FCI Talladega: Visiting, Mail, Money and Programs

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

FCI Talladega at a glance

FCI Talladega is a medium-security federal prison for men in Talladega, Alabama, with a minimum-security satellite camp beside it; together they held 1,235 people as of September 2026, 946 at the main institution and 289 at the camp. It sits on East Renfroe Road in Talladega County, about 50 miles east of Birmingham.

Official name	Federal Correctional Institution, Talladega
BOP code	TDG
Security level	Medium; men
Population	1,235 (as of September 2026) · 946 at the FCI, 289 at the camp
Visiting	Saturdays, Sundays and federal holidays, 8:30 a.m.–3:00 p.m. · see visiting hours
Inmate mail	FCI: Inmate Name & Register Number · FCI Talladega · Federal Correctional Institution · PMB 1000 · Talladega, AL 35160 Camp: Inmate Name & Register Number · FCI Talladega · Federal Correctional Institution · Satellite Camp · P.O. Box 2000 · Talladega, AL 35160
Send money	Lockbox · Western Union (code city FBOP, DC) · MoneyGram (receive code 7932)
Phone	256-315-4100 · Fax 256-315-4495
Street address	565 East Renfroe Road, Talladega, AL 35160 · Talladega County
Judicial district	Northern District of Alabama
BOP region	Southeast
Designated capacity	1,004
Housing	Six units at the FCI: Sigma, Delta, Gamma, Beta, Alpha A and Alpha B
Special Housing Unit	Yes · Alpha B
RDAP	No
UNICOR	Yes
Camp	Yes · minimum-security satellite camp, FPC Talladega

It is one of the federal prisons in Alabama and falls under the Bureau’s Southeast Region, and it takes people sentenced in the Northern District of Alabama and from anywhere else the Designation and Sentence Computation Center sends them. One thing sets it apart from almost every other institution in the system: in February 2025 the Justice Department’s Inspector General chose it, and only one other prison in the country, for an in-person look at how the First Step Act is working inside a federal prison.

FCI Talladega is not FCI Tallahassee

FCI Talladega and FCI Tallahassee are two different federal prisons in the Southeast Region whose names differ by three letters, and confusing them is the single most common way people end up reading the wrong page, writing to the wrong state and quoting the wrong figures.

	FCI Talladega (this page)	FCI Tallahassee
BOP code	TDG	TAL
State	Alabama	Florida
Who is held there	Men	Women
Security level	Medium, plus a camp	Low

The difference matters beyond geography. FCI Tallahassee is one of a small number of federal prisons the Justice Department’s Inspector General has walked into and inspected as an institution, and the findings of that inspection are reported all over the internet. None of them are about Alabama.

There is a smaller trap too. Talladega County runs its own jail, which is not federal. If the person you are looking for was sentenced in an Alabama state court, the federal Inmate Locator will not find them and this page does not describe where they are.

What is the security level at FCI Talladega?

FCI Talladega is a medium-security prison, and the camp across the road from it, which the institution’s own supplement calls FPC Talladega, is minimum security. The Bureau’s roster, its facility page and the independent auditor who spent three days here in December 2025 all record it the same way, in the Bureau’s own classification language: “Medium / In, Minimum / Out.”

The institution’s March 2024 handbook puts it more bluntly than most: “There are four levels of custody in the prison system: Maximum, In, Out and Community. FCI, Talladega is designated to handle only ‘In’ Custody inmates.” That sentence is worth reading twice if you are trying to work out whether a relative can be moved from the FCI to the camp. Camp placement is an “Out” custody decision, and it turns on the security point score and on whether any Public Safety Factor applies. Under the Bureau’s designation rules, a Public Safety Factor overrides the point total no matter how low it is, and it is the reason most people who think they qualify for a camp do not get one.

Housing at the FCI runs across six units named Sigma, Delta, Gamma, Beta, Alpha A and Alpha B. Delta, Gamma, Beta and Alpha A hold general population; Alpha B is the Special Housing Unit. The A-side of each unit is set aside for people who work in UNICOR, with Alpha A’s workers housed in Beta A instead. The December 2025 PREA audit counts the whole site differently and more usefully: nine housing units, of which five are multiple-occupancy cell units, four are open-bay dormitories and none is single-cell, across 54 buildings, with 50 segregation cells.

One thing the record does not settle is how long Talladega has been a medium. When the Inspector General’s chaplaincy auditors visited — the report says they went to all twelve of their sample facilities before February 2020 — their appendix recorded this institution as low security. By the Inspector General’s February 2023 report the listing reads “Minimum & Medium.” No announcement of the change by the Bureau has been found, so an older guide or an older judgment recommendation may still describe a low-security prison.

Our guide to the intake process covers the first days after arrival, and how to prepare for prison covers what to do before a self-surrender date. The handbook here promises a social screening by Unit Management and a medical screening by Health Services and Mental Health on the day of arrival, with the full Admission and Orientation program within 28 days.

Is this the prison from the 1991 hostage siege?

Yes: FCI Talladega is the prison where the 1991 hostage siege took place. In its published history of the whole agency, the Bureau of Prisons names exactly two institutional disturbances: Atlanta and Oakdale in 1987, and “the Talladega disturbance in 1991.” The events are thirty-five years old, they tell you nothing about conditions today, and they are the reason a search for this institution turns up news footage before it turns up a visiting schedule.

The Bureau’s own account, published on the twenty-fifth anniversary, puts it in one sentence: “For ten days, from August 21 through August 30, 1991, approximately 120 Cuban detainees armed with homemade weapons held seven Bureau of Prisons staff and three Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) staff hostage.” They were Mariel boatlift arrivals held on criminal charges who had exhausted their appeals and faced return to Cuba. The FBI’s account supplies the detail that still matters to a visitor: the takeover “began in FCI Talladega’s Alpha Unit—the maximum security wing—around 10 a.m. on August 21, 1991,” and at 3:40 a.m. on August 30 Hostage Rescue Team and SWAT operators entered with Bureau teams and freed every hostage without injury.

The rescue was in the early hours of August 30; the New York Times reported it on the 31st, describing it as happening “today.” Alpha is not a historical name: the March 2024 handbook still lists Alpha A as general population and Alpha B as the Special Housing Unit, and the 2025 supplement routes segregation video visits through “the Alpha center area.” A relative housed in Alpha B today is in segregation, not anywhere near 1991.

Who are the notable inmates at FCI Talladega?

Clarence Heatley, a defendant in the Southern District of New York’s “Preacher Crew” racketeering prosecution, is the one person of public note held at FCI Talladega now; Joseph Biggs of the Proud Boys and Kentrell Gaulden are among the best-known people who have left. The register numbers below let you check each record in the Bureau’s Inmate Locator. On the locator this prison reads “Talladega FCI,” which is easy to misread as “Tallahassee FCI.”

Name	Register number	Status in Bureau records	Case
Clarence Heatley	39015-054	Held here. Aged 73. Projected release recorded as LIFE	A defendant in the Southern District of New York’s prosecution of the Bronx racketeering enterprise the courts called “the Family” or “the Preacher Crew,” No. S11 96 Cr. 515
Joseph Biggs	26257-509	Former — released January 20, 2025, with FCI Talladega as his facility of record	Proud Boys figure sentenced in 2023 to 17 years over the January 6 Capitol attack; sentence commuted
Kentrell D. Gaulden	01007-506	Former — released from federal custody April 25, 2025, last carried under the Bureau’s Phoenix reentry office	Federal firearms sentence. Reporting in March 2025 described his move from FCI Talladega to an Arizona reentry facility
Kyle Myers	00970-120	Former — released October 3, 2019, with FCI Talladega as his facility of record	Marijuana possession; an eight-week sentence
Eric Ian Baker	18692-075	Former — released February 5, 2021	Pleaded guilty to arson over the 2008 firebombing of the Islamic Center of Columbia, Tennessee
Cecil McCrory	18156-043	Former — released February 23, 2024	Mississippi corrections bribery
Scott Charles Maddox	26266-017	Former — released February 16, 2024	Former Tallahassee city commissioner; bribery

Heatley is the only current entry. The superseding indictment in his case charged an enterprise whose members dealt crack and committed “numerous acts of violence, including 17 actual murders and other conspiracies and attempts to murder, as well as several robberies and acts of extortion.” United States v. Cuff, 37 F. Supp. 2d 279, 280 (S.D.N.Y. 1999). The Bureau records his release date as LIFE.

Listings that give March 24, 2025 as Gaulden’s release date, February 15, 2021 as Baker’s or May 9, 2023 as Maddox’s do not match the Bureau’s records, which show April 25, 2025, February 5, 2021 and February 16, 2024. Listings that still place McCrory “currently in the custody of RRM Montgomery” are out of date: he was released on February 23, 2024. So is the population figure that travels with those lists, 1,049 with 277 in the camp.

How do I find someone at FCI Talladega?

To find someone at FCI Talladega, use the Bureau’s free public Inmate Locator, and search on the eight-digit register number rather than the name: the locator matches the committed name from the judgment, which is often not the name a family uses.

The result names a facility and its type, and that is where people go wrong. “Talladega FCI” is this prison; “Tallahassee FCI” is in Florida. A name ending in RRM — “Montgomery RRM,” “Nashville RRM” — is not a prison at all but a Residential Reentry Management office, which usually means the person has moved to a halfway house or home confinement in that region. If the locator finds no one, the usual reasons are that the person is in state rather than federal custody, that they are still in pretrial detention under the U.S. Marshals Service, or that the judgment spells the name differently. Our guide to how register numbers work explains how the number is built and what its parts mean.

How do I write to someone at FCI Talladega?

To write to someone at FCI Talladega, use the address for the right unit: the FCI and the camp use different mailing addresses, and the FCI’s is not a P.O. Box. Mail without a register number is returned.

For someone at the FCI	For someone at the satellite camp
Inmate Name & Register Number FCI Talladega Federal Correctional Institution PMB 1000 Talladega, AL 35160	Inmate Name & Register Number FCI Talladega Federal Correctional Institution Satellite Camp P.O. Box 2000 Talladega, AL 35160

PMB is not a typo. The Bureau’s location record gives the FCI’s inmate mail street as “P.M.B 1000,” its facility page prints it the same way, and the institution’s handbook writes it “PMB Box 1000” in one place and “PMB 1000” in another. Listings that print “P.O. Box 1000” do not match what the Bureau publishes.

Four local rules catch people out here. The mail room runs Monday to Friday only and does not process mail on weekends or on holidays, and outgoing mail is collected at 12:01 a.m. on working days. Outgoing ordinary mail may not be sealed. Every letter must carry a return address with the writer’s name, register number and unit or it will not leave the building. And almost all outgoing mail must go out under a printed TRULINCS address label — the printer is in the law library on the recreation yard, a person may print no more than ten labels a day, and only the lock-down units are excepted. If letters from inside have stopped arriving, a missing label is as likely an explanation as anything more worrying.

Legal mail is different, and the marking is what makes it different: under the Bureau’s correspondence rules, privileged correspondence is opened in front of the addressee and not read, but only where the sender is clearly identified and the front is marked “Special Mail – Open in the Presence of the Inmate.” The handbook puts the duty to arrange that on the person inside — “It is the responsibility of the inmate to advise any attorney of this procedure” — and then contradicts itself on the same page about when special mail goes out, offering “daily open house Monday-Friday” in one sentence and “during the noon meal Tuesday-Friday” three lines later. Ask the unit team in writing before timing anything around it. Our guide to attorney-client communication in the Bureau of Prisons covers the privilege question, and writing to someone in federal prison covers what gets rejected and why.

Never put money in a letter. The handbook says so in terms: the mail room here “will no longer accept funds received from outside the institution.” At the FCI, books, magazines and newspapers have to come directly from a publisher or bookstore, arranged through the unit team; at the camp, softcover books and magazines may come from any source (28 C.F.R. § 540.71(a)(3)), though hardcover books and newspapers still need a publisher, book club or bookstore.

How do I send money to someone at FCI Talladega?

To send money to someone at FCI Talladega, use the Bureau’s Des Moines lockbox or one of two wire services; nothing is sent to Talladega itself. Every route needs the committed name and the eight-digit register number on the instrument as well as 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	No hold on a U.S. postal money order; the handbook here holds other checks 15 days and foreign checks 30
Western Union Quick Collect	Code city FBOP, DC	Normally within four hours, says the March 2024 handbook. The Bureau’s Send Money page gives two to four hours for transfers made between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. Eastern, with later ones posted at 7:00 a.m. the next day; Program Statement 4500.13 says ordinarily within two
MoneyGram Express Payment	Receive code 7932, company name Federal Bureau of Prisons, Washington, D.C. Register number then last name on the reference line; committed full name on the beneficiary line	Comparable to Western Union

Send nothing but the instrument. Des Moines cannot forward a letter or a photograph to Alabama and anything else in the envelope is simply lost, and your own name and return address in the top left corner is the only route by which funds come back if they cannot be posted. Our full guide to sending money to a federal prisoner sets out what each route costs.

Money going the other way is slower than families expect. A BP-199 goes in on TRULINCS and is signed in front of a Unit Team member, anything over $500 needs the Associate Wardens and the Superintendent of Industries, forms are processed weekly, and the handbook says to allow about four weeks until the payee has a check. If a family is relying on that money for a bill, plan around a month.

What are the visiting hours at FCI Talladega?

Visiting at FCI Talladega runs 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Saturdays, Sundays and federal holidays, at the FCI and at the camp alike. That is from the institution’s own visiting supplement, TDG 5267.09B, dated August 15, 2025, signed by Warden B. D. Walker, which rescinded the February 2023 version.

Monday visiting is gone. The Admission and Orientation handbook the Bureau still publishes on this facility’s own page — reviewed March 2024, seventeen months older than the supplement — says visiting “takes place on Saturdays, Sundays, Mondays and Federal holidays.” It no longer does. If you build a trip from Georgia or Mississippi around a Monday visit because that is what the handbook on bop.gov told you, you will arrive at a closed visiting room.

The Bureau’s facility page for Talladega shows no visiting hours at all, only a link to the supplement, so the hours above appear in one Bureau document and nowhere else it publishes.

Who can visit, and how many

• There is no cap on how often someone may visit, but no more than four adult visitors at one time. Children aged 15 and under are not counted toward the four.
• Everyone 16 and over is background-checked before being added, immediate family included: the person inside mails out form BP-A0629, the visitor returns it to the Counselor, and the Unit Manager approves it. A criminal record, a prior incarceration or a felony conviction needs the Warden’s approval.
• Children under 16 must come with a parent, guardian or immediate family member, and a 16- or 17-year-old visiting alone needs written approval from one of those who is at least 18.
• Only one clergy person may be on the list, approved by the Supervisory Chaplain after an NCIC check. A clergy person with a felony conviction needs the Warden’s written approval.
• The visiting room holds 105 people at the FCI and 75 at the camp. When it fills, the Operations Lieutenant or Duty Officer may end visits to make room — but no one who has visited for less than two hours is asked to leave, and the decision weighs volunteers first, then distance traveled, frequency, and the visitor’s health, age and ability to travel.
• Special visits outside normal hours must be requested in writing through the Unit Manager and are supervised by a Unit Team member.

What visitors can wear and bring

Bring a card, not cash. This is the change that catches families most often: the 2025 supplement says “Debit/Credit cards are the only acceptable means of payment for the vending machines,” and “Cash or change will not be allowed in the Visiting Room.” One card per adult. The March 2024 handbook still describes bringing up to $20 in bills of $5 or less plus coins; that is the older document and it is out of date. A clear coin purse no larger than 5 by 7 inches may still be carried in and will be inspected.

The dress code is long, strictly enforced and unusual in places. Barred: watches, sunglasses, hats, scarves, gloves, see-through clothing, tight pants, tight or revealing tops, halter and sleeveless shirts, sundresses and strapless dresses, hoodies, jogging and athletic pants, yoga pants, leggings and jeggings — and sweaters and shawls, so do not plan on a layer you can take off. Knee-length Bermuda-type shorts are expressly permitted; skirts with slits and anything above the bend of the knee are not. No part of the foot may show, which rules out open-toed shoes, flip flops and croc-style shoes. Female visitors must wear a bra. A wedding ring is the only jewelry allowed. Camouflage is barred, and so is any solid white, khaki, dark green or gray clothing, because those are the colors of the compound.

Medication comes in only in its original container and only in the quantity “necessary for the immediate preservation of life” — the supplement’s examples are an asthma inhaler and nitroglycerin. It is left at the Visiting Officer’s station and returned at the end. Tell the Front Lobby officer about a medication need or a medical device before you are processed in, not after.

Infant items are itemized down to the number: no more than two sealed containers of formula or baby food and never glass, two nursing bottles three-quarters full, three diapers, wipes in a sealable clear bag, one change of clothing and two small blankets. Powders, creams and ointments are out, and so are baby carriers and strollers — the car seat stays in the car. Mothers who breastfeed may go back to their vehicle for privacy.

Contact is a handshake, a hug and a kiss at each end of the visit; babies and children under two may be held and everyone else sits across the table. Vending food bought for the person you are visiting has to be eaten or thrown away before the visit ends.

Identification, screening and Special Housing Unit visits

Photo identification is required for everyone 16 and over, and the supplement is specific about what counts. Accepted: a valid U.S. state or government-issued photo ID bearing the compliance marking; a passport with a United States visa stamp, or an I-94 form with signatures; a valid U.S. military photo ID. Not accepted: a passport without a proper U.S. visa stamp, a Mexican consulate identification card or border-crossing card, or photo identification issued by a bank, a business, a high school or a college. Without accepted identification there is no visit, and no allowance is made for having driven a long way.

Screening goes further here than at many institutions. Every visitor clears a walkthrough metal detector, and visitors with a pacemaker, hip screws or similar devices are screened by hand-held detector on production of written documentation from their own health care provider. Separately, “All inmate visitors entering the institution will be randomly screened for the presence of narcotic residue on their person” using an ion spectrometry drug screening machine. Nothing may be left with the Front Lobby officer — anything a visitor tries to store there is treated as contraband — so phones and everything else belong in the vehicle. See searches, shakedowns and contraband for how these searches work across the system, and our general guide to federal prison visitation and the Bureau’s visiting regulations for the national rules.

Visits to the Special Housing Unit work completely differently here, and the difference matters before you drive. They are not conducted through glass in a booth; they are conducted by video. The visitor is placed in a video monitor room off the main visiting room, the officer contacts the Special Housing Unit, and the person is brought to a video conference cell in the Alpha center area. Visitors for the Special Housing Unit are not processed after 1:00 p.m. The visit is capped at two hours, with no more than two visitors, and a person in the Special Housing Unit is limited to two hours of visiting a month in total. People in holdover status follow the same rules and may see immediate family only. One exception runs the other way: attorney visits for someone in the Special Housing Unit take place in the ordinary visiting room, not in the unit.

Getting there

The institution’s own directions, from the 2025 supplement: FCI Talladega is 12.6 miles south of Interstate 20. After exiting I-20, use the left two lanes to turn left onto AL-77 North and follow it for 9.6 miles; turn left onto AL-275 North for 2.2 miles; turn right onto East Renfroe Road for half a mile. Coming from Atlanta the exit is Lincoln/Talladega, exit 168, about a hundred miles west; from Birmingham the same exit is about fifty miles east. You pass the staff training center and then the camp before you reach the main institution.

Plan the last leg carefully without a car. The supplement says the bus depot is about thirty miles away, taxi service is available, and “There is no institution shuttle service.” It records three motels in Talladega, all about five miles from the prison, and warns that the institution offers no help with money lost or a car repaired.

How do phone calls and email work at FCI Talladega?

At FCI Talladega, calls are placed from inside; you cannot call in. Under the Bureau’s telephone regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, issued September 3, 2026, the allowance is 510 minutes a calendar month: 300 free to anyone eligible for First Step Act telephone incentives, and 210 more that anyone, eligible or not, may buy after using up the first 300. A single call should generally not exceed 15 minutes, with at least 30 minutes between completed calls. Legal calls arranged in advance as unmonitored sit outside that budget.

Talladega’s 2024 handbook still says people here “are limited to 300 minutes a month/15 minutes per call,” the figure from the 2008 policy that the 2026 program statement replaced; the program statement controls. The extra 100 minutes in November and December under the old policy did not carry over either.

Locally: telephones sit on each side of every living unit and only people assigned to that unit may use them. A Phone Access Code is issued on arrival and never sent through institution mail; a compromised code costs $5.00 to replace. Incoming calls are not accepted, so an emergency has to reach the unit team, who arrange a call back. An unmonitored call to an attorney of record must be requested in writing to the unit manager or case manager in advance and is then placed at the caller’s expense. See our guide to federal inmate phone calls.

Email runs on TRULINCS and families reach it through CorrLinks. The person inside has to add you before the system invites you, the list here holds 100 contacts, and it is text only, monitored and charged by the minute. Email with an attorney is not privileged; privileged writing goes by marked special mail. Our page on CorrLinks and TRULINCS explains the system and its costs.

What can people buy at the FCI Talladega commissary?

The monthly commissary spending limit at FCI Talladega is $460, set by the Bureau’s trust fund rules, Program Statement 4500.13, issued May 7, 2026, which records the increase from $360. The limit rises by $50 during the November and December holiday period, for no more than one validation period. Listings that still give $360 are out of date.

Talladega does not spend it in one go, and this is the local mechanic worth understanding. The institution’s handbook states that “The current spending limitation (validation) is $180.00 Bi-Weekly,” revalidating “on the first and fifteenth day of each month.” Two halves of $180 make $360, which was the national ceiling when that handbook was written in March 2024. The program statement expressly allows this: the limit “is automatically revalidated once per month for each inmate except where weekly or bi-weekly validation is used.” No Bureau document gives the figure the two halves now add up to: the handbook has not been reissued, and the June 2024 commissary sales list states no spending limit at all. The practical consequence is real: money sent for the first half of a month does not roll into the second half. Ask the unit team or the commissary for the current bi-weekly validation before assuming $460 can be spent in one week.

Shopping is by housing unit, once a week, on an assigned day, with sales run Monday to Thursday after the morning and noon meals. A fingerprint system is in use and the identification card is the fallback if it fails. The rules around it are unforgiving: nothing is added at the window, no changes once the list is submitted, and anyone who fails twice to answer when their name is called forfeits that week’s shopping altogether. Radios and watches are sold as is, and an exchange requires all four of the supplement’s conditions to be met at the window.

The June 2024 sales list shows what the money buys. A tablet is $131.30 and its case $17.45; a Diamond radio $38.95; a G-Shock watch $99.45. Twenty stamps is the limit, at five cents each, or $13.20 for a book of Forever stamps. An IBM typewriter ribbon is $13.15 and a correction ribbon $4.85 — which tells you how legal work still gets done here, and matches the handbook’s note that every housing unit has a typewriter as well as an electronic law library terminal. No vending credits are sold; the commissary sells a pre-loaded copy card for the inmate copier instead. The religious articles shelf is more varied than most: a Kufi cap at $3.60, Rastafarian headwear at $10.95 and $11.95, an Aztec bandana, tea tree soap and a chewstick. A Spanish-English dictionary is $2.25. Our page on the federal prison commissary covers the national rules.

Two limits worth knowing before a family plans a large deposit. Special Purpose Orders — catalog items ordered in, hobby craft supplies included — are capped at $600 a quarter including mark-up and shipping under section 3.5 of the current manual, which doubled the old $300; they may not exceed the institution’s spending limit within any one validation cycle however much quarterly headroom is left, and ordinarily run to one order a month unless the Warden approves an exception in writing. And the program statement’s exclusion list has grown since the handbook was printed: footwear, mattresses and a secured media device now sit outside the limit alongside stamps, copy cards and over-the-counter medication.

What programs are available at FCI Talladega?

FCI Talladega’s programs include five NCCER-certified construction trades, eight Labor Department apprenticeships and a degree program with Talladega College, but no RDAP, and the Justice Department’s Inspector General found in February 2025 that its Psychology Services department had offered no First Step Act program beyond a few drug treatment programs since January 2024. Before any of the detail below, hold on to the distinction the Inspector General itself drew: a program being approved for an institution is not the same as a program running at that institution, and the Bureau’s public guide, in the Inspector General’s words, “dramatically overstates the institutions that offer FSA programs.”

Drug treatment and the RDAP question

There is no Residential Drug Abuse Program at FCI Talladega, and none at its camp. The Bureau’s current published list of RDAP locations — page 29 of the August 2026 First Step Act Approved Programs Guide, updated in June 2026 and totaling 57 programs at 50 locations — names eight institutions in the Southeast Region, and Talladega is not among them. The only RDAP in Alabama on that list is at FPC Montgomery, a minimum-security camp two hours south. For anyone at Talladega hoping for the up-to-twelve-month reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e), that means a transfer, and a transfer means the unit team, a request in writing and a wait.

The institution’s own handbook does not answer the question. On page 42, where the Bureau’s national template leaves a blank for each prison to fill in, the March 2024 Admission and Orientation handbook for FCI Talladega reads, verbatim: “This institution [does / does not] have an RDAP.” The bracket was never resolved. Every person who arrives here is handed that document during intake screening.

It is not the only bracket left open: page 39 ends the Suicide Watch Companion criteria with “(4) [insert any institution specific criteria],” and page 46 carries an editor’s note into the published text. Elsewhere a bracket was filled in, so these are omissions rather than house style. Do not treat this handbook as settled on any program question. Put it to the unit team in writing and keep the answer.

What does run here is the rest of the drug-treatment ladder: the Drug Education Course, the non-residential drug abuse program, and Medication Assisted Treatment for opioid use disorder — the Inspector General’s evaluators watched the Medication Assisted Treatment pill line here in February 2025. Psychology Services offices are behind the Chapel next to the vocational building at the FCI, and next to Y dorm at the camp. A request to Psychology goes in by written or electronic cop-out, or you can approach staff at mainline or on unit rounds.

Education, vocational training and a degree from Talladega College

The Education Department here covers three of the thirteen First Step Act needs — education, dyslexia and work — running literacy to the national 240-hour standard, English as a second language in Basic and Advanced levels, and one-to-one dyslexia teaching through the Barton Reading and Spelling System after screening by a Special Education Coordinator. Two local details matter to anyone working on a case: the law library’s terminals time out after two hours with a fifteen-minute wait before logging back in, copies are fifteen cents a page, and the electronic law library reaches into the Special Housing Unit, which is not true everywhere. The handbook also records an interlibrary loan arrangement “established between the FPC/FCI and the Talladega Public Library” — an uncommon thing for a medium-security federal prison to run. See our page on the prison law library.

Vocational training at the FCI runs five trades — carpentry, electrical, HVAC, masonry and welding — all certified by the National Center for Construction Education and Research, taught to a 70 percent competency standard and ending in a nationally recognized NCCER card. A GED or diploma plus the NCCER CORE curriculum is the entry requirement. Eight apprenticeships run under U.S. Department of Labor accreditation, each needing at least 144 hours of classroom instruction a year. Shorter courses include forklift operation and WorkKeys; a logistics course leading to MSSC certification runs at the camp only, as does home inspection among the inmate-taught Adult Continuing Education classes. Mock job fairs run twice a year at both locations for people within 18 months of release. How an NCCER card and a Labor Department apprenticeship travel beyond Talladega is covered in our guides to prison education and vocational training.

The most unusual thing on offer is a degree. The handbook records that “FCI Talladega has partnered with the U.S. Department of Education and Talladega College to offer inmates the opportunity to earn a two-year Associate’s Degree and/or a four-year Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration,” Pell-funded, with “classes offered by in-person college professors here at the institution.” Talladega College is a historically Black college in the same town. A GED or diploma is required and applicants go through the Post-Secondary Coordinator in Education; correspondence courses at a student’s own expense are the alternative. This is also the one program besides Federal Prison Industries for which the Bureau’s own approved-programs guide names Talladega in its narrative text rather than only marking a grid.

Faith-based programming and reentry

Religious Services is staffed by a Supervisory Chaplain, a Staff Chaplain and a Religious Services Assistant, with a schedule that runs into the evening most days. Its reentry offering is listed in the handbook as “Threshold / Life Connection Orientation.” Personal religious property is capped at $100 in value and is bought through commissary or by special purchase order; religious headwear may be worn anywhere in the institution but may not carry graphics or writing. Medical clearance is required before taking part in the Lodge Ceremony, which tells you a sweat lodge operates here.

That word “orientation” is doing work, and it is worth spelling out because the Bureau’s own documents disagree. The residential Life Connections Program is a multi-year, multi-faith residential program, and the August 2026 approved-programs guide names five institutions for it in the narrative text that describes it — Carswell, Fort Dix, Greenville, Milan and Terre Haute USP. Talladega is not one. The Bureau’s published agency history names a different five — Milan, Leavenworth, Carswell, Petersburg and Terre Haute — and Talladega is not on that list either. But the by-institution grid in the back of the same guide marks Talladega for the residential program, along with 28 other institutions. Whichever way it resolves, the reader’s next move is the same: ask the unit team, in writing, whether the residential program runs here and whether a transfer is needed for it.

UNICOR operates here: the Inspector General’s team observed the factory in February 2025, and the approved-programs guide names Talladega for Federal Prison Industries in both halves of the document. Working there carries a housing consequence, because the A-side of each unit is set aside for UNICOR workers. Refusing to take part in the Inmate Financial Responsibility Program bars UNICOR employment outright and drops a person to maintenance pay, set at $5.25 where funds allow; the four performance pay grades run from 12 to 40 cents an hour.

What is daily life like at FCI Talladega?

Daily life at FCI Talladega is built around five counts and three meals, and the weekend shape is different from the weekday one in a way families often do not expect. The schedule below comes from the institution’s March 2024 handbook.

	Monday to Friday	Weekends and federal holidays
Wake-up	6:00 a.m.
Meals	Breakfast 6:00–7:00 a.m.; lunch 10:45 a.m.–12:00 noon; dinner 4:50–5:30 p.m.	Coffee hour 7:00–8:00 a.m.; brunch 11:00 a.m.–12:00 noon; dinner 4:50–5:30 p.m.
Official counts	12:01 a.m., 3:00 a.m., 5:00 a.m., 4:10 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., plus 10:00 a.m. on weekends and holidays
Stand-up counts	4:10 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.	10:00 a.m., 4:10 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.
Census checks	8:00–9:00 a.m. and 12:30–1:30 p.m.	—
Uniform required	Khaki shirt and pants, 6:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.	Personal clothing permitted
Pill line	About 6:15–7:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. and 5:00–5:30 p.m., seven days a week
Library	6:00–10:00 a.m., 10:30 a.m.–3:30 p.m., 5:00–8:30 p.m. at the FCI	6:00–9:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m.–3:30 p.m., 5:00–8:30 p.m. at the FCI

Two serving lines feed the dining hall cafeteria-style, and the handbook asks people to finish within twenty minutes. Pork and pork derivatives are marked with an X on the menu board. There is no weekend breakfast as such — a coffee hour, then brunch, then dinner. People in the Special Housing Unit receive the same diet as everyone else.

Recreation covers intramural basketball, softball, soccer, volleyball, handball and racquetball, a walking track, a movie room, a music program with a band room, and hobby craft in art, beading, crochet, drawing, knitting, leather, oil painting, pastels and woodworking. Holiday tournaments carry consumable prizes and the entertainment is usually provided by inmate bands. One local rule surprises people: there is no hobby craft sales program at either the FCI or the camp, and nothing finished may be kept. Every completed project must be mailed out within thirty days, on Mondays between 6:00 and 7:00 p.m., with the maker providing the postage, to a verified relative or an approved visitor. If someone inside is making something for a child’s birthday, the visiting list has to be current or it cannot go.

Health Services runs 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. with a provider on call overnight, and sick call is taken on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday during the unit’s morning meal call, on a written triage form. There is no Wednesday sick call and none on weekends or holidays; anything urgent goes through a staff member who telephones ahead, and the handbook is emphatic that no one should simply turn up. The co-pay for a self-requested visit is $2.00, and chronic care clinics cover diabetes, infectious disease, cardiac, hypertension, pulmonary and neurology by referral. See medical care in federal prison for what to do when it does not happen.

What do inspectors say about conditions at FCI Talladega?

Inspectors say more about FCI Talladega than about most federal prisons, and from an unusual direction. The DOJ Office of the Inspector General has not conducted an on-site inspection of this facility. But its evaluators have been inside twice: once before February 2020 for a Bureau-wide audit of chaplaincy services, which produced only aggregate findings and named Talladega nowhere in its text, and once in February 2025, when they observed the Education, vocational training, Psychology Services, Recreation and Health Services spaces, the chapel, the UNICOR factory, a standard housing unit, the visiting room, and a camp housing unit and the camp’s program spaces. That February 2025 visit is the most detailed independent account of this institution that exists.

What the Inspector General saw here in February 2025

When the Inspector General set out to evaluate how the Bureau had spent $1.23 billion of First Step Act money and whether the programs it bought were reaching people, it chose two prisons out of more than a hundred to walk through. One was FCI Phoenix. The other was FCI Talladega. Selection turned on spending, the range of programs offered, participation, completion and waitlist rates, how long programs actually ran against how long they were meant to, staffing, population, location, size and security level. Its report, E&I Report 26-057, was published on May 28, 2026, with seven recommendations.

Here is the sentence that matters most to anyone with a relative inside this building. “At Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Talladega, Psychology Services Department employees told us that as of March 2025 the department had not offered an FSA program outside of a select few drug treatment programs since January 2024.”

Fourteen months, in the department that delivers most of the cognitive and behavioral programming the First Step Act needs are met by. The report gives a reason: “the Psychology Services Departments at FCI Talladega and FCI Phoenix have only one dedicated classroom available; as a result, department staff must utilize spaces designated for other departments.” The Inspector General published a photograph of it, captioned “FCI Talladega’s Sole Psychology Classroom.”

Two further findings are specific to this site. At the camp, “a Vocational Training Instructor at FCI Talladega’s camp told us that the carpentry classroom’s low ceilings and lack of ventilation meant that carpentry classes had to cut lumber outdoors and that, on rainy days, classes were limited to bookwork and often fell behind on practical instruction.” And on the records: “in February 2025 at FCI Talladega, four inmates appeared in SENTRY as actively participating in the Anger Management program even though the institution had not offered the program since January 2024.” They had started the program at another prison, been transferred here, and no one had updated their status on arrival.

That last finding is the practical one. If a unit team, a progress report or a time-credit calculation says someone at Talladega is enrolled in a program, the Inspector General has documented that the record can be wrong in exactly that way. Ask for the completion certificate, not the SENTRY entry.

The December 2025 PREA audit

The PREA audit was conducted on site from December 9–11, 2025, by an independent auditor, Cynthia Swier of Corrections Consulting Services, whose final report is dated January 25, 2026. The audit is also the fullest current description of the physical plant and the population that exists anywhere.

Designated capacity	1,004
Population on day one of the audit	1,244, including the camp — about 124% of designated capacity. The audit records “over capacity at some point in the past 12 months: Yes”
Average daily population, previous 12 months	1,176
Buildings	54
Housing units	9 — 5 multiple-occupancy cell, 4 open bay or dormitory, 0 single-cell
Segregation cells	50
Staff who may have inmate contact	245, of whom 18 were hired in the previous 12 months
Average length of stay	665.1 days

Of the 1,244 people held on the first day, 96 disclosed prior sexual victimization during risk screening, seven were limited English proficient and seven had a physical, cognitive or functional disability. The audit also records that the institution holds people for a U.S. military branch and for a state correctional agency. No one was in segregated housing because of a risk of victimization or because they had reported abuse. Forensic examinations are done off site at a local hospital; none was needed in the audit period.

Three things travel with any citation of that result. The institution has no agreement with a rape crisis center: the auditor recorded that “an MOU is in the process of being finalized” and that, if finalized, it “will be with Crisis Center, Inc. in Birmingham, Alabama,” and found the standard compliant on the strength of Psychology Services providing advocacy meanwhile. The institution’s handbook says the same to the people who live here: “Currently FCI/FPC Talladega does not have a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with a local Rape Crisis Center.” The auditor sampled four sexual-abuse investigation files and answered “No” when asked whether that sample covered a cross-section of outcomes. And the audit expressly did not assess part of what the standards cover: “Pursuant to Executive Order 14168, portions of this standard related to transgender inmates are not included in this compliance determination.”

On staffing, the Warden, Brandon D. Walker, certified by memorandum that there had been no deviation from the staffing plan in the previous twelve months and told the auditor that posts are never left unmanned, with overtime, mandatory overtime or augmentation covering them. The audit’s document list includes a “Memorandum for Overtime Limitation for Fiscal Year 2025.” Two hundred and forty-five staff cover 1,244 people across three eight-hour shifts. Staffing is not an abstraction for a family: it is why a callout is canceled, why a class does not run, and why a medical appointment slips. The institution’s staff union is AFGE Local 3844.

Sexual-abuse allegation counts, and what they do and do not mean

Two sets of numbers exist and they are not comparable, so both are printed with their limits. In the twelve months before the December 2025 audit the institution reported nine allegations of sexual abuse — seven inmate-on-inmate and two staff-on-inmate — and eleven of sexual harassment, seven inmate-on-inmate and four staff-on-inmate. There were no criminal investigations; all twenty were handled administratively. At the time of the audit seven of the abuse allegations were unsubstantiated and two were still open, and all eleven harassment allegations were unsubstantiated. None was substantiated and none was found unfounded.

Separately, the Government Accountability Office published per-institution counts covering 2020 to 2024 in May 2026. For Talladega it records 43 reported allegations in which the alleged perpetrator was another incarcerated person and 41 in which the alleged perpetrator was a Bureau employee. Those figures come from different Bureau systems with different cut-off dates and different counting rules — one counts by the year of the incident, the other by the year of the report — so they cannot be added, and the GAO does not adjust for the size of a prison anywhere in the report, so they cannot be used to rank one institution against another.

“Unsubstantiated” does not mean false. It means, in the GAO’s words, that “there was not enough evidence to support the allegation did or did not occur” — the outcome in roughly four of five inmate-perpetrator allegations nationally between 2014 and 2022. A count of allegations is a count of reports, and a low count can as easily mean no one is reporting.

Staff prosecuted for smuggling

The Inspector General’s public case file for this institution reads as one continuous line running back sixteen years, and it is the most durable pattern in the oversight record here. A former guard indicted for bribery and contraband in 2010. A former cook supervisor and correctional officer who pleaded guilty in 2015 to taking more than $4,000 to bring in tobacco and synthetic marijuana, and an Anniston Army Depot employee indicted the same year on fifteen bribery counts for taking money from people inside between March 2014 and May 2015. A former officer indicted in January 2016 and sentenced that July to a month in prison for taking a bribe to provide a cell phone.

Two cases fall in the current decade. Lakiesha James, a former correctional officer here, was indicted in the Northern District of Alabama in December 2025, pleaded guilty in April 2026 and was sentenced on August 13, 2026, to twelve months and one day in prison and three years of supervised release, for accepting bribes to smuggle cigarettes into the institution between February and April 2025. Jamie Seehafer, a serving correctional officer, was arrested on January 8, 2026, after a federal grand jury indictment alleging bribes to smuggle contraband into FCI Talladega between May 2023 and May 2024; that investigation is ongoing and the charges are allegations. Both were investigated by the Inspector General’s Charleston office with the FBI.

Why it matters to a family: contraband prosecutions are the clearest public sign of how material moves through an institution, and they are why screening here is as heavy as it is — the ion spectrometry testing of visitors, the ban on leaving anything at the front desk. A visitor who has never broken a rule pays for that history at the door.

Two oversight gaps stand out. The District of Columbia’s Corrections Information Council, which inspects the federal prisons holding DC residents and produces the most detailed conditions reporting in the system, has never inspected Talladega. And the Inspector General’s current list of work under way names FCI Berlin, FCI El Reno and FCI Estill, not Talladega, and none of the six Bureau-wide engagements on the same list — medical intake, lockdowns and modified operations, drone interdiction, food-service equipment, the monitoring of inmate email and the $5 billion in Public Law 119-21 — names Talladega.

FCI Talladega in the news

Recent news about FCI Talladega centers on the prosecutions of two correctional officers and the Inspector General’s report on its First Step Act programming; older items concern a 2025 drone drop, a musician’s 2025 move to a reentry facility, a 2025 assault sentence, the Bureau’s 2020–2021 death releases and the 1991 hostage siege.

• August 2026 — former correctional officer Lakiesha James sentenced in the Northern District of Alabama to twelve months and one day for accepting bribes to smuggle cigarettes into the institution in early 2025.
• May 2026, reporting on February 2025 — the Justice Department’s Inspector General publishes the findings of its site visit here, including that the Psychology Services department had run no First Step Act program beyond a few drug treatment groups since January 2024.
• January 2026 — correctional officer Jamie Seehafer arrested after a federal grand jury indictment alleging bribery and contraband smuggling between May 2023 and May 2024. The charges are allegations and the investigation is ongoing.
• June to August 2025 — four people charged in Alabama state court over a drone drop. An officer heard a drone over the property in the early hours of June 21, 2025; police stopped a vehicle near a perimeter tower and recovered the drone inside it, while staff searching the grounds found a bag holding 280.9 grams of methamphetamine, several cell phones still in their packaging, marijuana, THC wax and 14 cartons of cigarettes.
• March 2025 — reporting that Kentrell Gaulden, the musician who records as NBA YoungBoy, was moved from here to an Arizona reentry facility. Bureau records show he left federal custody on April 25, 2025.
• February 2025 — Christopher McCallum, then serving a federal sentence here, sentenced to 51 months for assaulting a correctional officer in February 2024. The officer sustained multiple injuries.
• November 2020 to September 2021 — the Bureau posted five news releases reporting the deaths of people held at FCI Talladega and its satellite camp; the Bureau’s releases are listed on its press release page.
• August 1991 — the ten-day hostage siege in Alpha Unit, ended by an FBI and Bureau entry at 3:40 a.m. on August 30 with no loss of life.

Frequently asked questions about FCI Talladega

Problems at FCI Talladega: where we can help

The problems that recur at this particular prison are visible in its own record, and they are mostly problems of programming and paperwork rather than of physical conditions. Each of the following is documented above, and each has a route through the Bureau that runs on a clock.

• First Step Act time credits that rest on programs no one ran. The Inspector General documented four people here carried in the Bureau’s records as active in a program the institution had not offered for over a year. If a progress report or a credit calculation depends on program participation at Talladega, ask for the completion certificate and the class roster, not the system entry. See our First Step Act time credit services.
• RDAP and the § 3621(e) year. There is no RDAP here, and the institution’s own handbook does not say so. Getting to one means a transfer request, and the timing of the referral matters more than most people realize.
• Transfer and designation. Whether someone stays at the FCI, moves to the camp or moves closer to home turns on security points, Public Safety Factors and a Management Variable — all of them arguable. See our guide to federal prison transfers.
• Disciplinary proceedings and the Special Housing Unit. An incident report here costs more than good conduct time: visits in the Special Housing Unit are by video, capped at two hours a month, and cut off to arrivals after 1:00 p.m. See solitary confinement and special housing units and protective custody.
• Medical care that is not happening, in an institution where sick call runs four days a week and not at all on weekends. The route is a written request to staff and then the administrative remedy process, which has a deadline on every rung, and where negligence has caused injury, a Federal Tort Claims Act claim.
• Halfway house and home confinement placement, and the Second Chance Act review that precedes it.
• Sentence computation errors, which the Bureau’s sentence computation rules govern, and compassionate release under the Bureau’s reduction-in-sentence rules. See our federal prison early release practice.
• 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 Talladega, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. The Bureau’s facility page.
• Institution Supplement TDG 5267.09B, Visiting Regulations, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCI Talladega, 2025. Replaced TDG 5267.09A (2023).
• FCI Talladega Admission and Orientation Handbook, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCI Talladega, 2024.
• FCI Talladega Commissary Sales List, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCI Talladega, 2024.
• Community Ties: Sending Money, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Deposit routes and wire posting times.
• Trust Fund/Deposit Fund Manual, Program Statement 4500.13, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Sets the $460 commissary spending limit and allows bi-weekly validation.
• 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.
• Historical Timeline, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Names the 1991 Talladega disturbance.
• Twenty-fifth Anniversary of Talladega Riot, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2016.
• Press Releases, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2020–2021. Includes the five releases reporting deaths at FCI Talladega and its satellite camp.

Audits and inspections

• PREA Audit Report: FCI Talladega, Corrections Consulting Services, 2026. On-site audit of December 9–11, 2025, by Cynthia Swier.
• Evaluation of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Use of First Step Act Funding and Implementation of First Step Act Programs at Its Institutions, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2026. E&I Report 26-057, including the February 2025 site visit.
• Federal Prisons: Improvements Needed to Prevent, Detect, and Address Sexual Abuse, U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2026. Report GAO-26-107343, with per-institution allegation counts.
• Ongoing Work, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2026.
• Evaluation of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Efforts to Address Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault Committed by Inmates Toward Staff, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2023. Report 23-034.
• Audit of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Management and Oversight of its Chaplaincy Services Program, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2021. Report 21-091.

Court records

• BOP Correctional Officer Sentenced for Bribery, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2026. Lakiesha James’s sentence.
• Former BOP Correctional Officer Pleads Guilty to Bribery, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2026. Lakiesha James’s guilty plea.
• BOP Correctional Officer Arrested for Bribery, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2026. Jamie Seehafer’s arrest.
• Former BOP Correctional Officer Arrested for Bribery and Introduction of Contraband, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2025. Lakiesha James’s indictment.
• Alabama Correctional Officer Sentenced for Accepting Bribe To Smuggle Contraband, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2016.
• Former Talladega Correctional Officer Indicted for Accepting Bribe to Smuggle Phone to Inmate, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2016.
• Federal Correctional Officer Pleads Guilty to Accepting Bribes to Bring Contraband into Prison, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2015.
• Anniston Army Depot Employee Indicted for Bribery, Providing Contraband to Federal Prisoners, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2015.
• Former Prison Guard Indicted for Bribery and Contraband, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2010.
• United States v. Cuff, 37 F. Supp. 2d 279 (S.D.N.Y. 1999), U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, 1999. The Preacher Crew prosecution, No. S11 96 Cr. 515.
• United States v. Heatley, 39 F. Supp. 2d 287 (S.D.N.Y. 1998), U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, 1998.
• United States v. Heatley, 994 F. Supp. 477 (S.D.N.Y. 1998), U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, 1998.
• Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCI Talladega and AFGE Local 3844, Case No. AT-CA-70461, Federal Labor Relations Authority, Office of Administrative Law Judges, 1998. Names the institution’s union local.

News and other sources

• Contraband Charges Filed Against Fourth Suspect in FCI Drone Case, The Anniston Star / The Daily Home, 2025.
• Three Georgia Residents Charged with Trying to Smuggle Contraband into FCI, The Anniston Star / The Daily Home, 2025. The June 2025 drone drop.
• NBA YoungBoy Moved to Arizona Halfway House Following Federal Prison Stint, Fox 8 / WVUE, 2025.
• Inmate Sentenced to over Four Years for Assaulting Corrections Officer at Talladega Prison, WBMA ABC 33/40, 2025. Christopher McCallum’s sentence.
• A Look Back at the 1991 Talladega Prison Riot, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2016.
• U.S. Agents Storm Prison in Alabama, Freeing 9 Hostages, The New York Times, 1991.
• 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e), Imprisonment of a convicted person, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 28 C.F.R. § 540.71(a), Procedures, Code of Federal Regulations (Legal Information Institute).

Sources reviewed September 2026.

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