FCI Marion (formerly USP Marion): Illinois Federal Prison

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

FCI Marion at a glance

FCI Marion is a medium-security federal prison for men at 4500 Prison Road in Marion, Illinois, with an adjacent minimum-security satellite camp. It held 1,209 people as of September 2026: 1,007 at the institution and 202 at the camp. The Bureau of Prisons called it USP Marion until April 4, 2024, and most of the internet still does.

Official name	Federal Correctional Institution, Marion · formerly United States Penitentiary, Marion
BOP code	MAR
Security level	Medium; men
Population	1,209 (as of September 2026) · 1,007 at the institution, 202 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 Marion · Federal Correctional Institution · P.O. Box 1000 · Marion, IL 62959 Camp: Inmate Name & Register Number · FCI Marion · Federal Correctional Institution · Satellite Camp · P.O. Box 1000 · Marion, IL 62959
Send money	Lockbox · Western Union (code city FBOP, DC) · MoneyGram (receive code 7932)
Phone	618-964-1441 · Fax 618-964-2058
Street address	4500 Prison Road, Marion, IL 62959 · Williamson County
Judicial district	Southern District of Illinois
BOP region	North Central
Designated capacity	981 at the institution, 200 at the camp
Housing	13 housing units: 7 single-cell, 5 multiple-occupancy cell, 1 camp dormitory
Special Housing Unit	Yes · 69 segregation cells
RDAP	Yes, at the institution · not at the camp
Sex offender treatment	Residential and non-residential · one of two Bureau institutions with the residential program
UNICOR	Yes
Camp	Adjacent minimum-security satellite camp

Two things set it apart from every other medium-security FCI. It runs one of only two residential sex offender treatment programs in the entire federal system. And it held one of the Bureau’s two Communications Management Units for seventeen years — a unit that closed in 2025, a fact no Bureau news release has announced and that its own published handbooks for this prison still contradict.

Why the Bureau renamed USP Marion, and what still says otherwise

The Bureau renamed USP Marion because, in its words, the institution’s mission and security level had already changed and its name had not. On April 4, 2024, the Bureau of Prisons published a news item headed “Name Changes Approved for Seven FBOP Facilities.” Marion was one of six penitentiaries in it. The Population Management and Capacity Planning Committee recommended the changes in January 2024 under Program Statement 1001.14, Naming Bureau Property; the Executive Team approved them in February; Congress was notified in March. The news item explained: “The missions and security levels for these facilities had been previously changed but for a variety of reasons the names of the facilities were not.”

So the rename recorded something that had already happened. It did not change how the prison runs, who is designated here, or where mail goes. It changed what the place is called, and left a trail of documents that still say the old thing. Courts have caught up: in Kourani v. United States, a Southern District of Illinois judge added a footnote on January 31, 2025, recording that “USP-Marion has been reclassified as a federal correctional institution and is therefore referred to as FCI-Marion herein.” So has the Bureau’s website, which titles the page FCI Marion and carries the notice it serves on every renamed institution: “the physical change to the facade of the structure may reflect the old name until a formal historical survey by the state in which it is located has been conducted and approved.” The sign on the building may still say penitentiary.

The paperwork has not caught up, and that has practical consequences. Every document below is what the Bureau publishes for this prison today.

Document the Bureau publishes now	How it is headed	Year of the document
Admission & Orientation handbooks	“USP MARION” and “SCP MARION” handbooks	2023 (both)
Visiting supplement	“USP Marion — Institution Supplement MAR-5267.09A, Visiting Regulations”	2020
Commissary list	“U.S.P. MARION COMMISSARY LIST FOR GENERAL POPULATION”	2022
PREA audit report	“FCI Marion — Marion, IL” — the one document using the current name	2025

One more, and it is not a local document. The Bureau’s national security designation policy, Program Statement 5100.08, still describes “USP Marion/ADX Florence general population units” as places “designed for male inmates who have demonstrated an inability to function in a less restrictive environment without being a threat to others,” with referrals routed to the North Central Regional Director. That chapter was written in 2006. Anyone reading the Bureau’s designation policy cold would conclude Marion is still a high-security destination for the hardest cases. The roster says medium.

Also known as: USP Marion, Marion Penitentiary, Marion Correctional Institution, Marion FCI. None of it matters for finding a person; the locator indexes people, not buildings.

The Bureau’s published records for Marion do not date the underlying security-level change. The Inspector General’s chaplaincy audit, published in July 2021, still listed this institution as “USP Marion — High”; the Bureau’s roster now records it as medium.

What is the security level at FCI Marion?

FCI Marion is a medium-security institution with a minimum-security satellite camp. The Bureau’s roster records FCI Marion as a Federal Correctional Institution at security level Medium with a satellite camp, and its published description reads: “A medium security federal correctional institution with an adjacent minimum security satellite camp.” The 2025 PREA audit puts it more precisely in custody terms — “FCI: Medium; In / SCP: Minimum; Community, Out.”

The buildings tell a different story from the label. The January 2025 PREA audit counted 66 buildings and thirteen housing units — twelve at the institution, one at the camp — of which seven are single-cell units, five are multiple-occupancy cell units and one is the camp dormitory. A medium-security FCI with more single-cell units than shared-cell units is unusual, and it is what is left of a prison built and rebuilt for isolation. There are 69 segregation cells.

The camp is a different place to serve a sentence. Its handbook records that “each inmate is assigned to one housing unit with an upper and lower range” — dormitory living, not cells. Which side of the fence someone lands on is decided at designation, before they arrive, and it turns on the security point score and on whether any Public Safety Factor applies; a Public Safety Factor overrides the point total, which is why a person with a low score can still be kept out of a camp. Our guides to the intake process and to preparing for prison cover the first days and the run-up to a self-surrender date.

The January 2025 audit recorded a designated capacity of 981 at the institution and 200 at the camp, an average daily population over the preceding twelve months of 1,101 and 191, and answered “Yes” to whether the facility had been over capacity in that year.

Is there still a Communications Management Unit at FCI Marion?

FCI Marion no longer has a Communications Management Unit: the unit closed in 2025. Its population went to FCI Cumberland in Maryland, which on the government’s own representation to a federal court is now the only prison in the Bureau of Prisons running such a unit.

The Bureau’s news page carries no announcement of it, this facility’s page carries no notice, and the Bureau’s facility pages do not say where its units are. Listings that still describe two units, one here and one at Terre Haute, are out of date. The Bureau’s own handbook for this prison — the one handed to people arriving here — still describes the unit’s medical room, its pill lines and its health-services rounds, and so does its visiting supplement.

If your relative is at Marion, they are not in a Communications Management Unit, because there is not one.

What the unit was, and who went into it

The Bureau opened the Marion unit in March 2008, the second of two; the first opened at Terre Haute in December 2006. Both dates are on the record in the Justice Department’s final rule creating the governing regulations, published at 80 Fed. Reg. 3168 on January 22, 2015, and codified at 28 C.F.R. §§ 540.200–540.205.

A Communications Management Unit is a housing unit inside an ordinary prison where every form of contact with the outside — mail, telephone, electronic messaging, visits — is limited and monitored so that staff can read and hear all of it. Designation is made by a single Bureau official, the Assistant Director for Correctional Programs, on a referral coordinated by the Counter-Terrorism Unit, and the regulation is explicit that the placement is not a punishment and does not lengthen a sentence. The criteria at 28 C.F.R. § 540.201 reach terrorism-related offenses and conduct, a substantial likelihood that the person will direct illegal activity from inside, attempts to contact victims, and abuse of the Bureau’s own communication systems.

The units never held most of the people they were built for. In a March 2020 audit of the Bureau’s monitoring of inmate communications, the Justice Department’s Inspector General recorded that after its 2006 review the Bureau had said it was establishing “up to six” such units, and that “[a]s of 2018, the BOP has established only two.” The same report found that “only 27 of the 534 terrorist inmates are housed in CMUs as of May 2017.”

What the court record shows about the closure

The public record of the closure is a screening order in a prisoner’s civil case, in a district Marion is not in. Screening a complaint filed by a man held in the Terre Haute unit, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana wrote that “after this lawsuit was filed by counsel, the BOP closed the CMU at FCI – Terre Haute (and another at FCI – Marion in Illinois), and a new, single CMU was established at FCI – Cumberland in Maryland.” On venue, the same order recorded that “counsel for Defendants have represented to the Court that FCI – Cumberland is now the only BOP prison with a CMU,” and that the plaintiff’s own lawyer did not dispute it. Duka v. Rule, No. 2:25-cv-00224-JPH-MG (S.D. Ind. Sept. 9, 2025) (screening order).

The unit was still running in early 2025. On September 11, 2025, a different judge in the same district described a plaintiff who on February 3, 2025, “was incarcerated in the Communications Management Unit at the United States Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois.” It was gone by September; no published source gives the day it shut.

Matthew Hale’s record confirms where the unit’s population went. Hale, the former white-supremacist church leader whose conviction for soliciting the murder of a federal judge was affirmed in United States v. Hale, 448 F.3d 971 (7th Cir. 2006), litigated for years against the Marion unit — over the suppression of a book he was writing, of articles he had written, of his mail and of his Bureau email by a Counter-Terrorism Unit analyst. In April 2024, the court found he had “fully exhausted eight administrative remedies related to his First Amendment rights at FCI Marion” and refused to dismiss. Hale v. Collis, No. 3:23-cv-01296 (S.D. Ill. Apr. 19, 2024). On August 14, 2026, the court granted the defendant’s motion for summary judgment on all claims and closed the case. Hale v. Collis, No. 3:23-cv-01296 (S.D. Ill. Aug. 14, 2026). The Bureau’s Inmate Locator places Matthew Hale, register number 15177-424, at FCI Cumberland. Lists that still put him at Marion are out of date. Our page on Cumberland sets out the phase system, the mail and telephone caps and the visiting regime as they operate there now.

The documents the Bureau still publishes

The Bureau’s own Marion documents still describe the unit as operating, and they look current.

The Admission & Orientation handbook on the FCI Marion page tells a new arrival that “[f]or CMU inmates, the medical room is located in the program area,” that “[f]or CMU and SHU inmates, the Health Services Administrator is available during weekly Executive Staff rounds,” and sets out separate pill lines for the unit, morning and evening. The camp handbook repeats all three passages. Both carry the old name and a 2023 date — before the rename and before the closure.

The visiting supplement goes further. Section XXI of institution supplement MAR-5267.09A (2020) is a complete visiting regime for the unit: eight hours a month in blocks of up to four, “Sunday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.,” scheduled in advance by unit staff and conducted through one of three non-contact booths, with the unit restricted to Booth C whenever general-population visiting ran at the same time.

On a page headed FCI Marion, the Bureau is still publishing an operating manual for a unit that no longer exists, under a name it retired in 2024.

What FCI Marion was before: the 1983 lockdown

Marion was the most restrictive prison in the federal system for twenty-three years, and the model for every supermax built since. That history is over and none of it describes how the prison runs today — but it explains the buildings, it explains why the Bureau’s designation policy still names this place alongside ADX Florence, and it is why families arriving here have often read something frightening.

October 1983 and the twenty-three-year lockdown

The prison opened in 1963, the year Alcatraz closed, and took some of the men transferred off the island. In October 1983 two correctional officers were killed. The Justice Department’s own account, in its January 2016 Report and Recommendations Concerning the Use of Restrictive Housing, is that they “were murdered in separate incidents on the same day”; the Seventh Circuit, working from the trial record, described two guards murdered in the week before the lockdown by prisoners who slipped their handcuffs during transport. The accounts differ on the span of days. They agree on what followed: Marion “was ultimately placed on permanent ‘lockdown,’ and remained so for twenty-three years.”

What that meant, in the Seventh Circuit’s description of the evidence: one-man cells, meals served in the cell, handcuffs and shackles any time a man left it, and no group religious services. In 1994 the Bureau opened ADX Florence in Colorado and, in the Justice Department’s words, that facility took “over the mission of USP Marion.”

What Bruscino v. Carlson decided

The lockdown was challenged and it was upheld. In Bruscino v. Carlson, 854 F.2d 162 (7th Cir. 1988), a class of Marion prisoners argued that the post-1983 regime was cruel and unusual punishment, that it denied them access to the courts, and that being sent to Marion at all was a deprivation of liberty requiring notice and a hearing. Judge Posner, writing for the court, rejected all three: the conditions had to be read against the institution’s record of violence, which the opinion put at three murders in the four and a half years after the lockdown against eleven in the four years before; the court-access claim failed without proof of actual prejudice; and under Meachum v. Fano a transfer between prisons is not itself a deprivation of liberty, however much harsher the destination. The court declined to order the Bureau to relax the 1983 measures; it did not hold that the regime was good corrections.

Three things are left of that history: the seven single-cell housing units counted in the 2025 PREA audit; the wording of Program Statement 5100.08; and a public memory that lands on families who have just been told where their son or husband is going. How far the place has moved shows in an Inspector General report from 2003, which excluded Marion’s drug-testing data outright, alongside ADX Florence, because both “have non-contact visits and little or no inmate movement.” Our page on ADX Florence covers the institution that inherited the mission and still operates it.

Who are the notable inmates at FCI Marion?

The best-known people now held at FCI Marion are Ali Kourani and Thomas John Boukamp; most names on published lists for this prison belong to people who left, some of them decades ago. Each entry below carries a register number, so the Bureau record can be checked.

Name and register number	Status in Bureau records	Case
Ali Kourani — 79196-054	Held at FCI Marion. Projected release July 2, 2051	Sentenced in the Southern District of New York on December 3, 2019, to 40 years for operating as an agent of the Islamic Jihad Organization, the external attack-planning arm of Hizballah, including surveillance of infrastructure and airports in New York City
Thomas John Boukamp — 18782-509	Held at FCI Marion. Projected release: life	Sentenced in the Northern District of Texas on October 20, 2022, to life on sixteen counts, including transportation and enticement of a minor, ten counts of production or attempted production of child pornography, and cyberstalking
Matthew Hale — 15177-424	Former. Now at FCI Cumberland, Maryland. Projected release April 29, 2036	Leader of the World Church of the Creator; convicted of soliciting the murder of a federal judge. He was in the Marion Communications Management Unit and litigated against it
Viktor Bout — 91641-054	Former. Bureau records show FCI Marion and a release date of December 12, 2022. No longer in federal custody	Sentenced in the Southern District of New York in April 2012 to 25 years for conspiring to kill U.S. nationals and to provide material support to a terrorist organization
Francis Schaeffer Cox — 16179-006	Former. Released September 6, 2024; last recorded Bureau facility was the Seattle residential reentry office	Alaska militia leader convicted of conspiracy to murder federal officials
John Gotti — 18261-053	Former. Died in custody on June 10, 2002; Bureau records give his last facility as the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners, Springfield — not Marion	Gambino crime family boss, convicted of racketeering and murder
Pete Rose — 01832-061	Former. Bureau records give a release date of April 5, 1991, and a last facility of the Cincinnati residential reentry office	Five-month sentence for filing false tax returns

On July 14, 2026, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois announced that a man identified as Christopher L. Collins, 42, known inside as “Beetlejuice,” had been sentenced to 224 months, consecutive to an undischarged 2019 sentence, for producing and possessing obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children; in March 2025 an officer here discovered eleven hand-drawn images, which Collins admitted making and passing to other men. Bureau records for a Christopher Lee Collins, register number 08654-030, aged 42, now show FCI Petersburg Medium in Virginia.

How do I find someone at FCI Marion?

You find someone at FCI Marion through the Bureau’s free public Inmate Locator. Search by the eight-digit register number if you have it, and by name if you do not. The number is the reliable key, because the locator matches the committed name on the judgment rather than a nickname; its coverage runs back to 1982.

Two Marion-specific points. A person’s locator record reads “Marion FCI” whether the person is at the institution or the camp; it does not distinguish them, and the mailing address is the same either way. And if the locator shows nothing, the usual explanations are state rather than federal custody, pretrial detention held by the U.S. Marshals Service, or a spelling on the judgment that differs from the one you know. Our guide to how register numbers work sets out where each digit comes from.

How do I write to someone at FCI Marion?

Mail for someone at FCI Marion goes to P.O. Box 1000, not to the box printed in the Bureau’s own handbooks for this prison. P.O. Box 2000, which the Admission & Orientation handbook and the visiting supplement both give as the facility’s address, is the box for mail to staff. The Bureau’s FCI Marion page lists the two separately and gives the inmate address blocks below.

For someone at the institution	For someone at the satellite camp
Inmate Name & Register Number FCI Marion Federal Correctional Institution P.O. Box 1000 Marion, IL 62959	Inmate Name & Register Number FCI Marion Federal Correctional Institution Satellite Camp P.O. Box 1000 Marion, IL 62959

Because this is a medium-security institution, outgoing mail is treated differently from a camp or a low under the Bureau’s correspondence rules: except for special mail, the handbook says it “may not be sealed by the inmate and may be read and inspected by staff.” The same security level affects reading material — at the institution, softcover publications may come only from “the publisher, a book club, or a bookstore,” so a paperback posted by a relative will be rejected. The camp is minimum security, where both handbooks say an inmate “may receive softcover publications (other than newspapers) from any source.”

Legal mail must be marked as such. The envelope must carry the attorney’s name, an indication that the sender is an attorney, and on the front “Special Mail – Open only in the presence of the inmate.” Without that, the handbook says, “it may be opened as general correspondence.” Our guides to attorney-client communication and to writing to someone in federal prison cover the privilege question and what gets rejected.

Allow more time than you would elsewhere. Ruling on a deadline in a case brought by a man held here, a federal judge wrote in July 2025 that “[m]ailing to and from a relatively remote location like the Federal Correctional Institute at Marion, Illinois … can take weeks at a time,” and recorded “an extreme delay … by the U.S. Postal Service in delivering the responses to FCI-Marion’s post office box.” Kourani v. United States, No. 3:23-cv-03501 (S.D. Ill. July 2, 2025). If a filing deadline depends on a letter reaching this prison, build in the weeks.

Put the register number on the envelope; the handbook asks families to add the housing unit as well, which speeds delivery inside but is not a substitute for the number. And never put money in a letter — funds enclosed in correspondence are returned to the sender.

How do I send money to someone at FCI Marion?

Money for someone at FCI Marion goes to the Bureau’s national lockbox in Iowa or through Western Union or MoneyGram, never to the prison. The Bureau’s facility page says it in capitals: “Do NOT send money to an inmate using this facility’s address.” All three routes need the committed name and the eight-digit register number.

Route	Where it goes	What to know
Postal money order	Federal Bureau of Prisons Committed Name Eight-Digit Register Number Post Office Box 474701 Des Moines, Iowa 50947-0001	Made out to the full committed name and complete register number. U.S. postal money orders post without a hold; the handbook records that all non-postal money orders and non-government checks “will be placed on a 15-day hold”
Western Union Quick Collect	Code city FBOP, DC	Per the Bureau’s money-transfer instructions, two to four hours for 7:00 a.m.–9:00 p.m. Eastern transfers (PS 4500.13 says two); later ones, by 7:00 a.m. the next morning
MoneyGram	Receive code 7932, company name Federal Bureau of Prisons, Washington, DC	Same timing as Western Union

Cash and personal checks are not accepted, and visitors may not hand money to the lobby officer for the account. Our guide to sending money to a federal prisoner weighs each route on speed, fee and hold.

Check a large deposit against the commissary ceiling before you send it. Commissary spending is capped at $460 a month nationally, so money beyond that sits in the account. And if the person is in refuse status under the Inmate Financial Responsibility Program, the handbook records that their limit drops to $25.00 a month, with knock-on effects on housing, work and program requests.

What are the visiting hours at FCI Marion?

Visiting at FCI Marion runs from 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Saturdays, Sundays and federal holidays, at both the institution and the camp. Every federal holiday is a visiting day. There is no weekday visiting for the general population.

That schedule comes from institution supplement MAR-5267.09A, dated March 6, 2020, and it is the only schedule the Bureau publishes for this prison. The Visiting Information panel on the Bureau’s FCI Marion page shows the national overview, a link to the supplement and the rules for media visits, and no hours. A family checking bop.gov for visiting times will find them only in that supplement, which the FCI Marion page links.

The supplement gives two different processing cut-offs. Its body says “No inmate visitors will be processed into the Visiting Room after 1:30 p.m.”; the visitor handout attached to the same document says 2:00 p.m. Arrive by 1:30 p.m. and call the institution before you travel. One other timing point: on days with a 10:00 a.m. count, “inmate processing into the Visiting Room will end at 9:30 a.m.” Visitors are still processed through the count and escorted in, but the man you came to see cannot be brought out until it clears.

Who can visit, and how many

• A maximum of four adult visitors and up to five children per person at any one time; children fifteen and under must be with an approved adult. Everyone, regardless of age, must be on the approved visiting list before the visit. Immediate family identified in the presentence report ordinarily go on; the handbook defines that as “parent, siblings, spouse/significant others, and children.”
• A friend or associate needs a relationship established before the sentence began, an exception from the Warden if not, and an NCIC background check. The form is BP-629, mailed out by the incarcerated person and returned to his counselor; allow three weeks. Lists change monthly.
• If the visiting room becomes crowded, visits are terminated by commuting distance, frequency and arrival time. People in holdover status may visit verified immediate family only, with 48 hours’ notice. Consular visits for a foreign national “may not be withheld even if the inmate is on disciplinary status.”

A note on the points system. The supplement gives each person twelve visiting points a month, charged “one (1) point per weekday visit and two (2) points per weekend day or holiday visit.” Since the published schedule has no weekday general-population visiting, twelve points in practice buys six weekend or holiday visits a month. If you are told the weekday rate applies to you, ask which visiting day is being offered.

What visitors can wear and bring

The dress code runs to seventeen prohibited categories and two are specific to this prison: visitors to the institution may not wear khaki or red, and visitors to the camp may not wear olive drab green. Those are inmate clothing colors on each side, and wearing them will end the trip at the lobby.

The rest of the list is longer than most. Beyond the usual bars on revealing, tight, sleeveless, athletic or above-the-knee clothing, Marion refuses hooded garments, hats and scarves; coats or jackets; camouflage, except serving personnel with a military ID; open-toe or backless shoes; sheer fabric including white tops; anything with rips, tears or holes, “to include factory made”; and, for women, going without a bra. The handout adds white pants, skirts and dresses, and sagging pants are refused at the door.

What you may carry in is a short list: one clear plastic bag, eight inches by ten, holding up to $35 in change or one-dollar bills for the vending machines; three pre-filled baby bottles; five diapers; wipes in a clear container; one baby blanket; and two containers of baby food with a spoon. Strollers, car seats and carriers are not allowed inside, and required medication is left with the visiting room officer. Contact is limited to a brief embrace and kiss at the start and end of the visit. At the institution, the man being visited is issued a red jumpsuit, white t-shirt, boxers, socks and bus shoes, and is visually searched going in and coming out; camp visits are pat searches.

Everyone sixteen and over needs photo identification, and the supplement is narrow about what counts: “a current state driver’s license, military identification card, passport or local, state, or federal identification card. No other identification will be accepted.” Screening at the institution is a walk-through metal detector; if it alarms you get one chance to check yourself again, and any metal goes through the x-ray machine. If it alarms and you say you are carrying nothing, the operations lieutenant is called and you “will not ordinarily be allowed to enter.” A medical implant needs documentation.

You are hand-stamped on the way in; the stamp is checked under black light in the visiting room and again at the first grille on the way out, and “[i]f a visitor leaves the visiting area, they will be denied reentry into the Visiting Room until the next visiting day.” There is no stepping outside, so plan the whole visit around it, especially with a child. The Bureau’s visiting regulations and our guides to federal prison visitation and to searches, shakedowns and contraband cover the rules that apply across the system.

Special Housing, attorney and special visits

Men in administrative detention or holdover status may have social visits on Saturdays and Sundays, for two hours. Men in disciplinary segregation visit through the non-contact rooms; the body of the supplement caps those at two hours and the handout at one, and either way the monthly total is four hours, with the man escorted in ambulatory restraints that “will remain in place for the duration of the social visit.” Before a family travels, the lobby officer checks whether his disciplinary record allows social visits at all. See solitary confinement and Special Housing Units.

Counsel should give at least twenty-four hours’ notice to the unit management staff responsible for the client, so the authorizing memorandum can be prepared. Attorney visits normally happen on the regular visiting days, but the supplement allows them to “be scheduled and conducted at any reasonable time during normal duty hours” — the provision to invoke when a Saturday will not work. One client per visit unless prior approval is recorded, and visits are visually monitored but not listened to. A visit on a non-visiting day is approved by the Associate Warden of Programs.

Getting there

The prison sits about ten miles south of the town of Marion, off Illinois Route 148, at the end of a road named for it. From Interstate 57 take the IL-148 exit, Exit 45; from the north turn right onto North Refuge Road/IL-148, from the south turn left. Either way, then right onto Grassy Road/CR-25 and left onto Prison Road/CR-22. If you are collecting someone on release or delivering a person for a voluntary surrender, the Bureau’s instruction is to stop to the left of the small entrance building, at the red sign and call box.

There is no public transportation to the gate. The nearest Amtrak station is at Carbondale and Greyhound serves the town of Marion; from either, the supplement says, “the only public transportation via taxi.”

How do phone calls and email work at FCI Marion?

Phone calls at FCI Marion go out, never in. The person inside places the call to a number already approved on his list, which holds up to thirty numbers, using a nine-digit personal access code issued by his correctional counselor. He is allowed 510 minutes a calendar month under the Bureau’s telephone regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, issued September 3, 2026: 300 free to anyone eligible for First Step Act telephone incentives, and 210 more that anyone may buy after using up those 300. A single call should generally not exceed 15 minutes, and at least 30 minutes must pass between completed calls. There are telephones in each housing unit. Third-party calls, credit-card calls and 800, 900, 888 and 976 numbers are all blocked; collect calls may be placed to pre-approved numbers.

Two rules in the handbook carry real disciplinary weight. Giving or selling the access code to another man is an offense for everyone involved. So is any form of third-party contact — a three-way call, call forwarding, using two phones to connect two people, “ANY circumstance in which the party called establishes third party telephone contact.” Families set this up without realizing it is a rule, and it costs phone privileges. See federal inmate phone calls.

An unmonitored call with a lawyer is available but not routine: the handbook requires the person to “demonstrate to the Unit Team the need, such as an imminent court deadline,” and to pay for the call; the 510-minute limit does not apply to unmonitored legal calls. Everything placed on the ordinary inmate telephones is monitored and recorded.

Email runs through TRULINCS inside and CorrLinks outside. It is text only and monitored, and email with an attorney is not privileged; privileged written communication has to go by marked special mail. Our page on CorrLinks and TRULINCS explains the invitation step and what the minutes cost. Neither Marion handbook prints local telephone or messaging hours, so ask the unit team.

What can people buy at the FCI Marion commissary?

The commissary spending limit at FCI Marion is $460 a month. The Bureau’s trust fund rules, Program Statement 4500.13, issued May 7, 2026, record the increase “from $360 to $460 per month”; the limit rises by $50 during the November and December holiday period, for no more than one validation period.

Both of Marion’s own documents are behind it, and they disagree with each other as well. The facility’s 2022 commissary list is headed “SPENDING LIMIT ($360.00) PER MONTH.” The 2023 Admission & Orientation handbook says something different again: “The National Spending Limit is 320.00 but may be further restricted at the local level.” The $460 ceiling is the one in force; the handbook’s figure was already out of date when it was printed. Anyone in refuse status under the Inmate Financial Responsibility Program is held to $25.00 a month regardless.

Some things do not count against the limit at all under the 2026 program statement: postage stamps, nicotine replacement patches and lozenges, over-the-counter medication and vitamins, copy cards and paper, footwear including sneakers and safety shoes, mattresses, and secured media devices.

The list itself is a paper form and the rules printed on it are unforgiving: sales once per week, no exchanges, no refunds, no substitutions, and — in capitals — “ANY ALTERATIONS TO THIS LIST WILL VOID YOUR ORDER!” All sales are final. What is stocked, from the 2022 form: a clear digital tablet at $58.60, an 8-inch fan at $30.70, a combination lock at $8.35, and — still — typewriter ribbon at $4.35 and a print wheel at $23.75.

Marion also publishes something almost no other institution does: a separate transgender commissary list (2022), restricted to people “diagnosed by Health Services with Gender Dysphoria,” limited to one of each item, and warning that anyone else found holding those items “will be subject to disciplinary sanctions. These items are considered contraband to all other inmates.” That list exists because of who is held here: the January 2025 PREA audit recorded 58 people identifying as transgender or intersex on the first day of the audit, out of 1,247. For the national rules behind all of this, see our page on the federal prison commissary.

What programs are available at FCI Marion?

FCI Marion is listed for residential and non-residential sex offender treatment, RDAP at the institution, literacy and English as a Second Language classes, occupational education and UNICOR work. Those listings come from the Bureau’s First Step Act Approved Programs Guide (2026) and from Marion’s own handbooks. Approval is not delivery: the guide records what an institution is approved to offer, not whether a class is running or how long the waitlist is.

Sex offender treatment: one of two in the Bureau

The 2026 guide states that the Residential Sex Offender Treatment Program “is available at two institutions,” and names them: FMC Devens in Massachusetts and FCI Marion.

The guide describes it as 500 hours, delivered by Psychology Services in a modified therapeutic community. Participants “ordinarily participate in the program during the remaining 36 to 48 months of their sentence,” and have “a history of multiple sexual offenses, extensive non-sexual criminal histories, and/or a high level of sexual deviancy or hypersexuality.” Entry is voluntary and preceded by risk-assessment screening. The 144-hour non-residential version also runs here, at one of nine institutions named for it, for people with “a history of a single sexual offense” and first-time offenders sentenced for internet-based crimes.

Two consequences follow. If a person with a qualifying conviction is designated to Marion, treatment is very probably the reason, and the timing is tied to the release date rather than the sentence length. And a transfer away can end access to a program that exists in only two places — an argument to make in writing before it happens, not after.

RDAP and drug treatment

The Residential Drug Abuse Program is run at the institution, and not at the camp. The Bureau’s list of RDAP locations, printed inside the 2026 guide, names “FCI Marion (IL)” in the North Central Region; camps that run their own program are listed separately, and Marion’s camp is not among them. That list totals 57 programs at 50 locations across the Bureau.

The handbook sets out the mechanics. Apply by written request to the Drug Abuse Program Coordinator for a diagnostic interview; the program “is a half-day program, with the rest of the day devoted to work, school, and other self-improvement activities.” Finishing it can take up to a year off the sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e) for a person convicted of a non-violent offense, which makes referral timing consequential. Drug Abuse Education and the non-residential program are also offered here.

Education, work and vocational training

The guide’s programs-by-institution table marks FCI Marion for the Bureau Literacy Program, English as a Second Language, all four occupational education categories and Federal Prison Industries. It does not mark it for Post-Secondary Education.

A UNICOR factory certainly operates here: a federal criminal case brought after an Inspector General investigation identified its factory manager by name and recorded that the plant “manufactured wire clothes hangers” under a private contract. That was the position in 2016; what it produces now is not something the Bureau publishes. UNICOR work pays better than any other job on the compound and is ordinarily prioritized for people with large court-ordered financial obligations. The handbooks describe the education department in national terms only, without a Marion-specific course list, so treat any published list of classes here with caution. Our guides to prison education and vocational training explain how the programs work.

Faith-based and reentry programming

The guide’s institution table marks Marion for the Threshold program, Faith-Based Conflict Management, the National Parenting Program, Family Programming for men, Seeking Safety, Social Skills Training, Anger Management and Criminal Thinking, and on the productive-activities side for Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Drug Education, MoneySmart, Celebrate Recovery Inside and Preparing for Success After Prison. Religious Services also administers the religious diet program.

The programs-by-institution table also marks FCI Marion for Life Connections, the Bureau’s residential faith-based program, but the same guide’s narrative page for Life Connections names only five institutions, and Marion is not one of them. Ask the chaplain whether Life Connections is running here.

What is daily life like at FCI Marion?

Daily life at FCI Marion runs on stand-up counts, controlled movement on the hour and a meal order set by each unit’s sanitation rating. The schedule below comes from the 2023 Admission & Orientation handbooks; treat it as the shape of the day, not a timetable.

	Weekdays	Weekends and holidays
Wake-up	6:00 a.m.
Cells inspection-ready	7:30 a.m.	Before leaving the cell
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.
Controlled movement	Begins ten minutes before the hour, ends on the hour; normally one-way
Compound secured	After the evening meal	9:30 a.m., for the 10:00 a.m. count
Pill line, institution	6:00–7:00 a.m.; 11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. pharmacy pick-up; 4:45–5:45 p.m. after the count clears; evening line after the meal
Pill line, camp and Special Housing	Camp 6:00–6:30 a.m. and 2:30–3:15 p.m.; Special Housing 6:15–6:45 a.m. and 4:00–4:45 p.m.
Health Services staffed	6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.; urgent care 24 hours
Call-outs posted	After 4:00 p.m. the day before the appointment

Which unit eats first is not random. “Unit meal rotation is ordinarily based on weekly sanitation ratings of each unit. The unit with the highest sanitation is called first, and the unit with the lowest rating is called last.” Unit officers and counselors inspect cells daily and post individual ratings, and that rule drives a surprising amount of the friction inside a unit.

Health Services sits “between I and G unit on the north corridor” of the institution, and at the camp occupies part of the old dormitory and administration building. The Health Services Administrator holds open house on Thursday and Friday at 7:30 a.m. Sick call is triage, not a written request — the handbook is explicit that “[c]opouts requesting sick-call appointments will not be accepted” — and a commissary identification card is needed to be seen and to collect medication.

Recreation runs art and hobby craft inside the housing units as well as in the recreation area. Replacing a lost identification card costs $5.00, commissary clothing sales are limited to gray and white, and smoking is prohibited throughout.

What do inspectors say about conditions at FCI Marion?

Inspectors have said little about FCI Marion: the Prison Rape Elimination Act audit of January 2025 is the only independent examination of this prison as a prison in the public record. The District of Columbia’s Corrections Information Council, which inspects institutions holding DC residents, has never inspected Marion. The DOJ Office of the Inspector General has not conducted an on-site inspection of this facility.

The 2025 PREA audit

The 2025 PREA audit was conducted by Lynni O’Haver of Corrections Consulting Services, an independent auditor, who visited on January 28–30, 2025, and issued a final report dated March 8, 2025. The audit recorded 45 standards met, none exceeded, none unmet, and no corrective action. It is accredited by the American Correctional Association, and the auditor recorded no current accreditation by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care or by CALEA.

Buildings	66
Housing units	12 at the institution, 1 at the camp
Single-cell housing units	7
Multiple-occupancy cell units	5
Open bay or dormitory units	1 — the camp
Segregation cells	69
Designated capacity	981 institution, 200 camp
Population on day one of the audit	1,247
Staff on day one	283 total; 279 who may have contact with inmates; 9 hired in the previous year
Contractors / volunteers	12 / 68
Age range	20 to 77 at the institution; 24 to 70 at the camp
Forensic medical exams	At a local hospital, not on site

The population characteristics recorded on the first day, out of 1,247 people: 182 with a physical disability; 13 deaf or hard of hearing; 8 with a cognitive or functional disability; 58 identifying as transgender or intersex; 3 limited English proficient; and 29 who disclosed prior sexual victimization during risk screening. No one was in segregated housing because of a risk of victimization or because they had reported abuse.

In the twelve months before the audit the facility recorded thirteen allegations of sexual abuse — eight inmate-on-inmate, five staff-on-inmate — and five allegations of sexual harassment. Every one was handled as an administrative investigation. None was investigated criminally. A passing audit is a finding about compliance with the standards, not a finding that nothing happened.

What the Inspector General has and has not done

Inspector General staff have been inside this prison twice, as stops on Bureau-wide work. Neither visit was an inspection of the institution, and neither report makes a finding about conditions here.

The first was the audit of the Bureau’s monitoring of inmate communications to prevent radicalization, Report 20-042, published in March 2020; auditors interviewed staff at both Communications Management Units, one of which was here. The second was the audit of the Bureau’s chaplaincy services program, Report 21-091, published July 7, 2021, whose appendix lists “USP Marion — High — Marion, IL” among twelve institutions selected for review and which states that “[w]e visited the 12 BOP facilities listed in Appendix 2 prior to February 2020.” Its findings are national: 199 of the Bureau’s 236 chaplains, 84 percent, represented a Protestant Christian faith as of March 2020 against about 34 percent of inmates claiming that preference.

Inspector General investigators have also made criminal cases here. A UNICOR factory manager pleaded guilty in December 2020 and was sentenced in March 2021 to eight months’ imprisonment for concealing outside payments from a government contractor on his ethics forms. A Bureau employee, Renee D. Strauss of Marion, pleaded guilty in March 2016 and was sentenced that August for providing contraband to a man held here and lying to federal investigators. Several Inspector General projects now underway cover every institution rather than any one of them — evaluations of lockdowns and of medical intake, and audits of inmate email controls and of the Bureau’s response to drones. None names Marion, and none has reported.

What the litigation record shows

With almost no inspection record, the federal docket for the Southern District of Illinois is the best available picture of conditions here, and two themes run through it: medical care and the grievance process. For scale, the audit counted 279 staff who may have contact with the men held here, against 1,247 on the same day.

• The administrative remedy process was found unavailable to one prisoner. In Epps v. Sproul, No. 3:22-cv-00514, the court held an evidentiary hearing and, on July 23, 2025, found that the plaintiff “made reasonable efforts to exhaust, but the grievance process was rendered unavailable,” sending his Eighth Amendment medical claims to merits discovery. The record included five grievances all rejected for procedural defects, and his account — denied by the Bureau — that remedy procedures were never explained at admission and orientation, that staff refused to provide forms, and that he was harassed after filing. That is a finding about this plaintiff’s access, not a ruling about the institution, but it is the kind of finding a court rarely makes.
• Eye care appears twice. The Epps claims concern vision loss after he ingested an unknown substance in December 2021. Separately, in Cook v. United States, No. 3:24-cv-01152, a Federal Tort Claims Act claim was allowed past screening in May 2024 alleging that untreated eye pressure, an infection, a detached retina and a macular hole led to blindness in one eye. Screening is not a finding on the merits.
• Exhaustion decides more cases here than the merits do. In Thompson v. United States, No. 3:22-cv-01062, the United States won summary judgment in February 2025 on a back-pain claim because the plaintiff had not finished the administrative process before filing. The sequence to complete, set out in Palmer v. Sproul: informal resolution, a BP-9 to the warden within 20 days, a BP-10 to the regional director within 20 days of the response, and a BP-11 to the General Counsel within 30 days of that.
• Sentence computation, discipline and First Step Act credits are a steady stream. Fletcher v. Sproul, decided in September 2025, turned on whether a disqualifying failure-to-register conviction still counted once the underlying term had been served, where the Bureau had aggregated three sentences under 18 U.S.C. § 3584(c). Davis v. Sproul, from October 2024, challenged the loss of 41 days of good conduct time for a prescription-strength lidocaine patch charged as a greatest-severity drug offense, where another man charged with the same conduct was reheard on a lesser code. And in Mays v. Warden, FCI Marion, decided June 11, 2026, a man transferred here from FCI Pekin found his legal materials had not come with him; his habeas petition was dismissed as the wrong vehicle for what the court called “a potential First Amendment violation.”

FCI Marion in the news

Recent news about FCI Marion centers on the July 2026 sentencing of a man held here and a death the Bureau reported that month, 2025 court findings on mail delays and the grievance process, and the closure of the Communications Management Unit; older items concern the 2024 rename, Viktor Bout’s 2022 release and two deaths in 2020.

• July 2026 — a man held here, identified by the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois as Christopher L. Collins, was sentenced to 224 months consecutive for producing and possessing hand-drawn obscene images of children, found by an officer in March 2025.
• July 2026 — in a release titled Death at FCI Marion, the Bureau reported that Matthew Hourany, 37, was “found unresponsive” at the institution on July 5, 2026, and, after life-saving measures, was “subsequently pronounced deceased by EMS personnel.”
• July 2025 — a federal judge recorded “an extreme delay” by the Postal Service in delivering court papers to this prison’s post office box; in the same month, after an evidentiary hearing, another judge found the Bureau’s grievance process had been rendered unavailable to a man held here.
• 2025 — the Communications Management Unit closed. The only public record is a court order of September 9, 2025, noting the government’s representation that FCI Cumberland is now the Bureau’s only prison with one.
• April 2024 — the Bureau renamed USP Marion as FCI Marion, one of seven facilities renamed in a single action. In March 2021 a former UNICOR factory manager here had been sentenced to eight months after an Inspector General investigation.
• December 2022 — Viktor Bout, the arms dealer sentenced in 2012 to 25 years, left federal custody; Bureau records show FCI Marion as his facility and December 12, 2022, as his release date.
• August 2020 — the Bureau posted two news releases reporting the deaths of people held at USP Marion; the Bureau’s releases are listed on its press release page.

Frequently asked questions about FCI Marion

Problems at FCI Marion: where we can help

The problems that recur at this prison are visible in its own record — in the 2025 audit, in the federal docket, and in the gap between what the Bureau publishes about Marion and what is true of it:

• Access to sex offender treatment, and transfers that end it. The residential program runs at two institutions in the entire Bureau, and this is one; placement, program entry and any proposed transfer away from Marion deserve to be argued in writing before they happen. RDAP is the same problem in miniature — it runs at the institution and not at the camp, so where a person is designated decides whether it is available at all. See federal prison transfers.
• Medical care that is not happening. Vision loss has been the subject of two separate cases out of this prison. The route is a written request to staff and then the administrative remedy process, every rung of which has a deadline. See medical care in federal prison, and, if harm has already been done, Federal Tort Claims Act claims.
• The grievance process itself. A federal court held an evidentiary hearing in 2025 and found it had been rendered unavailable to a man held here. If forms are refused, if responses never come, or if the reply arrives after the deadline to appeal it, that has to be documented as it happens — it is the difference between a case that is heard and one dismissed unexhausted.
• Disciplinary proceedings and good conduct time. The docket here includes a 41-day loss for a prescription-strength lidocaine patch charged at the greatest severity level, where another man charged with the same conduct was reheard on a lesser code. Inconsistent charging is an argument, and it has to be made on the record.
• First Step Act time credits and sentence computation. Aggregation of multiple sentences under 18 U.S.C. § 3584(c) has been litigated out of this prison, and it is the mechanism that most often produces an unexpected ineligibility.
• Property and legal materials lost on transfer, and deadlines that depend on the mail. Men arriving at Marion have had legal files left behind at the sending institution, and a federal judge has recorded weeks-long postal delays to this prison’s post office box. Both have to be raised in the right forum and built into a filing schedule, not discovered after the fact.
• Halfway house and home confinement placement under the Bureau’s placement procedures, through the release district’s reentry office (for Illinois, RRM St. Louis or RRM Chicago, by district), and compassionate release under the Bureau’s reduction-in-sentence rules where the medical record supports it. 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 Marion, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. The Bureau’s facility page, with address, contact details, judicial district, county and the inmate and staff mailing addresses.
• USP Marion Admission & Orientation Handbook, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2023. Housing, counts, health services, mail, telephone, commissary and programs at the institution, including the Communications Management Unit passages.
• SCP Marion Inmate Admission & Orientation Handbook, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2023. The satellite camp’s handbook.
• U.S.P. Marion Commissary List for General Population and Commissary List for Transgender, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2022.
• Institution Supplement MAR-5267.09A, Visiting Regulations, Federal Bureau of Prisons, USP Marion, 2020. Visiting schedule, dress, screening, points, Special Housing Unit and attorney visits, Communications Management Unit visiting and directions.
• Naming Bureau Property, Program Statement 1001.14, Federal Bureau of Prisons. Cited in the Bureau’s 2024 name-change news item.
• Trust Fund/Deposit Fund Manual, Program Statement 4500.13, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. The $460 spending limit, the holiday increase and the exclusions.
• Inmate Security Designation and Custody Classification, Program Statement 5100.08, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2006, as amended in 2026. The referral and custody provisions that still name USP Marion.
• Communications Management Units, Program Statement 5214.05, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Designation authority for the units.
• 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. Sex offender treatment, the RDAP locations list and the programs-by-institution table.
• Community Ties: Sending Money, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Deposit routes and wire posting times.
• RRM St. Louis, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. The judicial districts the office serves.
• RRM Chicago, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. The judicial districts the office serves.
• Death at FCI Marion, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. News release on the death of Matthew Hourany.
• Name Changes Approved for Seven FBOP Facilities, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2024.
• Press Releases, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2020. Includes the two August 2020 releases reporting deaths at USP Marion.

Audits and inspections

• PREA Audit Report: FCI Marion, Corrections Consulting Services, LLC, 2025. On-site audit of January 28–30, 2025, by Lynni O’Haver, an independent auditor subcontracted by Corrections Consulting Services, LLC; physical plant, capacity, staffing, population characteristics and allegation data.
• 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; lists USP Marion among twelve institutions visited before February 2020.
• Audit of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Monitoring of Inmate Communications to Prevent Radicalization, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2020. Report 20-042; the Communications Management Units planned and established.

Court records

• FCI-Marion Inmate Known as “Beetlejuice” Sentenced to Additional Prison Time for Producing Hand-Drawn Child Sexual Abuse Material, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Illinois, 2026. The sentence imposed on Christopher L. Collins and the March 2025 discovery at the prison.
• Mays v. Warden, FCI Marion, No. 3:26-cv-00728 (S.D. Ill.), U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, 2026. Decision of June 11, 2026, on legal materials left behind on transfer.
• Fletcher v. Sproul, No. 3:25-cv-00560 (S.D. Ill.), U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, 2025. Decision of September 19, 2025, on aggregated sentences and First Step Act eligibility.
• Duka v. Rule, No. 2:25-cv-00224-JPH-MG (S.D. Ind.), U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, 2025. Screening order of September 9, 2025: the closure of the Marion and Terre Haute units and the government’s representation that FCI Cumberland is the only Bureau prison with such a unit.
• Epps v. Sproul, No. 3:22-cv-00514 (S.D. Ill.), U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, 2025. Decisions of March 26 and July 23, 2025; the administrative remedy process found unavailable to the plaintiff after an evidentiary hearing.
• Kourani v. United States, No. 3:23-cv-03501 (S.D. Ill.), U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, 2025. Decisions of January 31 and July 2, 2025: the reclassification footnote and postal delays to the institution’s post office box.
• Palmer v. Sproul, No. 3:25-cv-00118 (S.D. Ill.), U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, 2025. Decisions of January 30 and April 15, 2025.
• Thompson v. United States, No. 3:22-cv-01062 (S.D. Ill.), U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, 2025. Decision of February 4, 2025.
• Davis v. Sproul, No. 3:24-cv-02176 (S.D. Ill.), U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, 2024. Decision of October 17, 2024.
• Cook v. United States, No. 3:24-cv-01152 (S.D. Ill.), U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, 2024. Decision of May 22, 2024.
• Hale v. Collis, No. 3:23-cv-01296 (S.D. Ill.), U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, 2026. Docket, including the April 19, 2024 decision on First Amendment claims arising in the FCI Marion Communications Management Unit and the August 14, 2026 judgment.
• Michigan Man Sentenced to Life for Stalking, Sexually Assaulting 14-Year-Old Lubbock Girl, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Texas, 2022. The life sentence imposed on Thomas John Boukamp.
• Hizballah Operative Sentenced to 40 Years in Prison for Covert Terrorist Activities on Behalf of Hizballah’s Islamic Jihad Organization, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York, 2019. The sentence imposed on Ali Kourani.
• International Arms Dealer Viktor Bout Sentenced in Manhattan Federal Court to 25 Years in Prison, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York, 2012.
• United States v. Hale, 448 F.3d 971 (7th Cir. 2006), U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, 2006.
• Bruscino v. Carlson, 854 F.2d 162 (7th Cir. 1988), U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, 1988. Conditions under the post-1983 lockdown.

News and other sources

• U.S. Department of Justice Report and Recommendations Concerning the Use of Restrictive Housing, U.S. Department of Justice, 2016. The October 1983 killings and the twenty-three-year lockdown.
• Communications Management Units, 80 Fed. Reg. 3168, Federal Bureau of Prisons (Federal Register), 2015. The final rule behind 28 C.F.R. §§ 540.200–540.205; it records the March 2008 opening of the Marion unit.
• 18 U.S.C. § 3584(c), Multiple sentences of imprisonment, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e), Imprisonment of a convicted person, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 28 C.F.R. § 540.201, Designation criteria, Code of Federal Regulations (Legal Information Institute).

Sources reviewed September 2026.

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