FCI Oakdale I: Visiting, Mail, Commissary and Programs

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

FCI Oakdale I at a glance

FCI Oakdale I is a low-security federal prison for men at 1507 East Whatley Road in Oakdale, Louisiana, holding 1,164 people as of September 2026. It has no camp. The Bureau’s designation manual names “FCI Oakdale” as an institution with a special mission: federally sentenced non-citizens are gathered there so that Immigration and Customs Enforcement can dispose of their detainers before the federal sentence runs out.

Official name	Federal Correctional Institution, Oakdale I
BOP code	OAK · complex OAX
Security level	Low; men
Population	1,164 (as of September 2026)
Visiting	Saturday, Sunday and federal holidays, 8:15 a.m.–3:00 p.m. · last entry 2:00 p.m.
Inmate mail	Inmate Name & Register Number · FCI Oakdale I · Federal Correctional Institution · P.O. Box 5000 · Oakdale, LA 71463
Send money	Lockbox · Western Union (code city FBOP, DC) · MoneyGram (receive code 7932)
Phone	318-335-4070 · Fax 318-215-2688
Street address	1507 East Whatley Road, Oakdale, LA 71463 · Allen Parish
Judicial district	Western District of Louisiana
BOP region	South Central
Housing	Six units: three of six-man cubicles, three of two-man cells
Medical care level	Level 2
Mental health care level	Level 2
RDAP	No
UNICOR	Yes
Camp	No · the complex’s satellite camp belongs to FCI Oakdale II

FCI Oakdale I is the first institution on the left inside FCC Oakdale, in Allen Parish about 35 miles south of Alexandria, and it answers to the Bureau’s South Central Region. It is one of the federal prisons in Louisiana, a quarter of a mile from FCI Oakdale II, which holds the complex’s satellite camp; the two prisons together held 2,237 people as of September 2026.

Which Oakdale prison is this, and where is the camp?

This page covers FCI Oakdale I, at 1507 East Whatley Road; the satellite camp belongs to FCI Oakdale II, a quarter of a mile down the same road. The two prisons are not interchangeable. Getting the wrong one costs a letter, a deposit or a wasted drive, so settle it first.

Institution	Code	Street	Inmate mail	Telephone
FCI Oakdale I — this page	OAK	1507 East Whatley Road	P.O. Box 5000	318-335-4070
FCI Oakdale II, which has the camp	OAD	2105 East Whatley Road	P.O. Box 5010	318-335-4466

The post office boxes differ by one digit and nothing is walked across the campus for you. The satellite camp is not at this address: the roster records no camp for Oakdale I, and the 62 men counted at the camp as of September 2026 are on the other institution’s books, so a camp address given for FCI Oakdale I does not exist. Both prisons publish the same public email address, OAK-ExecAssistant-S@bop.gov, which carries this institution’s code. The two are confused so often because the second was something else first, and that history is on our page for FCI Oakdale II; Oakdale I has been the FCI throughout, so the 2014 supplement’s rules for “the FCI” are rules about this institution.

The White House’s statement on the Cuban inmate riots in Georgia and Louisiana (1987) records in its editorial note that Cuban prisoners at Oakdale rioted on November 21 over a decision to deport 2,000 people who had come from Mariel, and that thirty hostages were seized. No federal document supports the claims that the prison burned to the ground, that it opened in 1986 or that it reopened in 1989, and the people who rose in 1987 were immigration detainees in the Bureau’s detention mission at Oakdale, not the sentenced population this page is about.

What is the security level at FCI Oakdale I?

FCI Oakdale I is a low-security prison for men, and unusually for a low-security institution it has no camp of its own. The only published description of its housing is in an Inspector General report from 2020: “Oakdale’s FCI I has six housing units: half are six-man cubicles, and half are two-man cells.”

Three units of cubicles and three of cells inside one low is an odd split, and which side of it a man lands on is a unit-team decision rather than anything in the judgment. Designation is arithmetic before it is geography: the Bureau’s security designation rules score the offense and the person’s history, then layer Public Safety Factors and Management Variables on top. See low-security federal prisons and the designation process. At Oakdale one further rule sits above the arithmetic.

The Bureau’s 2024 care-level charts give the Oakdale complex medical Care Level 2, as Inspector General Report 08-08 did for this FCI in February 2008, and give FCI Oakdale I mental health Care Level 2. Our page on the Bureau’s medical designations and care levels explains what those levels mean.

Why does the Bureau send non-citizens to Oakdale?

The Bureau sends non-citizens to Oakdale because its own designation manual instructs it to, by name. Program Statement 5100.08, Inmate Security Designation and Custody Classification, reserves section 21 for “Institutions With Special Missions.” Subsection (a) is FCI Oakdale. Subsection (b) is USP Marion and ADX Florence. There is no subsection (c) — in the Bureau’s own taxonomy this prison and the supermax make a list of two.

The manual states the mission this way: the Bureau, ICE and the Executive Office for Immigration Review “work closely together to meet the requirements of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, by ensuring the expeditious review of criminal aliens for deportation,” and “such inmates are transferred to FCI Oakdale for disposition of their ICE detainer prior to completion of their federal sentence.” Two rules in that section change what a family should expect.

• Mexican and Cuban nationals are not eligible for what the manual calls the Oakdale Criminal Alien Program. The exclusion is written into the policy rather than applied case by case.
• “Inmates will be redesignated no later than seven months from a firm projected release date.” A transfer here comes at the end of a sentence, not the start, so a sudden move to Louisiana late in a sentence is usually this rule operating rather than a punishment. Every other detainer must be resolved first, and the sending institution must report if the man is not on the road within 15 working days.

One caveat applies. The program statement says “FCI Oakdale” with no numeral, because it predates the split into two FCIs, and the live roster flags the Institution Hearing Program at the sibling institution rather than this one. If where a removal hearing will be held matters, ask the unit team in writing.

The effect shows in the numbers. The January 2024 audit counted 702 people of limited English proficiency out of 1,982 — more than a third of the complex. The handbook then sets a trap for that population: a man under a final order of deportation, exclusion or removal is exempt from the mandatory literacy program, but anyone exempt on that ground “must enroll in GED or ESL in order to receive their good conduct time.” Exemption from the class is not exemption from the condition.

Who are the notable inmates at FCI Oakdale I?

One notable inmate is held at FCI Oakdale I, and he is the reason lawyers know this address. Dr. Xiulu Ruan, register number 66857-019, is listed at FCI Oakdale I by the Bureau’s inmate locator, with a projected release date of January 14, 2034. Every other name on the lists that circulate for “FCI Oakdale” has either left or was never here.

Ruan is the petitioner in Ruan v. United States, 597 U.S. 450 (2022), in which the Supreme Court held on June 27, 2022 that the “knowingly or intentionally” requirement in 21 U.S.C. § 841 reaches the statute’s “except as authorized” clause: once a defendant produces evidence that he was authorized to dispense controlled substances, the Government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he knew he was acting in an unauthorized manner or intended to do so. On remand the Eleventh Circuit vacated the substantive § 841 convictions for new trials, affirmed the conspiracy, fraud, kickback and money-laundering convictions and vacated the sentences: United States v. Ruan, 56 F.4th 1291 (11th Cir. 2023). No verified record shows what the district court did after that.

Name and register number	Bureau record
Xiulu Ruan, 66857-019	In custody here. Projected release January 14, 2034
Joaquin Mario Valencia-Trujillo, 02440-748	In custody at FCI Oakdale II, code OAD. Projected release April 12, 2036
Kai Lundstro Pedersen, 76335-053	In custody at FCI Oakdale II, code OAD. Projected release March 27, 2036
Kwame M. Kilpatrick, 44678-039	Was here. Released January 20, 2021
Yevgeniy Nikulin, 24827-111	Was here. Released February 24, 2023
Max Ray Butler, 09954-011	Released April 14, 2021 from the Bureau’s Seattle reentry management office, code CSE, which is not a prison
Bernard J. Ebbers, 56022-054	Released December 21, 2019 from FMC Fort Worth, code FTW — never recorded at Oakdale

Two of those men are at the sibling prison, two left this one years ago, and two left from somewhere else. Only the register number identifies a prisoner.

How do I find someone at FCI Oakdale I?

Use the Bureau’s free Inmate Locator, and search on the eight-digit register number if you have it. It covers everyone in federal custody since 1982, including people already released, and it returns the number every other step on this page depends on; our guide explains how federal register numbers work.

Two warnings apply at this address. The locator names the prison rather than giving a code, and the two names on this campus differ by one numeral: a man here appears as “Oakdale I FCI” and a man across the campus as “Oakdale II FCI.” In the Bureau’s data the two are OAK and OAD, and the complex code, OAX, carries no population of its own. And if the search finds nothing, the person is usually still held by the U.S. Marshals Service before sentencing. See our page on the federal inmate locator.

How do I write to someone at FCI Oakdale I?

Write to a post office box, never to East Whatley Road, with the committed name and the eight-digit register number on the first line. These are the blocks the Bureau publishes on this institution’s own page. Mail runs Monday to Friday and is handed out in each unit by the evening watch officer; because this is a low-security institution, outgoing mail “may be sealed by the inmate and is sent out unopened and uninspected.” Our page on the Bureau’s correspondence rules and our guide to writing to someone in federal prison cover the national rules.

What you are sending	Address it exactly like this
Letters and USPS parcels	INMATE NAME & REGISTER NUMBER FCI OAKDALE I FEDERAL CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION P.O. BOX 5000 OAKDALE, LA 71463
Freight and non-USPS parcels	STAFF NAME FCI OAKDALE I FEDERAL CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION ATTN: WAREHOUSE 1507 EAST WHATLEY ROAD OAKDALE, LA 71463
Mail to a staff member	STAFF NAME FCI OAKDALE I FEDERAL CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION P.O. BOX 5050 OAKDALE, LA 71463

Legal mail is where counsel gets caught out. Incoming special mail is opened only in the addressee’s presence, and not read, provided the sender is adequately identified and the envelope is marked on its face “Special Mail — Open only in the presence of the inmate”; without that marking the institution may treat it as ordinary correspondence and read it. Going the other way there is a local rule that appears in no national policy: outgoing special mail “must be delivered to the Receiving and Discharge (R&D) Department Monday through Friday during the morning meal,” with a commissary card shown to R&D staff, and anything of 16 ounces or more needs a Form BP-329 through the unit team. A client trying to post a filing on a Saturday afternoon has missed the only window there is. See attorney-client communication in the Bureau of Prisons and the Bureau’s legal activities rules.

How do I send money to someone at FCI Oakdale I?

Send money through the Bureau’s national lockbox in Iowa or one of two wire services, never to the prison; the Bureau says so on this institution’s own page: “Do NOT send money to an inmate using this facility’s address.” Every route needs the committed name and the complete eight-digit register number. Our guide to sending money to a federal prisoner compares the routes.

Route	What to send, and where	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, with the sender’s name and return address in the top left corner	Non-postal money orders and non-government checks carry an automatic 15-day hold, in force since 2007. Personal checks and cash are refused
Western Union Quick Collect	Register number with no spaces or dashes run straight into the last name; committed full name on the Attention line; code city FBOP, DC. Agents 1-800-325-6000, by phone 1-800-634-3422 option 2, or westernunion.com	Two to four hours if sent between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. Eastern, any day of the year; otherwise by 7:00 a.m. Eastern next morning
MoneyGram Express Payment	Company name Federal Bureau of Prisons, Washington DC, receive code 7932, committed full name on the Beneficiary line; up to $300 online	The same posting windows as Western Union

Two traps come from the handbook rather than national policy. The deposit envelope “must not contain any items intended for delivery to the inmate” — a note tucked in with the money order is destroyed — and if a mailed money order never arrives the Bureau does not chase it. Going out, “only an Associate Warden can approve inmate withdrawals exceeding $500.00,” and a man in refuse status under the Inmate Financial Responsibility Program is capped at $25 a month whatever the account holds.

What are the visiting hours at FCI Oakdale I?

Visiting at FCI Oakdale I runs on Saturdays, Sundays and federal holidays, 8:15 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Central time, with no exception on any weekend of the month. Processing of visitors stops an hour before the end, so anyone arriving after 2:00 p.m. will not get in, and no visitor may be on the grounds, including the parking lot, before 8:00 a.m.

That schedule comes from the FCC Oakdale Admission & Orientation Handbook (2026), the only current published statement of it. It matters, because the sibling prison takes the last Saturday of the month out of its general-population schedule and this one does not. Call 318-335-4070 the week you travel to confirm that visiting has not been suspended. Our page on the Bureau’s visiting regulations covers the national rules.

Who can visit, and how many

Immediate family — mother, father, sister, brother, spouse and children — plus up to ten friends or associates on the approved list, with no more than five people in the room at once unless the Operations Lieutenant allows more. Getting on the list is the prisoner’s job: names go to the unit counselor, who runs a National Crime Information Center check and mails out form BP-629, and only the Warden may refuse immediate family. Children under 16 must come with a parent or guardian on the list, or with another approved adult carrying the parent’s written permission.

The complex visiting supplement (2014) puts a monthly ration on visits: “Each FCI inmate will be allotted six (6) points on the first of each month. One point will be deducted each time an inmate has a visit. Federal holidays will not be deducted from the inmate visiting points. Inmate visiting points will not be allowed to carry over from month to month.” Six visits a month, holidays free, nothing carried forward. The same paragraph exempts the detention center and the camp but not the FCI — and in 2014, when the supplement was signed, the FCI was this institution. A family driving a long way should plan the month rather than the weekend.

When the room fills, the supplement sets the order in which visits end, and it is not the order most people expect: volunteers first, then people who have had the most visits, then “visits from the local area, within a 100 mile radius,” and only as a last resort first in, first out. Distance traveled is a protection here, so tell the front desk how far you came. Men in segregation visit through the video system, and the supplement states flatly that “outside visiting will not be permitted at the FCI.” Consular visits are arranged through the Executive Assistant and are not withheld even when visiting has been suspended as a disciplinary sanction. See our guide to federal prison visitation.

What visitors can wear and bring

Dress as you would for a business appointment, and leave your watch in the car — the handbook prints that rule on a line of its own between asterisks: “Watches are not permitted inside the Visiting Room.” It also bars sleeveless, see-through and low-cut tops; shorts; open-toe, open-back and slip-on shoes, because “all shoes require some type of strap”; anything exposing the midriff; tan or fatigue colors, which resemble what the men inside wear; hems above the knee; spandex; hats, hoods, scarves and wigs unless medically documented or religious; and sweat suits. The 2014 supplement set the hem at mid-thigh and the handbook sets it at the knee, so dress to the knee. Handbags, food and gum stay in the vehicle; you may carry in one small clear change purse with no more than $30 in coins for the vending machines and no paper money, and once a visitor steps out of the room the day’s visit is over.

Identification and screening

Bring government photo identification carrying your signature; visitors who arrive without it are not admitted. Screening then goes further than the national rules require. Every visitor except a federal law-enforcement officer is hand-stamped in ultraviolet ink with “the authorized stamp of the day”; the stamps are rotated at random and “the same stamp will not be utilized two consecutive visiting days.” The escorting officer checks each hand under a black light entering and leaving the front sallyport and entering and leaving the visiting room itself, and if the stamp does not show, the visitor is stopped. Wash your hands thoroughly during a visit and you will spend the end of it explaining yourself. Everyone also passes a metal detector, and the handbook adds “positive ION testing” to the grounds on which the front lobby may refuse entry — an ion-scanner reading alone can turn a visitor away, and residue from handling money or medication is enough to set one off. Every prisoner here is strip-searched at the end of a visit. See searches, shakedowns and contraband.

Getting there

The complex sits on the north side of Oakdale, about a mile east of U.S. Highway 165 on Whatley Road; FCI Oakdale I is the first institution on the left, and Alexandria, 35 miles north, has the nearest commercial airport. There is no public transport to the gate and no payphone in the front lobby, which is why the supplement has the front entry officer telephone a taxi for a departing visitor.

How do phone calls and email work at FCI Oakdale I?

Calls from FCI Oakdale I go out and never in, the monthly allowance is 510 minutes, and a single call should generally not exceed 15 minutes. The handbook this complex publishes still prints 300 minutes, and that figure is out of date.

That is the one place where the local document is flatly out of date, and it matters to anyone budgeting a month of calls. The complex’s 2026 handbook says inmates “are limited to 300 minutes per month” with “an extra 100 minutes per month in November and December.” The Bureau’s telephone regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, issued September 3, 2026, set 510 minutes per calendar month: 300 free to people eligible for First Step Act telephone incentives, and 210 more that anyone, eligible or not, may buy after using up the 300. The November and December supplement did not survive the 2008 regulations it belonged to. The program statement controls. See our guide to federal inmate phone calls.

The local arrangements decide whether a call ever connects. Each man has a nine-digit access code and a registered voiceprint, and numbers are added through TRULINCS. Handsets are live from 6:00 a.m. until no later than 10:00 p.m., but the handbook shuts them off on weekdays other than holidays between 7:30 and 10:30 in the morning, and again from 12:30 p.m. until the 4:00 p.m. count has cleared. That leaves early morning, the middle of the day and the evening; expect weekday calls in those windows, not in mid-afternoon.

Electronic mail runs on TRULINCS and reaches families through CorrLinks; nothing passes until the contact accepts the invitation, and our page on CorrLinks and TRULINCS covers the system’s limits. One feature deserves to be understood before anyone relies on it. Under Request to Staff there is a mailbox called DOJ Sexual Abuse Reporting, and the handbook describes exactly what it does: messages to it “are untraceable at the local institution,” “are forwarded directly to OIG,” “will not be saved in your e-mail ‘Sent’ list” and “do not allow for a reply from OIG.” It is read only during Inspector General business hours, and the handbook states that “it is not a 24-hour hotline.” A man in danger over a weekend needs a different route; our page on the Bureau’s sexual abuse prevention rules sets out the others.

What can people buy at the FCI Oakdale I commissary?

Someone at FCI Oakdale I can spend up to $460 a month at the commissary, although the order form the Bureau still publishes for this complex says $360. Both numbers are on bop.gov today. The $460 is the current one.

The Bureau’s trust fund rules, Program Statement 4500.13, issued May 7, 2026, raised the national monthly limit from $360 to $460, and the complex’s 2026 handbook matches it: “The National Spending Limit is $460.00 but may be further restricted at the local level.” The shopping list linked from this institution’s page is footed “Revised 10/2016” and prints “SPENDING LIMIT = $360.00 PER MONTH” over the signature of a complex warden who left years ago; listings that give $360 are out of date. Postage does not count against the limit, but stamps are separately capped at $9.40 a visit, exactly one book.

The form’s rules are enforced at the window. All sales are final; quantities must be written into the space provided, because “commissary lists with circled or highlighted items will not be accepted”; and copier cards “are for local use only at FCI Oakdale,” so a card bought here is worth nothing after a transfer. Category caps run through the sheet: eight each of crackers, chips, candy bars and bag candy, twelve of dried fruit and nuts, fourteen instant drinks, two sodas and one pair of shoes.

Two details on that sheet say more about this prison than any price. Typewriter ribbon at $9.80 and a six-pack of correction tape at $10.85 are still stocked thirty years into the electronic law library. And the food side is built for the population the designation manual sends: flour tortillas capped at four, Sazon Goya con cilantro, halal beef sausage and a kosher-and-halal mark running the length of the list, alongside a hooded rain poncho and insect repellent. Our page on the federal prison commissary covers the national rules.

What programs are available at FCI Oakdale I?

FCI Oakdale I has 53 programs marked in the by-institution grid of the Bureau’s First Step Act Approved Programs Guide (2026), and the guide names this institution explicitly for exactly one of them, Federal Prison Industries. It does not list Oakdale for RDAP. In the guide’s narrative half the location cell for 87 of the 88 programs reaching this institution says only that the program may be offered at all Bureau institutions — permission, naming no institution — so for the rest the grid is the only per-institution record there is, and a mark in a grid is not a promise that a class is running this quarter.

Comparing the two prisons in that grid is the only published basis for comparing them. Fifty-three programs are marked here against forty-four next door, and ten are marked at this institution and not at the other: apprenticeship training, Alcoholics Anonymous, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, illness management and recovery, START NOW, Franklin Covey’s 7 Habits on the Inside, A Healthier Me, Service Fit, Soldier On, and Opioid Use Disorder: Release and Recovery. Exactly one runs the other way — the Aleph correspondence course is marked next door and not here. A man who needs one of those ten is better placed at this institution, and a unit team can be asked in writing to weigh it. See the Bureau’s rules on First Step Act time credits.

Drug treatment, and the RDAP that is not here

There is no Residential Drug Abuse Program at FCI Oakdale I, none at the sibling institution, and none anywhere in Louisiana. Two Bureau documents say so independently. The complex handbook says it in a single sentence, in the middle of a page and a half explaining how to apply: “The RDAP is available in 76 Bureau institutions. The RDAP is not available here at FCC Oakdale.” And the RDAP location list carried inside the August 2026 First Step Act guide, headed “57 RDAPS at 50 Locations,” gives ten South Central sites — FCI Bastrop, FPC Bryan, FMC Carswell, FCI El Reno, both Forrest City institutions, FMC Fort Worth, FCI La Tuna, FCI Seagoville and SCP Texarkana. Every one is in Texas, Oklahoma or Arkansas.

For anyone whose sentence turns on the year available under 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e) that absence is decisive, and it is a designation problem rather than a programming one: completing the program means being moved to an institution that runs it, and the complex handbook says the interview ordinarily comes 42 to 24 months before release. The handbook’s own figure of 76 institutions is out of date. What does run here is the Drug Abuse Education course and the 24-hour non-residential program. See our guide to RDAP and early release.

Education, ESL and vocational training

Literacy is compulsory, and English as a second language is compulsory more often here than almost anywhere in the system. Anyone without a high school credential enrolls for at least 240 instructional hours, and the Crime Control Act of 1990 requires non-English-speaking federal prisoners to take ESL. The handbook is blunt about the reach of that: anyone testing below an eighth-grade level must enroll until he reaches it, and “if indicated by test scores, participation in ESL will be required regardless of education degree status.” A college degree is no answer to a test score, and with 702 men of limited English proficiency counted in January 2024 this is the education department’s main work. It is tied to release dates: an incident report connected to literacy enrollment converts the assignment to unsatisfactory progress, and good conduct time stops vesting until another 240 hours are completed. Beyond literacy the guide marks apprenticeship training at 500 hours, vocational training at 125, occupational education and certification course training. See prison education and vocational training.

Work, UNICOR and the financial responsibility program

Federal Prison Industries is the one program the guide names this institution for in both halves of the document. Everyone medically cleared holds a job, and the factory usually has a waiting list; who reaches the front of it is not random, because “most institutions give priority for employment in UNICOR to inmates with large court ordered financial obligations.” A man with a substantial restitution order is better placed for factory work than a man without one, a point to raise before a sentencing court fixes a payment schedule. Refusing the Inmate Financial Responsibility Program costs the factory job, performance pay above maintenance level, the commissary above $25 a month, consideration for furloughs, and the responsibility score on every progress report. See UNICOR.

What is daily life like at FCI Oakdale I?

Daily life at FCI Oakdale I is built around five counts a day, a khaki uniform between 7:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m., and ten-minute movement windows that open before the hour and close on it. The shape below comes from the FCC Oakdale handbook (2026).

Time	What happens
12:00, 3:00 and 5:00 a.m.	Official counts. Staff are required to see living, breathing flesh, so a man fully covered and asleep is woken
6:00 to 7:00 a.m., weekdays	Breakfast. Controlled medications go out at pill line during the morning meal
Before 7:00 a.m., Wednesdays	Two sheets into the laundry loop and into the unit cart. Blankets go on the last Wednesday of the month
7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., weekdays	Khaki shirt and pants, shirt tucked. Work and program assignments. Telephones blocked 7:30 to 10:30 a.m.
11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., weekdays	Lunch, and noon mainline — the one chance to speak to health services staff without filing anything
12:30 p.m. to the 4:00 p.m. count	Telephones blocked again
4:00 p.m.	Stand-up count: in your assigned cell, standing, facing the door. Dinner follows once it clears
After 4:00 p.m.	The next day’s call-outs go up on the unit boards. Reading them is the prisoner’s responsibility and missing one is a disciplinary matter
10:00 p.m.	Stand-up count, and the telephones go off no later than this
Weekends and holidays	Breakfast 7:00 to 8:00 a.m.; the compound is secured at 9:30 a.m. for a 10:00 a.m. count

Health services

Sick call runs Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, and the handbook says in terms that “there is no sick call on weekends, federally observed holidays, or Wednesday.” Wednesday is dental: “All dental appointments will be seen on Wednesdays from 12:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.” Listings that put sick call on Wednesday and not on Thursday are out of date. Otherwise the route is noon mainline, or an urgent message through any staff member, and a $2.00 co-payment applies to each requested appointment unless the man is recorded as indigent. See medical care in federal prison and the Bureau’s patient care rules.

Psychology services cover the whole complex from two offices, and the handbook gives the locations and walk-in hours. The offices are next to the Captain’s office at Oakdale II and beside the chapel here, and open house is Wednesday from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at this institution, Monday from 11:00 a.m. to noon at Oakdale II and Tuesday from 10:30 to 11:00 a.m. at the camp. Ten positions cover both prisons and the camp, for a complex that held 1,982 men at its last audit.

What do inspectors say about conditions at FCI Oakdale I?

The DOJ Office of the Inspector General has not conducted an on-site inspection of this facility. On its own count, published in May 2026 in Evaluation and Inspections Report 26-055, it had inspected 14 Bureau institutions since 2023; neither Oakdale prison is among them, and neither is on the list of inspections now under way. The District of Columbia’s Corrections Information Council has never been here either. What exists instead is a review done by telephone in 2020, one audit of the whole complex from 2024, an allegation count published in 2026, and a run of prosecutions of staff.

The Inspector General’s 2020 review, and what it was not

Pandemic Response Report 21-003, Remote Inspection of Federal Correctional Complexes Oakdale and Pollock, was published in November 2020. The fieldwork ran from May 7 to June 16, 2020 and consisted of telephone interviews, document review and a staff survey; the report records that the Inspector General “was unable to meet with staff or inmates as part of these remote inspections,” so it is not an inspection of conditions. The outbreak it describes began in this institution’s education department. On March 10, 2020 a teacher returned to work after traveling to New York City, and the Inspector General “found no evidence that the teacher was screened prior to or after returning to work or instructed to quarantine.” He reported illness the next day. After the first positive result on March 21, contact tracing “indicated a common nexus with the institution’s Education Department,” the first four men to test positive “came from the same education class,” and “the first inmate to die from COVID-19 at Oakdale was an assistant to the teacher.” A regional health services administrator offered a second theory the report also records: that Mardi Gras in New Orleans on February 25 was “a significant contributor to the serious COVID-19 outbreak in Louisiana and in all probability was linked to infections at Oakdale.”

That first death has a name and a date. Patrick Jones, 49, reported a persistent cough on March 19, 2020, was taken to a local hospital, tested positive, went on a ventilator on March 20 and was pronounced dead on March 28; the Bureau’s news release recorded that he had been at FCI Oakdale I since April 26, 2017, serving 27 years out of the Western District of Texas, and the Bureau confirmed to reporters that his was the first death of a federal prisoner from COVID-19. The Inspector General’s own count of deaths runs “between March 30 and November 8” and totals eight — a window that opens two days after Jones died — while the Bureau’s frozen dataset records nine deaths at this complex.

The rest is a catalog of delay. Oakdale “failed to promptly implement BOP inmate screening guidance issued in January and staff screening guidance issued February 2020”; the complex locked down on March 21, but symptom screening of everyone here did not begin until March 31 and respirator fit-testing not until April 10. Staff in close contact with infected men “did not have, and in some cases did not understand the necessity of wearing, proper PPE,” and “concern about access to PPE was so dire after the first inmate tested positive on March 21 that PPE supplies were being taken from the complex medical unit after hours and without permission.” Mass testing of all 880 men at this institution between May 13 and 15 found 97 positives, and no one was isolated until May 20. A vacant housing unit could not be used to spread men out “until April 16, due to mold remediation work.” Of the staff who answered the April 2020 survey, “only 15 percent… reported that guidance was timely and only 14 percent reported that guidance was clear.” The capstone review of March 2023, Report 23-054, put the cost in staff: Oakdale worked more than 18,700 overtime hours between March 29 and April 25, 2020, a 487 percent rise on that February, and of eleven federal facilities reviewed remotely it “received the largest number of TDY staff, a total of 156 TDY staff placements between March 2020 and April 2021.”

What the 2024 PREA audit recorded

One audit under the Prison Rape Elimination Act covers both prisons and the camp. Lynni O’Haver, subcontracted by PREA Auditors of America, was on site from January 23–25, 2024 and filed the final report on March 2, 2024: no standards exceeded, 41 met, none unmet. The Bureau serves that identical file from both institutions’ pages. The audit is administered from this side of the complex: its facility address is 1507 East Whatley Road, every contact telephone number in it is this institution’s, and the compliance mailbox for the warden, the primary contact and the health services administrator is an OAK address.

Designed capacity	2,235, against an average daily population of 2,067 over the preceding year
Over capacity in the previous 12 months	Yes. The two prisons together held 2,237 as of September 2026
Population on day one	1,982 across 16 housing units, aged 20 to 81
Limited English proficient	702 — more than a third of the complex
Disability	45 deaf or hard of hearing, 51 with a physical disability, 9 blind or with low vision
Staff on day one	454, with 12 volunteers and 16 contractors
Records examined	44 inmate files, 5 investigation files and 26 random prisoner interviews

The audit recorded three allegations of sexual abuse and two of sexual harassment in the twelve months before the visit, all prisoner-on-prisoner, none staff-on-prisoner, and all five closed as unsubstantiated.

The GAO allegation counts, and the gap they open

The Government Accountability Office’s May 2026 report Federal Prisons: Improvements Needed to Prevent, Detect, and Address Sexual Abuse, GAO-26-107343, counts sexual abuse allegations for every Bureau facility. Its Table 7, counting allegations against incarcerated people by the year the incident occurred, gives FCI Oakdale I by name: one in 2020, none in 2021, one in 2022, three in 2023 and three in 2024 — eight in five years.

Four cautions travel with that number, all of them the GAO’s own. These are reported allegations, not findings: nationally between 2014 and 2022, nine percent of staff-perpetrator allegations were substantiated and 77 percent unsubstantiated, and unsubstantiated means the evidence did not settle the question. The office does not adjust for population, so the counts cannot rank prisons; its two tables come from different systems and cannot be added together; and where one facility appears under two names the rows must be summed first.

That last caution means no staff-perpetrator figure can be given for this institution. Table 8 lists an “Oakdale Federal Correctional Institution” and an “Oakdale Federal Detention Center,” neither numbered, and neither can be assigned to one of today’s two prisons with confidence; together they record fifteen staff-perpetrator allegations reported between 2020 and 2024, five of them in 2023. Assigning thirteen of them to FCI Oakdale I would read a label into a row the GAO did not label. Beside the audit, the timing stands out: the audit found no staff-on-prisoner allegation at all in the year to January 2024, and five months later a grand jury indicted an officer from this complex over conduct in June 2024.

Six officers prosecuted since 2023

The Inspector General’s public case log names this complex in seven press releases between August 2023 and March 2026, covering six officers — two of the releases are the arrest and then the sentencing of the same man. Every case was prosecuted in the Western District of Louisiana, and none says which of the two prisons the officer worked in. The $30,000 in the bribery case below is the market rate for contraband on this compound, and it explains both why telephones circulate and why a man caught with one faces a charge that costs good conduct time. See inmate discipline proceedings.

• March 18, 2026 — Allison Dickens was arrested, pleaded guilty and was sentenced the same day for providing contraband; from about August 2022 to about October 2024 she “introduced cigarettes cell phones, and other contraband into FCC Oakdale in exchange for payment.”
• December 5, 2024 and December 4, 2025 — Gregory Fournet was arrested on a two-count indictment charging abusive sexual contact with a prisoner in his custody between about June 6 and 17, 2024, and sentenced a year later to ten months’ imprisonment and ordered to register as a sex offender.
• April 11, 2024 — Devin Darbonne was sentenced to two years’ incarceration and a $10,000 fine for bribery; between about August and October 2021 he received “an amount not exceeding $30,000” from a prisoner at FCI Oakdale for smuggling in cellular phones, vape pens and cigarettes.
• The remaining three: an officer sentenced on November 21, 2024 to six months for false statements; Samantha Harp, convicted by a Lake Charles jury on July 10, 2024 of making false statements to a federal agent; and Arteria Scott, who pleaded guilty on August 18, 2023 to providing contraband.

What a court can and cannot order here

The men held at Oakdale sued over the outbreak, the case was dismissed for want of jurisdiction, and the reason the court gave is still the controlling answer in this district. Livas v. Myers, 455 F. Supp. 3d 272 (W.D. La. 2020), was filed on April 6, 2020 by six men represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Louisiana on behalf of everyone in post-conviction custody at FCC Oakdale, with a medically vulnerable subclass. On April 22, 2020 the court granted the Government’s Rule 12(b)(1) motion and dismissed with prejudice.

The holding, stated no more strongly than the court stated it: the petitioners were not challenging the fact or duration of their custody, which is what 28 U.S.C. § 2241 exists to reach, but asking to be moved to home confinement or some lesser form of detention; once the Bureau has exercised its discretion under 18 U.S.C. § 3621(b), its designation of a place of imprisonment is not reviewable by any court; and deciding who should leave Oakdale would make the court a de facto “super” warden. The Rule 12(b)(6) arguments were denied as moot, so the court expressed no view on the Eighth Amendment, and five weeks later it applied Livas to an individual petition from a man at this institution in Dunning v. United States, No. 2:20-cv-00607 (W.D. La. May 27, 2020). One piece of national history belongs here: when the Attorney General directed the Bureau on April 3, 2020 to review everyone with CDC-recognized risk factors for home confinement, he named three hard-hit institutions to begin with — “FCI Oakdale, FCI Danbury, and FCI Elkton” — and courts have quoted that sentence since. A sentence reduction is a motion under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A) in the sentencing court; placement is an argument to the Bureau. See compassionate release and the Bureau’s reduction-in-sentence rules.

FCI Oakdale I in the news

Recent news about FCI Oakdale I centers on the 2026 GAO allegation count and two deaths the Bureau reported in 2026; older items concern the 2020 COVID-19 outbreak, the Livas litigation and the first federal prisoner death from the disease.

• May 2026 — The Government Accountability Office published the first per-institution counts of sexual abuse allegations for every federal prison, naming FCI Oakdale I in Table 7 with eight allegations across 2020 to 2024. The same month Program Statement 4500.13 raised the national commissary limit to $460, leaving this complex’s published order form ten years and a hundred dollars behind.
• April 2026 — Death at FCI Oakdale 1: the Bureau reported that on April 16, 2026, Bernard Murphy, 61, “was found unresponsive”; responding employees “initiated life-saving measures,” and he was “pronounced deceased by hospital personnel on Friday, April 17, 2026.”
• January 2026 — Death at FCI Oakdale I: the Bureau reported that on January 30, 2026, Levy Castro-Zantiso, 54, “was found unresponsive”; responding employees “initiated life-saving measures,” and he was “subsequently pronounced deceased by hospital personnel.”
• November 2020 — The Inspector General published Pandemic Response Report 21-003, tracing the outbreak to a single education class and finding that a vacant housing unit could not be used for distancing until April 16 because of mold remediation.
• April 2020 — Livas v. Myers was filed and dismissed within sixteen days, and the Attorney General’s memorandum of April 3 named FCI Oakdale first among the institutions where home confinement was to be maximized.
• March and April 2020 — the Bureau posted seven news releases reporting the deaths of people held at FCI Oakdale I; the Bureau’s releases are listed on its press release page.
• March 2020 — Patrick Jones died on March 28, the first federal prisoner to die of COVID-19.

Frequently asked questions about FCI Oakdale I

Problems at FCI Oakdale I: where we can help

The problems that recur at FCI Oakdale I are not the generic ones, and the record above says what they are.

• Immigration detainers and what follows from them. Designation here happens in the last seven months of a sentence, and a detainer changes how First Step Act credits are applied, whether halfway-house placement is considered at all, and whether the literacy exemption quietly stops good conduct time from vesting.
• Transfer, because the program is elsewhere. With no residential drug program at either Oakdale institution or anywhere in Louisiana, the year available under 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e) depends on a redesignation — a request to the unit team, escalated through the administrative remedy process. See transfers and redesignation.
• First Step Act time credits — whether they are being earned at all, whether the PATTERN score is right, and whether they are being applied to release or to prerelease placement, including home confinement. See our federal prison early release practice.
• Medical care that is not happening. Sick call runs four days a week and not on Wednesdays, dental is a two-and-a-half-hour window once a week, and ten psychology positions cover a complex that held 1,982 men at its last audit.
• Staff misconduct and PREA reporting. Six officers at this complex have been prosecuted since August 2023, including for abusive sexual contact and for taking up to $30,000 to bring in telephones. The routes are the TRULINCS mailbox that goes directly to the Inspector General, which is read only in business hours, and a BP-9 through the administrative remedy process; where injury has followed, a Federal Tort Claims Act claim has its own two-year clock.
• 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 Oakdale I, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. The Bureau’s facility page, with address, contact details, population and inmate-mail blocks.
• FCC Oakdale Inmate Admission and Orientation Handbook, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. The complex-wide handbook, served from FCI Oakdale II’s page: visiting, mail, telephone hours, the commissary limit, programs, health services and the daily routine.
• FCC Oakdale Commissary Shopping List, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2016. Items, prices, category caps and the spending limit printed on the form.
• Visiting Regulations, Institution Supplement FCC 5267.08F, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCC Oakdale, 2014. Visiting points, termination order, screening and directions; replaced FCC 5267.08D (2013).
• Visiting Regulations, Institution Supplement FCC 5267.08D (Spanish edition), Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCC Oakdale, 2013. The rescinded edition, still served as the Spanish version.
• Trust Fund/Deposit Fund Manual, Program Statement 4500.13, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Raised the commissary spending limit from $360 to $460.
• Inmate Security Designation and Custody Classification, Program Statement 5100.08, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2006, as amended in 2026. Chapter 7 lists FCI Oakdale among the institutions with special missions.
• 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. Program availability by institution, including the RDAP locations list.
• Institution Care Levels for Medical Assignment and Institutional Mental Health Care Levels, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2024. Released under Freedom of Information Act request 2024-03455 and published by the Washington Lawyers’ Committee.
• Death at FCI Oakdale 1, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. The death of Bernard Murphy.
• Death at FCI Oakdale I, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. The death of Levy Castro-Zantiso.
• Inmate Death at FCI Oakdale I, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2020. The death of Patrick Jones.
• Press Releases, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2020. Includes the seven March and April 2020 releases reporting deaths at FCI Oakdale I.

Audits and inspections

• Federal Prisons: Improvements Needed to Prevent, Detect, and Address Sexual Abuse (GAO-26-107343), U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2026. Tables 7 and 8 give allegation counts by institution.
• Inspection of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ U.S. Penitentiary Canaan (Report 26-055), U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2026. Gives the number of Bureau institutions the Inspector General has inspected since 2023.
• PREA Facility Audit Report: FCC Oakdale, PREA Auditors of America, 2024. On-site audit of January 23–25, 2024, by Lynni O’Haver, an independent auditor subcontracted by PREA Auditors of America; covers both prisons and the camp.
• Capstone Review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Response to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic (Report 23-054), U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2023. Overtime and temporary-duty staffing at Oakdale in 2020 and 2021.
• Remote Inspection of Federal Correctional Complexes Oakdale and Pollock (Pandemic Response Report 21-003), U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2020. A remote review, with no site visit, of the complex’s pandemic response.
• The Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Efforts to Manage Inmate Health Care (Report 08-08), U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2008. Care level recorded for Oakdale FCI.

Court records

• United States v. Ruan, 56 F.4th 1291 (11th Cir. 2023), U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, 2023.
• Ruan v. United States, 597 U.S. 450 (2022), Supreme Court of the United States, 2022.
• Dunning v. United States, No. 2:20-cv-00607 (W.D. La.), U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, 2020. Docket.
• Livas v. Myers, 455 F. Supp. 3d 272 (W.D. La. 2020), U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, 2020. Docket, No. 2:20-cv-00422.
• Former Bureau of Prisons Correctional Officer Arrested, Charged, Pleaded Guilty and Sentenced to Providing Contraband in Prison, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2026. Allison Dickens’s arrest, plea and sentence.
• Former BOP Correctional Officer Sentenced for Abusive Sexual Contact, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2025. Gregory Fournet’s ten-month sentence.
• Former BOP Correctional Officer Arrested for Abusive Sexual Contact, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2024. Gregory Fournet’s arrest on a two-count indictment.
• Former BOP Correctional Officer Sentenced for False Statements, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2024. A former officer’s six-month sentence.
• Former Corrections Officer Convicted of Making False Statements to a Federal Agent, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2024. Samantha Harp’s conviction by a Lake Charles jury.
• Former BOP Correctional Officer Sentenced for Bribery of a Public Official, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2024. Devin Darbonne’s two-year sentence and $10,000 fine.
• Former BOP Correctional Officer Pleaded Guilty to Providing Contraband in Prison, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2023. Arteria Scott’s guilty plea.

News and other sources

• Inmate Dies of Covid-19 at Federal Prison in Oakdale, KPLC, 2020.
• Statement on the Cuban Inmate Riots in Georgia and Louisiana, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, 1987. Public Papers of the Presidents.
• 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A), Imposition of a sentence of imprisonment, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 18 U.S.C. § 3621(b), (e), Imprisonment of a convicted person, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 21 U.S.C. § 841, Prohibited acts A, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 28 U.S.C. § 2241, Power to grant writ, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).

Sources reviewed September 2026.

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