FCI Aliceville: Federal Women’s Prison in Alabama

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

FCI Aliceville at a glance

FCI Aliceville is a low-security federal prison for women in Aliceville, Alabama, holding 784 people as of September 2026 — 709 at the main institution and 75 at the adjacent minimum-security satellite camp. It opened in 2013 as the first federal women’s prison in Alabama and sits in Pickens County, about 55 miles west of Tuscaloosa.

Official name	Federal Correctional Institution, Aliceville
BOP code	ALI
Security level	Low; women
Status	Conversion to a men’s institution announced internally (March 2026) · see whether it is still a women’s prison
Population	784 (as of September 2026)
Visiting	Saturdays, Sundays and federal holidays, 8:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m. · FCI and camp
Inmate mail	FCI: Inmate Name & Register Number · FCI Aliceville · Federal Correctional Institution · P.O. Box 4000 · Aliceville, AL 35442 Camp: Inmate Name & Register Number · FCI Aliceville · Satellite Prison Camp · P.O. Box 487 · Aliceville, AL 35442
Send money	Lockbox · Western Union (code city FBOP, DC) · MoneyGram (receive code 7932)
Phone	205-373-5000 · Fax 205-373-5020
Street address	11070 Highway 14, Aliceville, AL 35442 · Pickens County
Judicial district	Northern District of Alabama, Western Division · court at Tuscaloosa
BOP region	Southeast
Designated capacity	1,792
Housing	15 units: 13 multiple-occupancy cell units, 2 open-bay dormitories, no single-cell units
Special Housing Unit	Yes · 50 segregation cells
Medical care level	Level 2
RDAP	No
UNICOR	No
Camp	Yes · adjacent minimum-security satellite camp

It is one of the federal prisons in Alabama and falls under the Bureau’s Southeast Region. One development governs everything else: in March 2026 the Bureau circulated an internal memorandum announcing that this institution will be converted to a men’s prison and its women moved to FCI Estill in South Carolina. That has not happened yet. The Bureau’s only public statement on it covers half of the swap: its April 15, 2026, news release on FCI Estill noted Estill’s “upcoming transition to a low security female facility” and said nothing about Aliceville.

Is FCI Aliceville still a women’s prison?

Yes: FCI Aliceville still holds women, and the Bureau’s current records describe it as a female institution. The roster behind the Bureau’s website lists it as female, and the Prison Rape Elimination Act audit conducted here on June 9–11, 2026, states that “FCI Aliceville houses adult female offenders.”

A family planning more than a month ahead needs the rest of the answer. On March 8, 2026, Forbes published the text of an internal Bureau memorandum circulated to staff: “the Federal Bureau of Prisons is realigning the missions of FCI Aliceville, Alabama and FCI Estill, South Carolina. FCI Aliceville will transition from a low security female institution (Care Level 2) to a low security male institution (Care Level 1). FCI Estill will transition from a low security male institution to a low security female institution (Care Level 2).”

The memorandum gives the Bureau’s reasons directly. “FCI Aliceville has long faced staffing challenges, particularly in Health Services, and currently operates under a designation moratorium which limits the types of female inmates who can be placed at the facility.” The two moves together, it says, “will free approximately 512 additional male low security beds systemwide while consolidating female services at a location better suited to their medical and operational needs.” Forbes reported that women were expected to be moved out by June 2026.

Four independent facts show where the conversion stands. The population has almost halved: the PREA audit records an average daily population of 1,439 for the twelve months to June 2026 and 985 women here on June 9, against 784 as of September 2026. Half of the swap has already posted — FCI Estill’s record in the same roster now lists it as female, and Estill held 192 people as of September 2026. Individual transfers are traceable: Jordan Linn Graham, register number 12764-046, listed at Aliceville for years, appears at FCI Estill in the Bureau’s own locator. And no Bureau news release has announced Aliceville’s conversion.

The conversion was announced internally in March 2026 with a June 2026 target; it is visibly under way and not finished. Do not treat a designation here as permanent, and ask her unit team whether she is on a transfer list before booking travel. Two consequences follow. A woman moved from Alabama to South Carolina is roughly 500 road miles farther from a family in the Gulf states; for many, “close to home” moves the wrong way. And a designation moratorium means the Designation and Sentence Computation Center is already restricting who can be sent here, so a judicial recommendation naming Aliceville may not be honored.

What is the security level at FCI Aliceville?

FCI Aliceville’s main institution is low security and the satellite camp beside it is minimum security. They share a telephone number, a commissary list and a visiting room, but they have separate post office boxes and they are different places to serve a sentence.

The 2026 PREA audit records the custody levels held here as “Minimum/Out, Minimum/Community, Low/In” — a population running from women who work outside the fence to women held inside a secure perimeter. The same audit counts 15 housing units: 13 multiple-occupancy cell units, two open-bay dormitories, and no single-cell units at all. No woman here lives alone. There are 50 segregation cells.

Whether a woman goes to the FCI or the camp turns on her security point score and on whether any Public Safety Factor applies; a Public Safety Factor overrides the point total and is what keeps a woman out of a camp however low she scores. For women the arithmetic bites in a particular way: because the Bureau runs so few female institutions, a management variable that would move a man to a prison an hour away can move a woman a thousand miles. Our guides to the intake process and to preparing for prison cover the rest.

Two figures from the audit tell you who is here. The age range is 19 to 79 at the FCI and 21 to 61 at the camp, and the average length of stay is 830.4 days at the FCI — about 27 months — against 384.7 days at the camp. Most women here will be home within three years, which is why the programming and halfway-house questions below matter more than they would at a penitentiary.

Where does the Bureau hold women?

The Bureau holds women in six institutions that hold only women and in about two dozen that hold both: the whole federal estate for roughly seven percent of the prison population, and the source of most of what families find baffling about a woman’s designation. The Bureau’s roster lists these six as female institutions.

Institution	Security level	State	Camp
FPC Alderson	Minimum	West Virginia	—
FCI Aliceville	Low	Alabama	Yes
FPC Bryan	Minimum	Texas	—
FMC Carswell	Administrative (medical)	Texas	Yes
FCI Estill	Low	South Carolina	—
FCI Waseca	Low	Minnesota	—

Aliceville and FMC Carswell are the only female-only institutions with a satellite camp of their own. Twenty-three further facilities hold mixed populations — detention centers, medical centers and a few institutions with a women’s unit, including FCI Tallahassee, FSL Danbury and the secure female facility at Hazelton. The other ninety-nine hold men only.

The consequence for visiting is arithmetic, not policy. A man sentenced in Alabama has a realistic prospect of designation within driving distance; a woman sentenced in Alabama at low security has a choice of a handful of prisons spread from Minnesota to Texas to South Carolina, and the Bureau’s obligation is to place her within 500 driving miles of her release residence where practicable. The qualifier does the work.

Who are the notable inmates at FCI Aliceville?

Alice Marie Johnson is the best-known woman to have served time at FCI Aliceville. Most published lists of Aliceville’s well-known prisoners name women who left years ago or were never here. The register numbers below let you check each record in the Bureau’s public Inmate Locator yourself.

Name	Status in Bureau records	Case
Alice Marie Johnson	Former. Register number 14873-076; Bureau records give her release date from FCI Aliceville as June 6, 2018	Served more than two decades of a life sentence for a Memphis cocaine conspiracy. President Trump commuted her sentence on June 6, 2018, and granted a full pardon on August 28, 2020; she was appointed the President’s clemency adviser in February 2025
Jordan Linn Graham	Former — Bureau records now place her at FCI Estill, South Carolina. Register number 12764-046, projected release November 10, 2039	Sentenced on March 27, 2014, in the District of Montana to 360 months on a mid-trial guilty plea to second-degree murder, for pushing her husband from a cliff in Glacier National Park
Angela Johnson	Not here. Register number 08337-029; Bureau records place her at FCI Tallahassee, projected release LIFE	Convicted in 2005 in the Northern District of Iowa of five murders in furtherance of a continuing criminal enterprise; the first woman a federal jury had sentenced to death since the 1950s
Elaine Brown	Not here. Bureau records show an Elaine Brown, register number 03924-049, released on February 28, 2020, from FMC Carswell. No Elaine Brown record shows FCI Aliceville	The New Hampshire tax case

The holding in Angela Johnson’s case is routinely overstated. The district court’s 2012 order on her motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 left her convictions on five counts of murder standing and vacated the life sentence on Count 6 and the death sentences on Counts 7 through 10. Johnson v. United States, 860 F. Supp. 2d 663 (N.D. Iowa 2012). She was taken off federal death row, not exonerated. And she is not at Aliceville.

How do I find someone at FCI Aliceville?

To find someone at FCI Aliceville, use the Bureau’s free public Inmate Locator and search by the eight-digit register number if you have it. The register number is the reliable key, because the locator matches the committed name on the judgment, not a married name or a nickname, and women’s names change more often than men’s. It 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.

Check it again before you travel. With transfers out of this facility under way, a result from a month ago is not evidence of where someone is today. A record the Bureau marks “IN TRANSIT” — in its words, someone “moved from a BOP facility” who “may or may not be returned,” such as a pretrial prisoner the Marshals Service has taken — names no facility, and the screen prints “NOT IN BOP CUSTODY”, usually with “Release Date: UNKNOWN”. If it shows nothing at all, the usual reasons are state rather than federal custody, pretrial detention under the U.S. Marshals Service, or a different spelling on the judgment. Our guide to how register numbers work explains the number.

How do I write to someone at FCI Aliceville?

To write to someone at FCI Aliceville, use her committed name and register number and the right post office box: P.O. Box 4000 for the FCI, P.O. Box 487 for the satellite camp. Mixing up the two boxes is the most common addressing mistake made about this prison. The first line is the committed name and the register number, in that order.

For someone at the FCI	For someone at the satellite camp
Inmate Name & Register Number FCI Aliceville Federal Correctional Institution P.O. Box 4000 Aliceville, AL 35442	Inmate Name & Register Number FCI Aliceville Satellite Prison Camp P.O. Box 487 Aliceville, AL 35442

P.O. Box 445 is the staff mail box, although the front page of the 2026 PREA audit gives it as the facility’s mailing address. Do not send a letter to a woman there.

Under the Bureau’s correspondence rules, general correspondence is opened and may be read, while legal mail is opened only in the woman’s presence and only if marked “Special Mail – open only in the presence of the inmate.” The facility’s handbook puts the burden on the woman inside: “It is the responsibility of the inmate to advise her attorney of these requirements. If legal mail is not adequately marked, it may be opened as general correspondence.” Our guides to attorney-client communication in the Bureau of Prisons and to writing to someone in federal prison cover the privilege question. Photographs are encouraged, with two limits that catch families out: no Polaroids, and nothing in which the subject is partly or wholly nude. Never put money in a letter.

How do I send money to someone at FCI Aliceville?

To send money to someone at FCI Aliceville, use the Bureau’s national lockbox in Iowa or one of two wire services; money never goes to the prison itself. All three routes need the committed name and eight-digit register number, on the instrument and on the envelope.

Route	Where it goes	How fast it posts
Postal money order (or cashier’s check)	Federal Bureau of Prisons Committed Name Eight-Digit Register Number Post Office Box 474701 Des Moines, Iowa 50947-0001	Postal money orders post without a hold; non-postal money orders and non-government checks carry an automatic 15-day hold
Western Union Quick Collect	Code city FBOP, DC. Register number with no spaces or dashes, immediately followed by the surname; full committed name on the attention line	Two to four hours if sent 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Eastern, any day; otherwise by 7:00 a.m. next morning
MoneyGram Express Payment	Receive code 7932, company name Federal Bureau of Prisons, Washington, DC. Up to $300 online	Same as Western Union

No cash and no personal checks. If the register number or name is wrong and the transaction is accepted anyway, the handbook warns that “funds may not be returned” — the sender bears that risk, and a tracer has to be raised with whoever sold the money order, not with the prison. Our full guide to sending money to a federal prisoner compares every route and its cost.

Before sending a large sum, know the ceiling: with commissary spending capped at $460 a month, anything beyond that simply sits in the account. A woman in refusal status under the Inmate Financial Responsibility Program can spend only $25 a month; if the money you send is not being spent, ask whether she is in refuse status, and why, because the payment plan is negotiable.

What are the visiting hours at FCI Aliceville?

Visiting hours at FCI Aliceville, for both the FCI and the camp, are 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Saturdays, Sundays and federal holidays, under Institution Supplement ALI 5267.09D, dated October 2, 2019.

Call 205-373-5000 before you drive: the Bureau’s facility page for Aliceville, like every Bureau facility page, lists no visiting days or hours, and the schedule above comes from the visiting supplement (ALI 5267.09D) that the page links. That 2019 supplement predates the pandemic, the current warden and the mission realignment.

Processing also stops long before the room closes. No visitor is admitted to institution property before 8:00 a.m., processing of incoming visitors ends at 2:00 p.m., and everyone leaves at 3:00 p.m. There is a further blackout in the 30 minutes before the 10:00 a.m. count: arrive at 9:45 and you will wait.

The room is rated for 200 people, and when it fills staff terminate visits, weighing how often the woman receives visits and how far the visitor traveled. If overcrowding forces a curtailment a two-hour maximum applies, imposed first on visitors living within a 200-mile radius — traveling from farther away is, in this one narrow respect, an advantage. Women in administrative detention or disciplinary segregation visit by video from the Special Housing Unit during the same hours, each guaranteed at least an hour.

Who can visit, and how many

• Each woman receives up to 16 visiting points a month, and the list may hold up to 20 friends and associates in addition to immediate family.
• Five adults and five children at one time; more needs advance approval from the Unit Team.
• Every proposed visitor, including immediate family named in the presentence report, completes and returns form BP-A0629. There is no limit on how often the list changes, but “each change may take up to three weeks to complete.” Start the paperwork early.
• A child under 16 may not visit unless accompanied by a responsible adult, and a visitor aged 16 or 17 “is strictly precluded from accompanying or supervising a minor during visitation” — so an older teenage sibling cannot bring the younger children.
• A visitor with a criminal conviction may still visit if she is immediate family, but needs the Warden’s written approval two weeks in advance; a visitor on probation, parole or supervised release needs her supervising officer’s authorization first.

One listed reason for refusing an application surprises people: a conviction or incarceration “in the past ten (10) years for a criminal offense.”

What visitors can wear and bring

Two colors will turn you away here that would not turn you away at a men’s prison. Women at the FCI wear khaki; women at the camp wear green. Visitors may wear neither, nor any variation of khaki, nor orange, which is what the Special Housing Unit wears. Camouflage and fatigues are also out.

The rest: dresses and skirts must at minimum touch the top of the knee; no shorts, tank or tube tops, sleeveless shirts, sun dresses, miniskirts, see-through, tight or spandex clothing, tights, holes in clothing, hats, caps, doo-rags, sweatshirts or hoodies; no open-toed shoes or flip-flops; female visitors must wear a bra. And one rule surprises visitors: “Wrist watches, timepieces, or electronic sports bands of any sort will not be permitted into the Visiting Room at the FCI or SPC.”

Under the 2019 supplement each visitor may bring one clear plastic purse or bag no larger than 12 by 12 inches, no wallets; prescription medication, held at the Officers’ Station; and, for an infant, a carrier, a clear diaper bag, one sealed baby food, one bottle, two containers of formula, lotion, powder, a small blanket, a hat, one change of clothes, ointment, wipes and one toy. No tobacco of any type.

The facility’s 2021 handbook is stricter. It permits only “clear plastic coin purses, no larger than 8 inches by 8 inches,” and lists baby strollers, infant carriers and diaper bags among the items not permitted. The institution publishes both documents, so call before you pack for a baby.

Visitor spending money is $30 per adult for the vending machines; women may never handle money. A woman may bring a commissary card, one wedding band, an approved religious medallion and one pair of plain stud earrings without stones — small hoops no larger than a quarter are allowed at the camp only. The visiting building has a Children’s Center, and women not on the restricted list may go into it with their approved children. Breastfeeding is permitted in designated areas only, and the supplement is explicit that “at no time are inmates permitted to be in this area” — so a woman cannot sit with a visitor who is feeding her baby.

Identification and screening

Photo identification is required for everyone over 16: “if a visitor does not present identification with a photograph, the visitor will not be allowed to visit.” Every adult also completes form BP-A0224 on every visit. Screening is by metal detector and, if you are randomly selected, ion spectrometry; failing the ion scan and being unable to complete the follow-up is a listed reason for being turned away, as is refusing a search. At the FCI an invisible-ink stamp is applied to each visitor’s hand, children included, and checked under black light three times before you leave. See searches, shakedowns and contraband, our guide to federal prison visitation and the Bureau’s national visiting regulations.

Attorneys: a visit during normal visiting hours requires the attorney to be on the approved visiting list unless the Unit Team has issued a memorandum approved by the Captain; outside those hours the Unit Team must approve and supervise the visit. Attorney visits are visually but not auditorily monitored.

Getting there

The institution’s own handbook says: “There are no taxi, bus or airline services in the immediate area of the institution. However, taxi and airline services are available in Tuscaloosa, AL, which is approximately 55 miles from FCI Aliceville.” The visiting supplement adds that Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International is the nearest large airport, “approximately 107 miles from FCI Aliceville,” and that hotels are in Tuscaloosa and Columbus, Mississippi. If you fly in, plan to rent a car.

From Tuscaloosa the supplement’s route is US-82 west 19 miles, left onto AL-86; AL-86 for 13.3 miles to Commerce Avenue/AL-17; that road 10.1 miles, right onto 3rd Avenue NE; after 0.7 miles right onto AL-14/2nd Street NW; 4.1 miles to 11070 Highway 14. From Columbus, Mississippi, MS-69 south 14.8 miles, where it becomes AL-14, then 15 miles. Anyone who drives an approved visitor but is not visiting must leave the grounds.

How do phone calls and email work at FCI Aliceville?

At FCI Aliceville, calls go one way: the woman inside places them to numbers on her approved list, and you cannot call in. The handbook records that telephones here operate from 6:00 a.m. to no later than 11:30 p.m., with access normally restricted on weekdays between 7:30 and 10:30 a.m. and from 12:30 p.m. until after the 4:00 p.m. count clears, because those are working hours. A single call should generally not exceed 15 minutes, with at least 30 minutes between calls. The allowance is 510 minutes a month under the Bureau’s telephone regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, issued September 3, 2026: 300 are free to anyone eligible for First Step Act telephone incentives, and anyone who uses up those 300, eligible or not, may buy the other 210. The monthly limit does not apply to unmonitored legal calls. The extra 100 minutes in November and December belonged to the 2008 policy and did not survive its rescission.

Each woman gets a nine-digit Phone Access Code and must complete voice-verification registration before she can call anyone; sharing that code is a common route to an incident report. Calls are monitored and recorded. See our guide to federal inmate phone calls. Email runs on TRULINCS, which families reach through CorrLinks; messages are text only, carry a per-minute charge, and nothing passes until you accept her invitation. Our page on CorrLinks and TRULINCS explains how it works and what it costs. Email with a lawyer is not privileged; privileged writing goes by marked special mail. An unmonitored legal call is possible but not routine: the handbook requires her to “demonstrate to the Unit Team the need, such as an imminent court deadline,” and she pays for it. Ask in writing, name the deadline, keep the copy.

One TRULINCS function matters more here than at most prisons. The Request to Staff service includes a standard Department of Justice Sexual Abuse Reporting mailbox that goes directly to the Office of the Inspector General, outside the chain of command at the institution. Given what the Justice Department’s own prosecutions record about this facility, a woman here should know that mailbox exists.

What can people buy at the FCI Aliceville commissary?

The monthly commissary spending limit at FCI Aliceville is $460, set by the Bureau’s trust fund rules, Program Statement 4500.13, issued May 7, 2026, which raised it from $360. The limit rises by $50 during the November and December holiday period, for no more than one validation period.

The facility’s 2021 handbook still states that “The National Spending Limit is 360.00.” That figure is obsolete. The facility’s 2024 commissary order form, signed by then-Warden Jennifer A. Broton, prints no dollar figure at all. The order form excludes stamps, copy cards and over-the-counter medications; the 2026 program statement’s list of exclusions also includes nicotine-replacement products, vitamins, copy paper, footwear, mattresses and secured media devices. Stamps are separately capped at the equivalent of twenty first-class stamps, $14.60 a month.

This is a women’s list, and Program Statement 4500.13 now requires that “all institutions housing females are required to implement a standardized female specific commissary list.” Aliceville’s list stocks Always maxi pads at $3.95 to $12.25 depending on size, Playtex tampons at $7.20, Tampax Super at $5.00, panty liners at $2.40, bras at $16.05 and $19.40, white panties at $7.80, a full cosmetics range, relaxers and home perms, a satin bonnet at $2.80 and a white hijab at $14.95. A SCORE 7C tablet costs $131.30.

Read those hygiene prices alongside the pregnancy section below: under the First Step Act those products are supposed to be free, and the commissary is selling brand-name alternatives, not the required supply.

Two details tell you how the place is organized. Gain dryer sheets and washing powder are marked “(SPC)” — camp only, because women at the camp do their own laundry. And the form carries a hair dye pick-up line at $7.45, which the 2026 program statement permits only at “Low Security or higher female institutions where there is an established vocational technology cosmetology program”; the dye must be ammonia-free, needs a signed authorization from Education staff recording her natural color, and is stored by Education rather than in her locker.

The shopping rules printed on the form are unforgiving: no substitutions once the list is turned in, no add-ons, no exchanges once the sale is final, and the one that costs a week — “if an inmate does not report to the sales window after three attempts to call them, the merchandise will be returned to stock and the inmate will not be able to shop until his next scheduled shopping day.” Our page on the federal prison commissary covers the national rules.

What programs are available at FCI Aliceville?

The programs-by-institution table in the Bureau’s August 2026 First Step Act Approved Programs Guide marks 29 evidence-based programs approved at FCI Aliceville, seven of them written for women; in practice there are long waiting lists and no residential drug treatment program. A federal court monitor who examined delivery in the last quarter of 2025 reported waiting lists that make the approval list look optimistic.

Drug treatment, and the program that is not here

There is no Residential Drug Abuse Program at FCI Aliceville, and three Bureau documents say so. The facility’s own handbook states: “The RDAP is available in 77 Bureau institutions. It is not available at Aliceville, so if you are found qualified for the program, you will be re-designated to a RDAP institution.” The August 2026 guide leaves the residential drug treatment row blank here. And the guide’s list of RDAP locations, updated in June 2026, records 57 programs at 50 sites, the Southeast Region’s being at Coleman, Edgefield, Jesup, Marianna, Miami, Montgomery and Yazoo City.

Completing RDAP can take up to a year off a sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e) for a woman convicted of a non-violent offense. Qualifying at Aliceville does not get her into it; it gets her transferred, to whichever institution has capacity rather than whichever is closest to her children, and the referral interview ordinarily happens 42 to 24 months before release. What is offered here is the Drug Abuse Education Course and the Non-Residential Drug Abuse Program, which the court monitor recorded as canceled on four dates in a single quarter.

A further complication affects the women who need most help. Female Integrated Treatment is the Bureau’s residential program combining cognitive behavioral therapy for substance use, mental illness and trauma with vocational training, and a woman who qualifies for RDAP can complete it inside FIT and keep the § 3621(e) benefit. The August 2026 guide’s program page lists FIT at five institutions — Greenville, Danbury, Tallahassee, Carswell and Phoenix — and its own map of RDAP and FIT locations lists the same five. Its by-institution appendix, in the same document, marks FIT as approved at Aliceville, and the court monitor did not list it here though she listed it expressly at Carswell. Two tables and a monitor say no; one table says yes. Ask the Drug Abuse Program Coordinator.

Trauma, parenting and women-specific programming

The Resolve Program runs here, and the handbook says so directly: “This institution does have a Resolve Program.” Resolve is the Bureau’s non-residential program for people with a history of abusive or traumatic experiences, in two halves: the Trauma in Life Workshop, open to any woman with a history of abuse or an interest in the subject, and counseling groups, restricted to women with a trauma history and an associated mental health problem. The Female Offender Manual explains why it is here: “Ordinarily, all minimum and low security facilities housing female offenders have a Resolve Program.”

That programming is not incidental at this facility. On the first day of the June 2026 PREA audit, 209 of the 985 women held here — more than one in five — had disclosed prior sexual victimization during their intake risk screening.

The guide also marks Family Programming for Women, Seeking Safety/Seeking Strength, Women’s Basic Financial Literacy, Women’s Career Exploration, Women’s Career Skills, Women’s Life Skills and Women’s Sexual Safety as approved here, and describes women-only offerings available at any institution with a designated female population, among them Women’s Relationships II, a seven-part trauma-informed series, and Women’s Reflections Group, aimed at women “transitioning from special housing.” Whether one is running in a given month is a question for the unit team. The Parenting Program has both a classroom and a visitation component, which is the practical reason the visiting room here has a Children’s Center.

Education and vocational training

The court-appointed monitor in the FCI Dublin consent decree litigation published this facility’s inventory for the quarter ending December 2025. Education offers GED, English as a Second Language, Adult Continuing Education, sign language, The Barton Reading System for literacy and Academic Success. Vocational training offers carpentry, electrician, plumbing, HVAC, welding, cosmetology, a commercial driver’s license course, SERVSAFE food handler certification and culinary arts.

Then the numbers. “The Education Program and the Vocation Programs have approximate waitlists of up to 6 months. The Psychology Program waitlists vary from 24 months for some classes to 3 months for others.”

Twenty-four months, at a prison where the average stay is twenty-seven. A woman who arrives, is assessed as needing a psychology class and joins the waiting list may be released before her name comes up. Start the conversation with the unit team in the first week. The same report records 17 class cancellations in the Barton Reading literacy program that quarter, “closed due to the closure of the compound by Operations.”

Under the Bureau’s literacy program rules, a woman without a high school credential must complete 240 instructional hours, and an incident report tied to literacy enrollment stops her good conduct time from vesting until she completes another 240. Our guides to prison education and vocational training cover how these work system-wide. There is no UNICOR factory here, so the best-paid jobs in the federal system are not available at this prison.

Faith-based and reentry programming

The handbook names both of the Bureau’s faith-based reentry programs — “The Life Connections and Threshold programs highlight our faith-based reentry priorities” — and the August 2026 guide marks Threshold as approved here. On Life Connections the guide disagrees with itself: its program page lists the residential program at five institutions and Aliceville is not among them, while its by-institution appendix marks it as approved here. A CBS News report from January 2024, written after a visit to this prison, described “a faith-based program that prepares inmates for life on the outside by connecting them with community leaders and teaching them life skills” without naming it. Ask the chaplain, and have the answer recorded in her program review.

A note on First Step Act programming generally. The guide lists what is approved to be offered, and approval is not delivery. At this facility the gap runs both ways: the guide does not mark the Barton Reading System as approved here, yet the monitor found it running, and it marks Female Integrated Treatment as approved here, yet two of its own tables place it elsewhere. Treat the guide as the start of a conversation with the unit team.

What happens if someone is pregnant at FCI Aliceville?

A woman who is pregnant at FCI Aliceville gives birth in a hospital outside the prison and may not be restrained, and the program that lets a mother keep her baby afterward does not run here. Those answers come from federal regulation, from the First Step Act, and from the Bureau’s Female Offender Manual, Program Statement 5200.09 (2025).

Childbirth first. Under 28 C.F.R. § 551.22 “the Warden shall ensure that each pregnant inmate is provided medical, case management, and counseling services,” the woman “shall inform the institution medical staff as soon as she suspects she is pregnant,” and “medical staff shall arrange for the childbirth to take place at a hospital outside the institution.” The Bureau ordinarily pays the child’s medical costs for three days after a routine birth or up to seven after a Cesarean; beyond that the person taking custody signs a statement accepting financial responsibility, which unit management should obtain while the mother is still inside.

Restraints. Section 301 of the First Step Act, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 4322, prohibits restraining a federal prisoner from the moment a healthcare professional confirms pregnancy until the end of postpartum recovery — the 12 weeks after delivery, or longer if the healthcare professional says so, including the whole time in hospital. The three exceptions are an immediate and credible flight risk, an immediate and serious threat of harm, or a healthcare professional’s judgment that restraint is medically appropriate; even then only the least restrictive restraints may be used, and the statute forbids restraints around the ankles, legs or waist, binding the hands behind the back, and four-point restraints. A healthcare professional may direct that restraints not be used and the officer must comply. Notice of these rules must reach the woman within 48 hours of confirmation of pregnancy, and any use must be reported by the Warden to the Director within 30 days. If that notice was never given, say so in the first administrative remedy filed.

MINT — Mothers and Infants Together — is not a prison nursery and does not operate inside FCI Aliceville or any other federal institution. The program statement is explicit: “MINT is a residential program promoting bonding skills for designated pregnant inmates housed in RRC Facilities. The inmate resides with the child at all times inside a contract Residential Reentry Center.” A woman has to be referred out to it, and the eligibility rules exclude most who ask.

• She must have been pregnant when she came into custody, with the baby due before her release date.
• She ordinarily enters the reentry center in the last two months of pregnancy, is allowed at least three months after the birth to bond, and then returns to an institution. Anything beyond 180 days needs the Regional Director’s approval.
• She or a guardian must take financial responsibility for the child’s care while she is at the center. If neither can, she is sent back.
• She “must not be referred” at all if she became pregnant while on furlough, if she has more than five years left to serve, or if she plans to place the baby for adoption.

The institution’s social worker must give every pregnant woman information about MINT and the Residential Parenting Program, and notify the Women and Special Populations Branch Administrator, the Regional Social Worker and the Clinical Director if she wants to take part. Ask for that in writing. The approved-programs guide also lists Your Guide to Labor and Birth, an eight-hour pregnancy education course that counts toward First Step Act earned time.

The rule on hygiene products is stricter than most people realize. Section 611 of the First Step Act requires the Director to make tampons and sanitary napkins available “for free, in a quantity that is appropriate to the healthcare needs of each prisoner.” The Female Offender Manual turns that into five named products — tampons in regular and super, maxi pads with wings in regular and super, and regular panty liners — and then removes the discretion staff usually have. “In issuing feminine hygiene products, staff may not ration these items.” They must sit in a common area of the housing unit, accessible “at all times of the day.” Monthly issuance “is strictly prohibited.” A unit that runs out must be restocked within 24 hours, and women in restrictive housing must be able to get all five every day. A woman handed a fixed monthly allocation, or told to buy her own from the commissary, is being treated contrary to the Bureau’s own policy, and that is an administrative remedy worth filing.

What is daily life like at FCI Aliceville?

Daily life at FCI Aliceville is structured by counts and the pass system, in cells at the FCI and dormitories at the camp. The schedule below comes from the facility’s 2021 Admission & Orientation handbook; treat it as the rhythm rather than a guarantee.

	Weekdays	Weekends and holidays
Wake-up	6:00 a.m.
Cell or room doors open	6:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m.
Uniform required	7:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. (khaki at the FCI, green at the camp)	—
Movement	Pass system 7:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.; controlled movement otherwise, ten minutes beginning ten minutes before the hour	Controlled movement from the end of the morning meal; compound secured 9:30 a.m.
Stand-up counts	4:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m.	10:00 a.m., 4:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m.
Telephones	6:00 a.m. – 11:30 p.m., restricted 7:30–10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. until the 4:00 p.m. count clears	6:00 a.m. – 11:30 p.m.
Call-outs for the next day	Posted on unit bulletin boards after 4:00 p.m. the day before

Source: FCI Aliceville Admission & Orientation Handbook (2021).

Which unit eats first is decided by the weekly sanitation rating: the cleanest unit is called first and the lowest-rated last. The pass system allows ten minutes to cross the compound, and taking longer is a disciplinary matter. On weekends the compound is secured at 9:30 a.m. for the 10:00 a.m. count, which is also why visitors are not processed in during that half hour.

Clothing is government-issued or bought from the commissary, and the color rules are gendered: “only pastel green, gray, and/or white may be sold in institutions for females,” with religious headgear the only exception. Recreation runs on the Zimmer Amendment restrictions that apply across the Bureau. Hobby craft here is listed in the handbook as beading, origami, cross stitch, paper quilling, card making and scrapbooking.

Health services run a sick-call system with a co-payment unless a woman is determined indigent, chronic care clinics, routine dental care and 24-hour emergency cover. The staffing behind all of that is the weakest part of this institution’s record, and it is covered below.

What do inspectors say about conditions at FCI Aliceville?

Three bodies have examined FCI Aliceville, and they describe it in markedly different terms. An independent auditor found it compliant with every Prison Rape Elimination Act standard in June 2026. A federal court’s own monitor found a third of its medical posts vacant and a psychology waiting list of up to two years. And the Justice Department has prosecuted at least five people who worked here for abusing the women in their care or lying about it, most recently in an indictment unsealed in March 2026.

The 2026 PREA audit

FCI Aliceville was audited on site from June 9–11, 2026, by an independent auditor, Lori Fadorick of Corrections Consulting Services LLC; the final report is dated July 16, 2026. The facility passed: 45 standards met, none exceeded, none unmet, no corrective action required. Its key figures:

Designated capacity	1,792
Average daily population, 12 months to June 2026	1,439
Population on day one of the audit, June 9, 2026	985 (the report’s pre-audit questionnaire separately records 1,099)
Buildings / housing units	18 / 15 — 13 multiple-occupancy cell units, 2 open-bay dormitories, no single-cell units; 50 segregation cells
Staff who may have inmate contact	266, of whom 13 were hired in the previous 12 months; 21 contractors and 72 volunteers
Admissions in the previous 12 months	1,257; accredited within three years by ACA and AAAHC
Sexual assault forensic exams	Performed off site at a local hospital

Of the 985 women here on the first day of the audit, 209 — 21 percent — had disclosed prior sexual victimization during risk screening, and 156, about one in six, were recorded as Limited English Proficient. No woman was in segregated housing because of a risk of sexual victimization, or for having reported abuse.

In the twelve months before the audit the facility recorded 13 allegations: seven of sexual abuse, all inmate-on-inmate, and six of sexual harassment, five inmate-on-inmate and one staff-on-inmate. All were investigated administratively, none criminally, and all seven abuse allegations were closed as unsubstantiated. No staff-on-inmate sexual abuse allegation was recorded in that window at all. The audit counted allegations made between roughly June 2025 and June 2026, while the indictment described below alleges assaults on seven women between May 2022 and September 2024, by a man who had already left the payroll. A clean twelve months in an audit is not a clean history, and the auditor was not asked to look at one.

Three findings address the risks specific to a women’s prison. On searches, the auditor recorded that “according to staff and inmate interviews, there are always female staff available to complete searches of the inmates,” and that no cross-gender strip or visual body cavity search occurred in the audit period. On privacy, women interviewed confirmed that “male staff members usually announce their presence when entering housing units.” And on advocacy, the facility has a written agreement with the Tuscaloosa SAFE Center, signed October 31, 2023, and running five years, which the auditor verified with the center’s own staff. That service is free and confidential, covers the forensic examination and the investigative interview, and a woman who needs it should ask Psychology for it by name.

Staff prosecuted for abusing women held here

Public Justice Department announcements record these prosecutions of staff who worked here, newest first:

• March 4, 2026 — the Department of Justice announced that a correctional officer at FCI Aliceville “was charged in an indictment, unsealed today, with eight counts of deprivation of rights under color of law arising out of his sexual assault of seven female inmates.” The indictment alleges that between May 2022 and September 2024, Felix Sylvester Wilder, 37, “violated the civil rights of seven women when he sexually assaulted them while they were incarcerated at FCI Aliceville and he was on duty.” It was investigated by the Inspector General and the FBI; if convicted on all counts he faces a maximum of life. An indictment is an allegation, and every defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
• May 23, 2024 — Robert D. Smith, 39, a former corrections officer here, was sentenced in the Northern District of Alabama to 24 months followed by 15 years of supervised release for sexually abusing a woman in his custody. Court documents place one offense in his office in the facilities department and another in the mechanical room, which he opened with a key — both, in the Department’s words, “away from cameras and other inmates and officers.”
• October 29, 2021 — Eric Todd Ellis, 32, a former corrections officer here, was sentenced in Birmingham to 18 months followed by 60 months of supervised release for sexual abuse of an inmate and witness tampering.
• August 19, 2020 — Adrian L. Stargell, 39, an Education Specialist here, was sentenced to 42 months and three years of supervised release for two counts of deprivation of rights under color of law and false statements.
• May 23, 2018 — a former corrections officer was sentenced to 18 months for abusive sexual contact with a woman held here. In April 2017 a materials handling supervisor was charged with accepting $5,695 in bribes to smuggle contraband into the prison.

When Smith was sentenced the Inspector General, Michael E. Horowitz, said this: “Smith sexually abused multiple inmates and he did so by taking them to areas of the prison without camera coverage. As the OIG has repeatedly found, the effective use of cameras by the FBOP is critical to preventing and deterring such criminal wrongdoing at its facilities.” Two years later the PREA auditor recorded that this facility had installed or updated its video monitoring system within the previous twelve months. Ask about camera coverage in any area where a woman says she is sent alone.

There is also live civil litigation. In June 2026 a woman identified in court papers only as “A.S.” sued the United States and Officer Wilder in the Northern District of Alabama, alleging that he groomed her from October 2023 and forced her into sex on more than twenty occasions, that prison management knew of earlier complaints and failed to act, and that women who reported misconduct were moved to higher-security county facilities. Those are allegations, untested. But the claim that reporting leads to a transfer is why a woman making a report should have someone outside who knows she has made it.

What a federal court monitor found

When FCI Dublin in California closed in 2024 after years of staff sexual abuse, the women held there became class members in California Coalition for Women Prisoners v. U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons, No. 4:23-cv-04155-YGR (N.D. Cal.), and were dispersed across a dozen prisons. Twenty-four came to Aliceville. The consent decree installed a Senior Monitor, Wendy Still, who reports to the court quarterly on every facility holding a class member, so this institution is examined in a public court filing four times a year. Her third quarterly report, covering October to December 2025 and filed on April 14, 2026, describes “FCI/FPC Aliceville” as “a care-level 2 facility, housing 1,500 low-security female adults in custody, of which 24 are CMs.” Then it gives the staffing.

Discipline	Authorized	Filled	Vacant	Vacancy rate
Medical	25	16	9	36%
Public Health Service (medical)	2	2	0	0%
Mental health	13	10	3	23.08%

More than a third of the medical posts at this prison were unfilled — independent corroboration of the Bureau’s own memorandum three months later, which gave as its first reason for converting the institution that “FCI Aliceville has long faced staffing challenges, particularly in Health Services.”

The same report gives the waiting lists quoted earlier and records the class cancellations. It also carries a footnote that explains why programming questions here get confusing answers: “BOP does not consider Female Integrated Treatment, Resolve and the Non-Residential Drug Abuse Program (NRDAP) to be ‘programs.'” And the monitor records a broader difficulty: “BOP again failed to delineate CMs from the general population in the programming data provided. As a result, it is not possible to determine whether CMs were afforded appropriate access to programming opportunities.”

What the Inspector General has and has not done

The DOJ Office of the Inspector General has not conducted an on-site inspection of this facility. That unannounced-inspection program had reached fourteen institutions across the federal system on the Inspector General’s own count in May 2026 (Report 26-055), and Aliceville is not among them, nor named in its published list of ongoing work.

The Inspector General’s staff have been here once. FCI Aliceville was one of seven institutions the OIG visited in person for its Review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Management of Its Female Inmate Population (Report 18-05), published September 18, 2018: a Bureau-wide evaluation that included a site visit, not an inspection of conditions here. It makes no finding about this prison alone, though it names Aliceville among the seven all-female prisons where it found the longest waiting lists for the Trauma in Life seminar; it is now eight years old.

The 2017 edition of Top Management and Performance Challenges Facing the Department of Justice notes that “the BOP allocated $8.2 million for emergency repairs at the Federal Correctional Institution in Aliceville, Alabama, after it was damaged by a tornado in February 2016.” And the OIG’s 2021 review of the Institutional Hearing and Removal Program lists “FCI Aliceville (female), Alabama” among the expansion sites — which is why a woman here who is not a United States citizen may face an immigration judge without leaving the prison. The District of Columbia’s Corrections Information Council has never inspected FCI Aliceville.

Systematic, conditions-focused, independent oversight of this prison therefore comes down to one PREA audit a cycle and a court monitor who is here only because of what happened at a different prison in California. If those twenty-four class members transfer out, or the consent decree ends, the monitor’s reports stop with them.

FCI Aliceville in the news

Recent news about FCI Aliceville centers on a June 2026 contraband interception, the March 2026 mission memorandum and officer indictment, and a 2024 60 Minutes visit; older items concern Alice Marie Johnson’s 2018 release and the 2016 tornado.

• June 2026 — Pickens County Sheriff’s Office deputies and FCI Aliceville investigators intercepted packages bound for the prison containing three cellphones, about 36 grams of methamphetamine, 347 Suboxone strips and synthetic cannabinoids, with an in-prison value the Sheriff’s Office put at more than $100,000. Two people who had traveled from Florida were arrested after a year-long investigation.
• March 2026 — the mission realignment memorandum became public, and an indictment was unsealed charging a correctional officer with eight counts of deprivation of rights under color of law arising out of the sexual assault of seven women held here.
• January 2024 — 60 Minutes broadcast “Inside the Aliceville women’s federal prison,” a thirteen-minute segment in which correspondent Cecilia Vega toured the institution with the then-Director of the Bureau, Colette S. Peters. CBS News noted that “it’s rare for the media to be allowed into federal prisons,” reported that “several inmates told 60 Minutes that much of what was shown to correspondent Cecilia Vega and Director Peters was staged,” and quoted Peters’s reply: “I’m not naive. And when anybody comes to your house you clean it up.” One of the women interviewed described the staffing: “There’s times where you don’t know if you’re going to be able to go outside because somebody didn’t come to work.”
• June 2018 — Alice Marie Johnson walked out of this prison after President Trump commuted her life sentence.
• February 2016 — a tornado damaged the institution.

Aliceville was activated in 2013, in the same period the Bureau converted FCI Danbury in Connecticut from a women’s institution to a men’s one and moved more than 1,100 women out of it. This prison exists because the Bureau needed somewhere to put them. Thirteen years later it is doing the same thing here.

Frequently asked questions about FCI Aliceville

Problems at FCI Aliceville: where we can help

The problems we help with at FCI Aliceville are the ones its own records show recurring: in its PREA audit, a federal court monitor’s quarterly reports, the Justice Department’s prosecutions of its staff, and the Bureau’s explanation of why it is converting the place.

• Transfer out of Aliceville, and where she lands. The realignment is under way and the destination named in the Bureau’s memorandum is South Carolina. Which institution she goes to turns on security points, Public Safety Factors and management variables that are all arguable. See our guide to federal prison transfers and our federal prison consulting services.
• Medical care that is not happening. FCI Aliceville is a Care Level 2 institution, and a court-appointed monitor recorded 36 percent of the medical posts here vacant for the quarter ending December 2025. The route is a written request to staff, then the administrative remedy process, and every rung has a clock. See medical care in federal prison and, where negligence has caused injury, Federal Tort Claims Act claims.
• Mental health and trauma treatment behind a two-year waiting list. The same monitor recorded psychology waiting lists of three to twenty-four months, at a prison where the average stay is twenty-seven months. Getting her needs assessed and recorded early is what moves her up a list.
• Staff sexual abuse, and what happens after a report. Four former staff have been sentenced since 2018 for abusing women held here or lying about it, and an indictment charging eight counts is pending. Routes exist that do not run through the institution: the Inspector General’s reporting mailbox on TRULINCS, the Tuscaloosa SAFE Center, and counsel.
• RDAP, and the price of getting it. There is no residential drug program here, so qualifying means redesignation elsewhere. Whether the § 3621(e) year is worth the distance is a decision to take advice on before the interview. See our federal prison early release practice.
• First Step Act earned time credits — whether they are being earned, calculated and applied, particularly where classes are canceled or a woman is on a waiting list she cannot join.
• Pregnancy, restraints and MINT referral. The restraint prohibition, the 48-hour notice requirement and the free-hygiene rule are all enforceable, and a MINT referral has to be initiated by staff who may not raise it.
• Halfway house and home confinement placement under the Bureau’s placement procedures; disciplinary proceedings that threaten good conduct time, including placements in the Special Housing Unit that outlast their justification; compassionate release under the Bureau’s reduction-in-sentence rules; and sentence computation errors measured against the Bureau’s sentence computation manual.
• Challenges to the conviction or sentence itself, through a direct appeal or a § 2255 motion.

Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. handles federal criminal defense, appeals and post-conviction matters nationwide, and advises families on Bureau of Prisons issues at institutions across the system. Call (843) 620-1100 or contact us to talk through a specific situation.

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

Sources and currency

Bureau of Prisons documents

• FCI Aliceville, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. The Bureau’s facility page.
• FCI Aliceville Commissary List, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2024. States no spending limit.
• FCI Aliceville Inmate Admission and Orientation Handbook, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2021.
• Institution Supplement ALI 5267.09D, Visiting Regulations, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCI Aliceville, 2019. Replaced ALI 5267.09C (2017).
• Trust Fund/Deposit Fund Manual, Program Statement 4500.13, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Sets the $460 commissary spending limit.
• Female Offender Manual, Program Statement 5200.09, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2025.
• Inmate Telephone Regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Replaced Program Statement 5264.08 (2008).
• First Step Act Approved Programs Guide, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Reentry Services Division, 2026.
• BOP Celebrates Restoration of Estill, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. News release on FCI Estill.

Audits and inspections

• PREA Audit Report: FCI Aliceville, Corrections Consulting Services, 2026. On-site audit of June 9–11, 2026, by Lori Fadorick, an independent auditor subcontracted by Corrections Consulting Services.
• Inspection of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ U.S. Penitentiary Canaan, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2026. Report 26-055.
• Ongoing Work, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2026.
• Review of the Institutional Hearing and Removal Program Expansion for Federal Inmates, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2021. Report 21-123.
• Review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Management of Its Female Inmate Population, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2018. Report 18-05.
• Audit of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Contract Awarded to Sealaska Constructors, LLC, to Build Facilities at Federal Correctional Institution Danbury, in Danbury, Connecticut, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2018. Report 18-31.
• Top Management and Performance Challenges Facing the Department of Justice – 2017, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2017.

Court records

• 3rd Quarterly Status Report, October 1 – December 31, 2025, Wendy Still, court-appointed Senior Monitor, 2026. Filed in the FCI Dublin class action; the linked copy is posted by plaintiffs’ counsel.
• California Coalition for Women Prisoners v. U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons, No. 4:23-cv-04155-YGR (N.D. Cal.), U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, 2023. The FCI Dublin class action.
• FCI Aliceville Correctional Officer Indicted for Sexual Assault of Inmates, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, 2026. The indictment of Felix Sylvester Wilder.
• BOP Correctional Officer Indicted for Civil Rights Violations Against Inmates, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2026. The indictment of Felix Sylvester Wilder.
• Former Federal Bureau of Prisons Corrections Officer Sentenced for Sexually Abusing Inmate in His Custody, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Alabama, 2024. Robert D. Smith’s sentence.
• Former Federal Bureau of Prisons Corrections Officer Sentenced for Sexually Abusing Inmate in His Custody, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2024. Robert D. Smith’s sentence.
• Former Federal Bureau of Prisons Corrections Officer Pleads Guilty to Sexually Abusing Inmate in His Custody, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2024. Robert D. Smith’s guilty plea.
• BOP Correctional Officer Indicted for Sexual Abuse of Inmates, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2023. Robert Smith’s indictment.
• Former BOP Correctional Officer Sentenced for Sexual Abuse of an Inmate and Tampering with a Witness, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2021. Eric Todd Ellis’s sentence.
• Former Bureau of Prisons Corrections Officer Sentenced for Sexually Abusing an Inmate and Witness Tampering, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2021. Eric Todd Ellis’s sentence.
• Former BOP Correctional Officer Sentenced for Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law and False Statement, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2020. Adrian L. Stargell’s sentence.
• Former Education Specialist Pleaded Guilty to Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law and False Statements, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2020. Adrian L. Stargell’s guilty plea.
• Former Bureau of Prisons Officer Pleads Guilty to Sexually Assaulting Two Women on Multiple Occasions and Lying to Investigators, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2020. Adrian L. Stargell’s guilty plea.
• Former FCI Aliceville Corrections Officer Sentenced to 1½ Years in Prison for Abusive Sexual Contact with Inmate, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2018. The 2018 sentence of a former corrections officer.
• Former FCI Aliceville Corrections Officer Pleads Guilty to Abusive Sexual Contact with Inmate, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2017. The same officer’s guilty plea.
• Federal Correctional Officer Charged with Accepting Bribes for Prison Contraband, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2017. The April 2017 bribery charge.
• Jordan Linn Graham Sentenced to 30 Years in Prison, U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Montana, 2014. Jordan Linn Graham’s sentence.
• Johnson v. United States, 860 F. Supp. 2d 663 (N.D. Iowa 2012), U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa, 2012. Order on Angela Johnson’s § 2255 motion.

News and other sources

• Bureau of Prisons Changes Missions on Some Facilities, Forbes, 2026. By Walter Pavlo; quotes the internal realignment memorandum.
• 2 arrested after Pickens County Sheriff’s Office intercepts narcotics, cellphones headed to Aliceville prison, WVUA 23, 2026.
• Corrections officer already facing felony charges named in new federal lawsuit, WZDX FOX54, 2026. The civil complaint; allegations only.
• Federal prisons, short on correctional officers, rely on other staff to supervise offenders, CBS News, 60 Minutes, 2024.
• 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e), Imprisonment of a convicted person, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 18 U.S.C. § 4322, Use of restraints on prisoners during the period of pregnancy, labor, and postpartum recovery prohibited, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 28 U.S.C. § 81(a)(5), Alabama, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 28 U.S.C. § 2255, Federal custody; remedies on motion attacking sentence, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 28 C.F.R. § 551.22, Pregnancy, Code of Federal Regulations (Legal Information Institute).
• First Step Act of 2018, Pub. L. No. 115-391, §§ 301, 611, U.S. Congress (Congress.gov).
• Pub. L. No. 118-179, consolidating divisions of the Northern District of Alabama, U.S. Congress (Congress.gov).

Sources reviewed September 2026.

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