Bruceton Mills, WV 26525

What arrives is not what you sent. The complex handbook (2022) states that people “will receive a xerox copy of their incoming mail (non legal) only. Once copied, all originals are destroyed.” A photograph or a child’s drawing reaches the cell as a photocopy, so send no original you want back. The handbook asks writers to add the housing unit to the envelope, and it records that mail goes out on the units Monday to Friday, never on weekends or holidays. Because this is a high-security institution, outgoing general mail may not be sealed by the sender and may be read, and books and magazines are accepted only from a publisher, book club or bookstore. See the Bureau’s correspondence rules and our guide to writing to someone in federal prison.

Legal mail escapes the copier only if it is marked. An attorney’s envelope must carry the attorney’s name, an indication that the sender is an attorney, and the words “Special Mail — Open only in the presence of the inmate” or similar; it is then opened in front of the addressee, checked for contraband and not read. Unmarked, “it may be opened as general correspondence,” in the handbook’s words — and photocopied. See attorney-client communication in the Bureau. Never put money in a letter.

How do I send money to someone at USP Hazelton?

Money for someone at USP Hazelton goes to the Bureau’s national lockbox or through one of two wire services, never to Bruceton Mills. Each route needs the committed name and the eight-digit register number, no spaces or dashes; the Bureau’s Send Money page gives the details.

Route	Details	Posting
U.S. Postal Service money order	Federal Bureau of Prisons Committed Inmate Name Eight-Digit Register Number Post Office Box 474701 Des Moines, Iowa 50947-0001	Non-postal money orders and non-government checks are held 15 days; personal checks and cash are not accepted
Western Union Quick Collect	Code city FBOP, DC; register number followed immediately by the last name; committed name on the attention line	Within two to four hours if sent between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. Eastern, otherwise by 7:00 a.m. the next morning
MoneyGram Express Payment	Receive code 7932; company name Federal Bureau of Prisons; Washington, DC; online up to $300	Same as Western Union

What each route costs is set out in sending money to a federal prisoner. Two local points matter. Visitors cannot hand money in; the visiting supplement says funds “cannot be accepted for deposit into the inmate’s trust fund account through the Visiting Room or Front Lobby.” And there is a ceiling on what money can buy — $460 a month nationally, and a local figure of $205 every two weeks on the only list published for this address, both explained below. Withdrawals over $500 need an Associate Warden’s signature.

What are the visiting hours at USP Hazelton?

Visiting at USP Hazelton is Saturday and Sunday, 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., at both the penitentiary and the camp, and no visitor is processed in after 2:00 p.m. That is the rule in the complex’s visiting supplement, HAX 5267.09I, dated June 30, 2026, which replaced the February 2026 version; the Bureau’s visiting regulations set the national framework. The supplement names only Saturday and Sunday for the penitentiary, while the 2022 handbook also listed federal holidays from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and the supplement’s points rule still speaks of holiday visits, so a holiday trip needs a call to 304-379-5000 first. The supplement’s line on cancellations: “Any changes, to include cancellation of visitation, will be made and updated on the Bureau of Prisons public website.” Yet bop.gov shows no visiting-hours table for USP Hazelton, which is how the Bureau’s site behaves generally rather than a fact about this prison. Call before every trip to a penitentiary the Council found on lockdown “more than six times per month” in September 2025.

Visits are rationed by points. Each man gets seven a month; a weekend or holiday visit costs two and a weekday visit one, so a penitentiary that visits only on weekends allows three visits a month, with one point left over unless the Warden waives points for a holiday. There is no time minimum — “Entering the Visiting Room is sufficient to deduct points” — and relatives arriving at different times on the same day are charged as separate visits. When the room is crowded “the visits of local and/or frequent visitors will be terminated first,” and out-processing starts about 2:30 p.m. once fifteen men are in the room. A man in the SHU visits through glass: two visitors at a time in a non-contact room, for no more than an hour from the moment he is brought in, finished half an hour before general-population visiting ends. Someone in holdover status needs approval at least 48 hours ahead and also visits non-contact.

Who can visit, and how many

• Six visitors at a time including children, and no more than four adults; anyone 16 or older is an adult, and children under 16 must come with one.
• Immediate family may visit for 30 days while their background check is pending at the penitentiary; at the camp the check is run during Admission and Orientation. A visitor who is not immediate family needs a new form BP-A0629 if the one on file is more than a year old, and ordinarily must have known the man before he was locked up.
• The list can be changed by written request to the unit team once every 90 days. A visitor with a criminal record needs the Warden’s specific approval and, ordinarily, a written authorization from their own probation or parole officer.
• A minister of record gets two visits a month that do not count against the points. Attorneys visit in an attorney room inside the visiting room, scheduled through the unit team; briefcases are X-rayed at the penitentiary and hand-searched at the camp.
• Do not arrive early. Visitors may not wait on the grounds, in the parking lot or in the lobby, and there is no pay phone at the complex.

What visitors can wear and bring

Barred outright: hats, watches, transparent or sheer clothing, bib overalls, open-toed shoes and sandals, spiked heels, halter tops, sleeveless tops or dresses, shorts, miniskirts, culottes, capri pants and spandex. Nothing skin-tight, low-cut or suggestive; dresses no shorter than the top of the knee; no gang, derogatory or sexual logos. Because the men wear khaki, khaki and anything the lieutenant thinks resembles inmate clothing is turned away, as are sweatsuits and camouflage. Every woman must wear a bra, children under twelve may wear shorts at the lieutenant’s discretion, and chewing gum is not allowed in the visiting room “for any reason.”

Into the room you may carry a wallet or transparent change purse no bigger than 5 by 8 by 4 inches, $20 in quarters plus a card shown to the lobby officer, four diapers, an inch of wipes in a clear bag, two unopened packs of baby food, three clear bottles half full, one baby blanket, sanitary products, and heart or epilepsy medication only. Nothing else — no car seats or strollers, no handbags, papers, photographs or gifts, no keys or phones; lockers are provided. The man you are visiting may not go to the vending machines himself, every drink loses its label, and the two of you get one embrace and one kiss on arrival and again at the end, inside a rectangle of red tape on the floor that the supplement calls the Red Embrace Box.

Two details are peculiar to the penitentiary. Men sit in the maroon chairs, and “hands must remain on the top of the tables at all times.” And when the visit ends, each man is strip-searched, sent into what the supplement calls the Green Corridor for a body scan, and held in a clean cell in Receiving and Discharge until the last man in his group has been scanned — so a visit that ends at 3:00 p.m. does not put him back on his unit at 3:00 p.m. The supplement contradicts itself on what he wears to see you: its body says penitentiary men are issued a one-piece jumpsuit and must keep it zipped, while its attachment says men wear “the full institutional uniform, to include a belt.” Both are in the same June 2026 document, which does not say which controls.

Identification, screening and the ION scan

Photo identification with a signature is required from everyone 16 and over — a driver’s license, state ID card, passport or other government-issued photo ID — and “if a visitor does not present identification with a photograph, the visitor will not be allowed to visit.” Everyone passes a walk-through metal detector; if the officer cannot find what set it off, entry is refused, so leave metal buttons and underwire at home and warn the unit team in advance about any implant, with documentation. Jackets go through the X-ray. Penitentiary visitors are hand-stamped and checked under ultraviolet light on the way out; camp visitors are not.

Any visitor may be tested by the ION spectrometry drug detector, at random or on suspicion, and the consequences escalate on a printed schedule. A first confirmed positive means a pat or vehicle search at the Warden’s discretion, and if that is clean the visit may go ahead in a controlled or non-contact area. A second positive is a 30-day suspension, a third 90 days, a fourth 180 days. Our guide to federal prison visiting covers the rules that apply everywhere, and searches and contraband explains why the machine is there.

Getting there

The complex is off Interstate 68 at exit 29, Hazelton Road, between Morgantown and Cumberland, Maryland. From the west, left at the end of the ramp, half a mile, then right on Casteel Road; the entrance is half a mile on the left. From the east, right at the ramp and right again on Casteel Road after about 100 yards. Inside, follow the institution road past the FCI, the women’s facility and the camp to the top of the hill and turn left into the USP lot. Morgantown is about 20 miles off with no taxi, bus or airline service closer; the supplement lists two places to stay, the Microtel Inn and Suites at 886 Casteel Road, (866) 538-6194, and the Maple Leaf Motel in Bruceton Mills, (304) 379-4075.

How do phone calls and email work at USP Hazelton?

Calls from USP Hazelton are outgoing only: family can call in only to report an emergency, and for that the switchboard at 304-379-5000 wants the register number and the hospital or funeral home’s number before anything is passed on. A single call should generally not exceed 15 minutes, with at least 30 minutes between calls, and calls are recorded unless they are properly arranged legal calls. The monthly allowance is national: the Bureau’s telephone regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, issued September 3, 2026, set 510 minutes a calendar month, 300 of them free to men eligible for First Step Act telephone incentives and 210 more that any man, eligible or not, may buy once he has used up the first 300. The complex handbook’s “300 minutes per month” and its extra 100 minutes in November and December belong to the rescinded 2008 policy.

Locally, phones run from 6:00 a.m. to no later than 11:30 p.m., and the handbook closes weekday access from 7:30 to 10:30 a.m. and from 12:30 p.m. until the 4:00 p.m. count clears, so that men are at work. The Council counted four telephones and six computers in each unit it toured in February 2023, for about 120 men, and on a locked-down unit those four phones are all anyone gets. An unmonitored call with a lawyer is arranged through the unit team on a showing of need, typically a court deadline. Our guide to federal inmate phone calls covers the debit and collect mechanics.

Email is TRULINCS, reached by families through CorrLinks: text only, 13,000 characters a message, charged by the minute, and opened only once the outside contact accepts the invitation. It is not private and a message to a lawyer is not privileged. The same terminals carry the law library, the next day’s callouts and a Request to Staff mailbox that sends a sexual-abuse report straight to the Inspector General. See CorrLinks and TRULINCS.

What can people buy at the USP Hazelton commissary?

The only commissary list the Bureau links for USP Hazelton is the FCI’s general-population list, which prices food, stamps, a tablet, typewriter ribbons and religious items, and the national spending limit is $460 a month. The document titled “List and prices of items sold at the commissary in USP Hazelton” is headed “FCI HAZELTON GENERAL POPULATION LIST,” prints “Spending limit is $205 bi-weekly,” and is dated October 2025. The Bureau publishes no separate list for the penitentiary or the camp.

The controlling policy is the Bureau’s trust fund manual, Program Statement 4500.13, issued May 7, 2026: $460 a month, up from $360, plus $50 during the November–December holiday period for no more than one validation period, with institutions free to validate weekly or every two weeks. A $205 figure every two weeks is a validation cycle, not a different ceiling, and no revised local figure has been published since May. The exclusions are a closed list — stamps, nicotine-replacement patches and lozenges, over-the-counter medicines and vitamins, kosher and halal shelf-stable entrees for men in IFRP refuse status, copy cards and paper, footwear, mattresses and a secured media device — and telephone credit is not on it. The complex handbook’s $360 “National Spending Limit” is out of date, as are directory pages repeating it.

The list’s rules are strict: no changes, substitutions or add-ons, old lists refused, ID card required to shop. Caps run to five of any meat or cheese, ten each of mackerel and tuna, four bags of chips and one religious item in total. A tablet is $137.30, a book of stamps $15.60 with a limit of one, and a typewriter ribbon $11.20; two dozen religious items run from a plastic rosary at $1.50 to a Hammer of Thor pendant at $26.42. In February 2023 the Council recorded that lockdowns “limit commissary access, so residents do not have sufficient amounts of necessities like soap and toothpaste,” and the Bureau answered that hygiene packs are handed out during modified operations. Our page on the federal prison commissary explains the national rules the list sits under.

What programs are available at USP Hazelton?

USP Hazelton offers the Challenge Program, a residential treatment unit, along with GED and English-as-a-second-language classes and a culinary program; there is no RDAP and no UNICOR factory, and inspectors describe long waitlists.

The Challenge Program, and drug treatment

There is no Residential Drug Abuse Program at the penitentiary or the camp. The complex handbook says the women’s facility “is the only institution at this complex that offers RDAP” and that a man “may be eligible for transfer to another institution to participate,” and the RDAP locations list in the Bureau’s August 2026 First Step Act guide names no Hazelton institution at all. A man counting on the year off under 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e) needs a transfer, and needs to raise it at a program review early; the Bureau’s RDAP rules set the eligibility terms.

What the penitentiary has instead is the Challenge Program, the one program the August 2026 guide names this institution for in its controlling narrative, as one of eleven high-security sites: a residential treatment unit for men with a documented drug history or a serious mental-illness diagnosis, run as a modified therapeutic community in Unit A2, credited at 500 hours and open to anyone with at least 18 months left. It does not carry the RDAP sentence reduction; what it can do is lower a man’s security points enough to qualify him for a lower-security prison. The Council found 80 participants and a waitlist of 40 to 60 in 2014, and 104 men in Unit A2 in September 2025 — when it also found that “the coordinator position has been vacant for approximately two years” and the chief psychologist was running the program as an extra duty. Group therapy at the penitentiary happens in A2 only. Drug education, the non-residential drug program and the First Step Act psychology classes are offered “based on the availability of staff,” which is the handbook’s own qualifier.

Education, vocational training and UNICOR

The education department runs GED and English-as-a-second-language classes from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., a one-year culinary program needing a GED and a current ServSafe certificate, resident-taught Adult Continuing Education, Adams State University correspondence courses at the student’s expense, and the BARTON literacy program for men with dyslexia; there are four law-library computers. The handbook lists Administrative Assistant, Start Up Business, Culinary Arts, Microsoft Office and electrical, HVAC and plumbing apprenticeships at the penitentiary, and power-plant mechanic at the camp. In February 2023, though, the Council recorded that “Microsoft is the only vocational training class available for residents to receive a certificate of completion,” and in September 2025 that programming is “regularly delayed or unavailable and subject to lengthy waitlists when operational,” with 44 of 66 survey respondents in no education program. During long lockdowns teachers carry work packets to the cells and collect them the following week. Our guides to prison education and vocational training explain how the credits and certificates work.

There is no UNICOR factory. The Council wrote in February 2023 that “UNICOR is no longer available at USP Hazelton” and noted that religious services now use “the former UNICOR building.” The August 2026 First Step Act guide’s Federal Prison Industries entry names the FCI, not the penitentiary, although the guide’s grid marks HAZ. Listings that describe combat-uniform pants and diplomatic bags made here describe a factory that has closed.

Faith, recreation and release preparation

Four chaplains served the department in September 2025 and make weekly SHU rounds. The three largest faith groups are Muslim, Protestant and Santería, the first and last led by prisoners. Forty-eight of 66 men surveyed in 2025 said they had no access to leaders of their own faith; the Bureau replied that the complex sits in “a heavily homogenous region slanted toward Christianity” and is “actively seeking more volunteers.” Recreation, when the yard is open, offers basketball, handball, volleyball, softball and flag-football courts and resident-led classes; in February 2023 men told the Council they had not been to the gym or the yard “for approximately one year because of the lock downs.” In its written response to the Council’s 2023 report, the Bureau put halfway-house review at 17 to 19 months before release, citing Program Statement 7310.04, the halfway-house referral policy — whose 1998 text has the unit team decide on a referral “[n]ormally 11 to 13 months” out — and the start of release-preparation classes at 30 months under Program Statement 5325.07. Its replacement, Program Statement 5325.09 (2026), which governs the Bureau’s Release Preparation Program, sets enrollment 18 to 24 months before departure. Of 22 men within two years of release in 2025, two had taken part in a release program. The First Step Act guide lists what is approved, not what runs — its Hydroponics and Gardening entry names the whole complex while its grid marks only the FCI — and for any class the unit team’s answer in writing is the only one that counts. See also religious programs.

What is daily life like at USP Hazelton?

Daily life at USP Hazelton runs on standing counts, controlled movement and a khaki uniform, and lockdowns interrupt it often. The handbook’s normal day is below; the Council’s surveys, further down, describe how often the day is not normal.

	Weekdays	Weekends and holidays
Standing counts, locked in cells	4:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m.	10:00 a.m., 4:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m.; compound secured at 9:30 a.m.
Uniform (khaki) required	7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.	—
Controlled movement	Ten-minute one-way moves after the 4:00 p.m. count clears	From the end of the morning meal; resumes after brunch
Telephones	6:00 a.m. to 11:30 p.m., except 7:30–10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. to after the 4:00 p.m. count	6:00 a.m. to 11:30 p.m.
Unit laundry room	6:00 a.m. until the unit locks down; issued clothing exchanged one-for-one at Laundry
Unit team on duty	7:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.	Daytime

Source: FCC Hazelton Admission and Orientation Handbook (2022). The camp is not under controlled movement, and its outdoor areas close at dark.

Cells are two-man, the ID card goes everywhere with him, and blue, black, red and camouflage clothing are prohibited. Sick call is Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, Thursday being the SHU’s, at a $2 co-payment not charged for a recurring problem or to an indigent man; medical told the Council in 2025 it sees about 25 requests a day and sends emergencies to one of two hospitals half an hour away. Then there are the lockdowns. Of 66 D.C. men surveyed in September 2025, 40 said they had been locked down more than six times a month and 17 said some lasted one to two weeks, with cold food carried to the units, no clean sheets because laundry exchange stops, and weeks in which the day consisted of the cell. The Bureau’s reply describes a new roster and “a new daily inmate movement schedule.”

What do inspectors say about conditions at USP Hazelton?

Inspectors describe a penitentiary short of staff and often locked down because its Special Housing Unit is full, with repeated complaints about medical care and staff conduct.

The DOJ Office of the Inspector General has not conducted an on-site inspection of this facility. The office knows this penitentiary well from its other work: its investigators reconstructed Bulger’s last fourteen hours here for a December 2022 report, its evaluators made a site visit to the complex in November 2021 for a Bureau-wide study of deaths in custody, its staff visited in 2014 for its 2015 report on aging prisoners, and its agents built the criminal cases against Hazelton officers described below. By its own count in May 2026, the office has run unannounced conditions inspections at fourteen institutions since 2023, and its list of ongoing work named no Hazelton engagement in September 2026. The conditions inspections here have all come from the District of Columbia.

The Inspector General on deaths, and on the Bulger transfer

The office’s February 2024 evaluation counted every federal death by suicide, homicide, accident or unknown cause from fiscal year 2014 to 2021 and listed the institutions with the most. USP Hazelton had 14, tied with USP Terre Haute and behind only USP Atlanta’s 17, on a 2018 population the report gives as 1,384. Among the things that prompted it, the report says, was an October 2018 congressional request “to investigate the circumstances surrounding the deaths of two inmates at USP Hazelton in 2018 that the BOP deemed to be homicides by stabbing”; the OIG opened the evaluation in February 2020. When its team came in November 2021 it found one clinical physician and one contract physician for a complex of more than 3,400 people, against a clinical director’s estimate that four more doctors were needed, officers who could be ordered onto 16-hour shifts up to four times a week, and no retention incentive in place.

The Bulger report of December 7, 2022, is the closest thing to a public account of how this penitentiary receives a new arrival. The Bureau chose Hazelton over nine other available high-security, care-level-2 prisons partly because it was close to Boston and “took good care of the inmates,” despite “the record of violence among inmates at Hazelton, which housed gang members and inmates with connections to organized crime.” “Well over 100 BOP officials” knew of the transfer in advance and Hazelton staff “openly spoke about Bulger’s upcoming arrival in the presence of Hazelton inmates.” He was wheeled into Unit F-1 at 8:48 p.m. on October 29, 2018, and found at 8:21 the next morning, after two men entered his cell at 6:19 a.m. The office found “serious job performance and management failures at multiple levels” but no malicious intent, made eleven recommendations, and the Bureau accepted them all. Hazelton’s own case-management coordinator told investigators that if he could have refused the transfer, he would have.

The Corrections Information Council, 2014 to 2025

Because Hazelton holds so many people sentenced under the D.C. Code, the District’s Corrections Information Council has come five times: August 2014 (published September 2016), emergency interviews on October 3, 2018, after two stabbing deaths, interviews in August 2019 with no penitentiary report posted, February 22–23, 2023 (published October 2023) and September 16–18, 2025 (published February 2026, with the Bureau’s reply of July 24, 2026). The figures in its four published accounts describe self-selected volunteers among the D.C. men — 25, 58, 90 and 66 of 135 — and its findings are dated to the visit.

The 2025 report is a report about lockdowns. Signage still declared the penitentiary on “minimal modification” status, which the Bureau called outdated; the captain would not release the legal visiting rooms “citing the facility’s lockdown status,” so interviews ran over the non-contact phones, two of the four out of order. The Council found psychology at 50 percent of authorized staffing and medical at 73 percent with four vacancies, a SHU at capacity with every cell double-bunked, 29 of 66 men reporting racist remarks from officers and 14 of them saying daily, 14 of the 20 who had filed grievances saying they never got a reply, and 24 men saying they were not receiving their mental-health medication. The Bureau’s response accepts the staffing picture — two psychologists for the complex, tele-health from other prisons, a continuing moratorium on the higher mental-health care levels — and describes a new roster and two newly hired treatment specialists.

Both the Inspector General (December 2022) and the Council (September 2025) record the penitentiary at medical care level 2. The Bureau’s undated mental-health care-level chart, released in 2024 with its medical chart, lists Level 2 for mental health; the Council recorded Level 3 at its February 2023 visit, and the Bureau wrote in July 2026 that a moratorium on mental-health care levels 3 and 4 is in effect because of staffing. See the Bureau’s mental health care policy.

The 2023 visit found the penitentiary “grossly” over its rated capacity, 1,647 against 881. Fifty-two of 90 respondents said staff had made racist remarks to them, 20 reported physical abuse by staff, especially in the SHU, 63 were dissatisfied with medical care and 52 had not seen a dentist; the Bureau’s inserted responses say the Council gave it nothing specific enough to investigate, and that eight psychologist posts were open with no psychiatrist on site. The 2018 letter is starker: “25% of the individuals we spoke with indicated that a physical assault such as a beating or stabbing occurs at least once per day,” padlocks in socks were the weapon of choice, metal-detector alarms at the dining hall were routinely ignored, and men were “much more concerned about violent assaults from staff than from inmates, particularly upon admission to SHU.” The Bureau replied in March 2019 that after-action reviews found staff had responded appropriately to both deaths, that the inmate-to-officer ratio of 4.77 to one bettered the penitentiary average, and that serious-assault rates were below it too.

The PREA audit, and the GAO allegation tables

The complex was audited under the Prison Rape Elimination Act on April 7–9, 2026, by Brian Sutherland of Corrections Consulting Services; his final report of May 15, 2026, found all 45 standards met, none exceeded and none failed. The audit does not separate the penitentiary, but two of its facts are the only published ones of their kind: the Warden told the auditor the complex was at “an 82% staffing level,” 704 people against 855 authorized positions, and the facility “has identified several blind spot areas” where camera coverage is to be added. One caution: the Bureau still serves an older audit at this penitentiary’s own web address, a March 2023 report by a different auditor that the 2026 audit lists as its predecessor. It is superseded, and it is not the one the Bureau links.

In May 2026 the Government Accountability Office published the Bureau’s counts of reported sexual-abuse allegations at every institution from 2020 to 2024. For USP Hazelton, allegations naming another prisoner as the perpetrator ran 3, 2, 3, 8 and 7 by year of incident, and allegations naming a Bureau employee ran 4, 3, 9, 8 and 32 by year reported — the 32 in 2024 being the figure that stands out in this prison’s row. These are reported allegations, not findings; the GAO notes that most allegations Bureau-wide from 2014 through 2022 ended “unsubstantiated,” which means not enough evidence either way, and it does not adjust for population, so the numbers cannot rank one prison against another. What they show is where reports were made.

One more per-institution number exists, and it is the only published measure of force at this penitentiary. In an audit published on July 29, 2025, the Inspector General tabulated every application of restraints recorded in the Bureau’s incident system between January 1, 2018, and January 16, 2024 — 14,772 in all, 55 percent of them at high-security prisons — and listed the institutions with more than 300. USP Hazelton appears at 432, eighth on that list; FCI Hazelton appears separately at 311. Those count reported applications, not improper ones, and they are not adjusted for population.

Staffing, and the prosecution of officers

Every published staffing figure for Hazelton is a complex-wide figure: 785 of 863 positions filled in October 2016, by the union; 94 percent on board in the Inspector General’s 2023 review; 82 percent by the Warden’s account in April 2026; health services “at less than 60%” and a 13 percent retention incentive in the Bureau’s July 2026 letter; and “at times … as low as 75 percent” from an AFGE Local 420 steward in August 2026, with teachers and cooks covering officer posts. The Council’s 2018 letter, the Inspector General’s 2024 evaluation and the union have each named augmentation as a safety problem in itself.

The Justice Department has also prosecuted this penitentiary’s own officers. On March 21, 2019, according to the Inspector General, officer Robert David Sims took part in “the unprovoked assault” of a prisoner during a strip search, “punching and kicking the inmate resulting in lacerations to the face, contusions throughout the body, fractured vertebrae, and internal bleeding.” Sims pleaded guilty to assault resulting in serious bodily injury and got 16 months on June 9, 2025; Joshua David Sines, who conspired to falsify the records, got 16 months on February 24, 2025; Josiah Dandue Redd pleaded guilty to false statements and to being an accessory after the fact. Another officer got five years’ probation in November 2023 for lying to a federal agent, and a serving officer was arrested for witness tampering in October 2024. In September 2023, Senators Durbin, Grassley, Manchin and Capito asked the Attorney General to investigate whistleblower reports from the complex including “a group of inmates escaping from the prison camp and supervisory staff attempting to cover it up,” and the next month the U.S. Attorney opened a civil-rights hotline for FCC Hazelton — 1-855-WVA-FEDS and wvafeds@usdoj.gov — for anyone who “witnessed or were victims of physical assault while incarcerated” here. It is still open.

What the courts have held

Two Fourth Circuit decisions arising here fix the limits of what a family can do afterward. In Bulger v. Hurwitz, 62 F.4th 127 (4th Cir. 2023), Bulger’s estate sued the officials who transferred him and the United States. The court held that Eighth Amendment failure-to-protect and failure-to-intervene claims against federal prison employees arise in a new Bivens context that special factors counsel against extending, and that the Federal Tort Claims Act’s discretionary-function exception bars the negligence claim, because “assessing Bulger’s medical condition, transferring him to Hazelton, and placing him within general population” were policy judgments no statute prescribed. The dismissal was affirmed. In Hall v. United States, 44 F.4th 218 (4th Cir. 2022), a USP Hazelton prisoner with three prior dismissed suits sued over delayed medical care and won his appeal. The court clarified the Prison Litigation Reform Act’s “imminent danger” exception to the three-strikes bar in two directions at once: a prisoner must show a nexus between the claims he brings and the danger he alleges, but there is no redressability requirement — the suit does not have to be capable of removing the danger. Past danger can be weighed in deciding whether the danger is imminent at filing, though past harm alone will not do. Because the district court had not seen Hall’s medical records it could not apply that standard, so the Fourth Circuit remanded. Neither decision says whether the care or the placement was adequate; both say where a claim can and cannot be brought, and Hall says it can be brought without paying first.

USP Hazelton in the news

Recent news about USP Hazelton centers on staffing and deaths: a union steward’s account of staffing as low as 75 percent, two deaths in 2026, a triple stabbing in January 2026 and the Hernández release. Older items concern the prosecution of officers, the senators’ demand for an investigation, the Bulger killing and its aftermath, and killings in 2007, 2009 and 2018. Newest first:

• August 25, 2026 — An AFGE Local 420 steward told WV MetroNews that staffing at the Hazelton facilities “has at times been as low as 75 percent,” with augmentation putting teachers and cooks on correctional posts.
• May 25, 2026 — The Bureau reported that Cecil Buckner, 46, serving 414 months from the Middle District of Florida, was found unresponsive at 9:05 p.m. and pronounced dead by EMS; he had been at the penitentiary since March 18. The FBI was notified. No cause of death has been published.
• March 17–18, 2026 — The Bureau reported that Jerome Jones, 35, serving 330 months from the Western District of Tennessee and here since April 2025, was found unresponsive on the evening of March 17 and pronounced dead at a hospital the next day. The FBI was notified. Sixteen days earlier, on March 2, Isom Cooper had died at FCI Hazelton next door.
• January 7, 2026 — Three men were stabbed in an afternoon fight; all three went to hospital and two were back the same day, with no life-threatening injuries, according to the Bureau.
• December 1, 2025 — Juan Orlando Hernández was released from the penitentiary under a presidential pardon.
• February and June 2025 — Former officers Sines and Sims were sentenced to 16 months each over the March 2019 assault and its cover-up.
• September 6, 2024 — Fotios Geas was sentenced in Clarksburg to 25 years, consecutive to his life term, for killing Bulger; Paul DeCologero had received more than four years in August, and Sean McKinnon, the lookout who lied to the FBI, no additional time.
• September–October 2023 — Four senators demanded an investigation of whistleblower reports from the complex, including an alleged camp escape and its cover-up; the U.S. Attorney opened the FCC Hazelton civil-rights hotline.
• November–December 2022 — Ronnie Legette pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the September 2018 dining-hall stabbing of Demario Porter, and the Inspector General published its investigation of the Bulger transfer.
• October 30, 2018 — Bulger, 89, was beaten to death in his cell in Unit F-1 the morning after he arrived; the West Virginia medical examiner ruled the death a homicide by blunt-force injuries to the head.
• April 2 and September 17, 2018 — Ian Thorne, 48, died after a fight with homemade weapons, and Demario Porter, 27, was stabbed to death in the dining hall. The local union president said the complex had logged more than 60 violent incidents and nine lockdowns since January 1.
• December 6, 2009, and October 7, 2007 — Jimmy Lee Wilson, 26, died during a fight involving several men, and Jesse Harris was stabbed to death in under a minute on the move from the recreation yard; Patrick Andrews and Kevin Bellinger were later sentenced to life for the Harris killing.

Frequently asked questions about USP Hazelton

Problems at USP Hazelton: where we can help

The problems that recur at this penitentiary are the ones its own record shows, and most of them turn on a deadline. If someone you care about is here, these are the matters that come up most:

• Time in the SHU, or on a locked-down unit, that has outrun the reviews the Bureau’s SHU policy requires. The seven-day and thirty-day hearings, the exercise hours and the overflow-approval rule are all things a written administrative remedy can put on the record, and the remedy has to be finished before a court will look at it. See disciplinary proceedings.
• Designation and transfer. A man is at a penitentiary because of a point score, a Public Safety Factor or a Management Variable, each of them arguable; the Sentence Length factor that keeps long-sentence men at high security can be waived, and completing the Challenge Program can lower the score. See federal prison transfers and the Bureau’s designation rules.
• Medical care that is not happening. It has been the leading complaint in every Council survey here and the Bureau itself calls health services under 60 percent staffed. See medical care in federal prison and, where delay has caused injury, Federal Tort Claims Act claims — with what the Fourth Circuit held in Bulger and Hall about which claims survive.
• Protection. A man who fears for his safety can ask for protective custody, and the SHU is where that request puts him; getting from there to a transfer rather than a return to the same unit is casework with a paper trail.
• First Step Act time credits and program access during lockdowns — whether classes that ran as cell packets are being credited, and whether the assessment that unlocks programming has been done. See the Bureau’s time-credit rules.
• Halfway-house and home-confinement placement and release paperwork; in 2023 three of 39 D.C. men within two years of release had a birth certificate. See our RDAP and early release work.
• Compassionate release (see the Bureau’s reduction-in-sentence policy), sentence computation errors and D.C. Code sentence issues, which follow their own rules.
• 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

• USP Hazelton, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Address, contact details, mailing addresses and posted documents.
• Visiting Regulations, Institution Supplement HAX 5267.09I, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCC Hazelton, 2026. Visiting times, points, dress, permitted items, ION scan rules and directions; replaced the February 2026 supplement.
• FCI Hazelton General Population List, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCC Hazelton, 2025. The commissary order form linked from the USP Hazelton page: spending limit, prices and quantity caps.
• Inmate Admission and Orientation Handbook, Federal Correctional Complex – Hazelton, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCC Hazelton, 2022. Daily schedule, telephone hours, mail and programs.
• Death at USP Hazelton, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Cecil Buckner’s death on May 25, 2026.
• Death at USP Hazelton, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Jerome Jones’s death in March 2026.
• Trust Fund/Deposit Fund Manual, Program Statement 4500.13, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Commissary spending limit and its exclusions.
• Inmate Security Designation and Custody Classification, Program Statement 5100.08, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2006, as amended in 2026.
• Inmate Telephone Regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Monthly minute allowance and call rules; replaced the 2008 telephone regulations.
• Special Housing Units, Program Statement 5270.12, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2024, as amended in 2025.
• Release Preparation Program, Program Statement 5325.09, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Replaced Program Statement 5325.07 (2007).
• Community Corrections Center (CCC) Utilization and Transfer Procedures, Program Statement 7310.04, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 1998. Halfway-house referral timing.
• First Step Act Approved Programs Guide, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Reentry Services Division, 2026. August 2026 edition; programs by institution, including the Challenge Program sites and the RDAP locations list.
• Community Ties: Sending Money, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Deposit routes, posting times and holds.
• Institution Care Levels for Medical Assignment and Institutional Mental Health Care Levels, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2024. Released under Freedom of Information Act request 2024-03455 and published by the Washington Lawyers’ Committee.
• Response to the draft USP Hazelton inspection report, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Correctional Programs Division, 2026. A letter to the Council, published by the District of Columbia Corrections Information Council.

Audits and inspections

• PREA Audit Report: FCC Hazelton, Brian Sutherland, Corrections Consulting Services, LLC, 2026. On-site audit of April 7–9, 2026, covering the whole complex.
• 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. Counts the institutions inspected since 2023.
• Ongoing Work, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2026.
• 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.
• USP Hazelton Report on Findings and Recommendations, District of Columbia Corrections Information Council, 2026. Inspection of September 16–18, 2025.
• 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.
• Evaluation of Issues Surrounding Inmate Deaths in Federal Bureau of Prisons Institutions (Report 24-041), U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2024.
• USP Hazelton Report on Findings and Recommendations, District of Columbia Corrections Information Council, 2023. Inspection of February 22–23, 2023, with the Bureau’s responses.
• PREA Facility Audit Report: FCC Hazelton, Marc L. Coudriet, 2023. Superseded by the 2026 audit; still served at the USP Hazelton address.
• Durbin, Grassley, Manchin, Capito Call on DOJ and BOP to Investigate Reports of Abusive Treatment at FCC Hazelton, U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 2023. Carries the senators’ September 12, 2023, letter.
• Investigation and Review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Handling of the Transfer of Inmate James “Whitey” Bulger (Report 23-007), U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2022.
• Annual Report 2019, District of Columbia Corrections Information Council, 2019. Records the October 2018 and August 2019 visits to USP Hazelton.
• FCC Hazelton Letter and BOP Response, District of Columbia Corrections Information Council, 2018. Michelle Bonner’s letter to Acting Director Hugh Hurwitz after the October 3, 2018, visit, with the Bureau’s March 2019 response.
• USP Hazelton Inspection Report with FBOP Response, District of Columbia Corrections Information Council, 2016. Inspection of August 25, 2014.

Court records

• Former BOP Correctional Officer Sentenced for Assault Resulting in Serious Bodily Injury, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2025. Robert David Sims’s 16-month sentence.
• Former BOP Correctional Officer Sentenced for Conspiracy to Commit Alteration and Falsification of Records in Federal Investigations, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2025. Joshua David Sines’s 16-month sentence.
• Three Correctional Officers Admit to Violating Civil Rights, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of West Virginia, 2024. The guilty pleas of Robert David Sims, Joshua David Sines and Josiah Dandue Redd.
• Bulger v. Hurwitz, 62 F.4th 127, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, 2023.
• Civil rights hotline created for federal prison in West Virginia, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of West Virginia, 2023. The FCC Hazelton hotline.
• Hall v. United States, 44 F.4th 218, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, 2022.
• Inmate admits to the stabbing of another inmate, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of West Virginia, 2022. Ronnie Legette’s plea in the death of Demario Porter.
• Federal inmate sentenced to life in prison for murder of fellow prisoner, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of West Virginia, 2015. Patrick Andrews’s life sentence for the killing of Jesse Harris.

News and other sources

• FCI Hazelton workers applaud resignation of BOP deputy director, former inmate, WV MetroNews, 2026.
• Hazelton inmate found dead, The Dominion Post, 2026.
• Two inmate deaths at Hazelton highlight facility’s violent past, WV News (Charles Young), 2026.
• Convicted ex-Mass State Police Sgt. Gary Cederquist reports to prison where Whitey Bulger was killed, Boston Herald, 2026.
• UPDATE: More information released after stabbing at USP Hazelton, WDTV, 2026.
• A hitman serving life in prison gets more time for killing ‘Whitey’ Bulger, Associated Press, 2024. Carried by WSMV.
• W.Va. union official: Inmate death highlights understaffing problems, Preston County News & Journal, 2018. Republished by Corrections1.
• Richie Farmer to Move to Kentucky Halfway House, WKU Public Radio, 2015.
• Richie Farmer assigned to prison in West Virginia, WLKY, 2014.
• 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