FCI Berlin: Visiting, Programs and Oversight

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

FCI Berlin at a glance

FCI Berlin is a medium-security federal prison for men in Berlin, New Hampshire, with an adjacent minimum-security satellite camp. It held 889 people as of September 2026 — 823 at the institution and 66 at the camp. It is the only Bureau of Prisons institution in New Hampshire, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement also holds civil immigration detainees inside it.

Official name	Federal Correctional Institution, Berlin
BOP code	BER
Security level	Medium; men, and civil immigration detainees in ICE custody · adjacent minimum-security satellite camp
Population	889 — 823 at the FCI, 66 at the camp (as of September 2026)
Visiting	Saturday, Sunday and federal holidays, 8:15 a.m.–3:00 p.m. · see visiting hours
Inmate mail	Inmate Name & Register Number · FCI Berlin · Federal Correctional Institution · P.O. Box 9000 · Berlin, NH 03570 — the same box serves the camp
Send money	Lockbox · Western Union (code city FBOP, DC) · MoneyGram (receive code 7932)
Phone	603-342-4000 · Fax 603-342-4250 · ICE detainees 603-342-4305, option 3
Street address	1 Success Loop Road, Berlin, NH 03570 · Coos County
Judicial district	District of New Hampshire
BOP region	Northeast
Housing	14 units
Special Housing Unit	Yes · visits by video only
RDAP	No
UNICOR	No
Camp	Yes · minimum-security satellite camp

It sits in Coos County in the state’s northernmost city, roughly 120 miles north of Concord, and falls under the Bureau’s Northeast Region. It is one of the federal prisons in New Hampshire — the only one. Two things are true of this prison and almost nowhere else in the federal system. The Justice Department’s Inspector General has an inspection of it under way right now. And Immigration and Customs Enforcement holds civil immigration detainees inside it, under a separate set of visiting hours, a separate telephone number and a separate locator.

Two prisons sit on East Milan Road in Berlin. Only one is federal.

This is the first thing to settle, because the Bureau’s own driving directions run you past the other one. The institution’s handbook tells visitors that after Hutchins Street becomes East Milan Road, “FCI Berlin will be on your right just passed Northern NH Correctional Facility.” Northern New Hampshire Correctional Facility is a state prison, run by the New Hampshire Department of Corrections, and it is a different institution with different rules on everything that matters to a family.

Prison	Run by	Where	How to find someone
FCI Berlin (this page)	Federal Bureau of Prisons	1 Success Loop Road	BOP Inmate Locator
Northern New Hampshire Correctional Facility	New Hampshire Department of Corrections	138 East Milan Road	New Hampshire state inmate locator
ICE detainees held inside FCI Berlin	Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Boston Field Office	1 Success Loop Road	ICE Online Detainee Locator System

The state prison opened in 2000, holds 635 people at custody levels from minimum to close, and its switchboard is 603-752-0301. If the person you are looking for was sentenced in a New Hampshire state court they are there, not here, and the federal locator will never find them. Note the third row too: a person in ICE custody at 1 Success Loop Road does not appear in the federal locator either. Some published guides say FCI Berlin “is sometimes referred to as Northern New Hampshire Corrections.” It is not. Those are two prisons on the same road.

What is the security level at FCI Berlin?

The main institution is medium security. The camp beside it is minimum security. They share a commissary list, a mailing address and a set of visiting hours, and almost nothing else about the day. The 2023 PREA audit records the institution’s custody levels as Medium/Minimum and In/Out/Com, and counts 14 inmate housing units against a designed capacity of 1,277.

Which side of the fence someone lands on is decided before they arrive, by their security point score and by whether any Public Safety Factor applies. A PSF overrides the point total outright — it is what keeps a person out of a camp however low they score. Our guides to the intake process and to preparing for prison cover the first days after arrival and what to do before a self-surrender date.

The building is unusual, and the handbook describes it: FCI Berlin has three corridors — the Blue, the Green and the Black. Inmates walk on the right of all three with the right shoulder to the wall, no more than three abreast, leaving the center for staff and giving way to them. In an institutional emergency everyone faces the corridor wall and goes down on one knee. Movement between buildings runs in ten-minute controlled moves announced by staff. Camp residents live in dormitories and move far more freely. At a prison this far north, an internal corridor system is not an architectural flourish; it is how the institution runs in February.

Does FCI Berlin hold immigration detainees?

Yes. ICE publishes its own detention-facility page for this address, under its Boston Field Office, and last updated it on August 6, 2026. That page sets out a detainee information line, a visiting schedule, a mailing format and an attorney-scheduling mailbox that are all different from the Bureau’s. If you are looking for someone in civil immigration custody at FCI Berlin, the rest of this page is largely the wrong set of rules and this section is the right one.

The arrangement began early in 2025. The American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire announced on March 6, 2025 that it had confirmed, through ICE’s public Online Detainee Locator System, that at least one ICE detainee was already held there; ICE published its facility page on April 7, 2025. WMUR reported that month that an unnamed source put the number then held at about 250. Neither ICE nor the Bureau publishes a count. That people are held there long-term shows in the court record: the District of New Hampshire docket carries habeas petitions naming the FCI Berlin warden and coded as alien-detainee cases, among them Arias Lara v. FCI Berlin, Warden, No. 1:25-cv-00229 (D.N.H. filed June 13, 2025).

What is different for an ICE detainee

• Visiting is a 90-minute window. ICE sets friends-and-family visits at 8:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. on Saturdays, Sundays and federal holidays. The prison’s own visiting day runs to 3:00 p.m. A family that drives to Berlin expecting the Bureau’s hours will arrive four hours after the detainee’s visiting period has closed. All family and social visits are non-contact.
• Attorney visits run Monday to Friday by appointment only, scheduled by email to BER-ICECorrespondence@bop.gov. Legal calls and video teleconferences are requested at the same address or on 603-342-4305.
• Mail goes to the same post office box, but addressed to “ICE Detainee Name & Register Number,” and ICE requires the last four digits of the detainee’s A-number on the envelope. On transfer, only legal mail is forwarded; general correspondence is endorsed “Return to Sender.”
• Consular officials may meet their nationals at any time, with prior arrangement; clergy visits go through the Chaplain’s Office at the same email address.
• Case information for a represented detainee goes through Boston.Outreach@ice.dhs.gov, and a G-28 must be on file before the Supervisory Detention and Deportation Officer will name the deportation officer.

Three numbers are worth writing down: the immigration court information line, 1-800-898-7180; the Board of Immigration Appeals, 703-305-0289; and, for complaints about treatment, the ICE Boston Field Office at 781-359-7500.

Who are the notable inmates at FCI Berlin?

Fewer than the lists suggest, and none of the best-known names is still here. The table gives each person’s status and, where the Bureau’s records carry one, the register number.

Name	Status at FCI Berlin	Case
Kent E. Hovind	Former — released August 7, 2015, through the residential reentry office in Orlando. Register number 06452-017	Young-earth creationist ministry operator convicted in the Northern District of Florida of federal tax offenses arising from unreported payments to employees
Jasiel F. Correia II	Former — reported here April 22, 2022; Bureau records show release on July 10, 2026 through the residential reentry office in New York. Register number 01205-138	Former mayor of Fall River, Massachusetts, convicted in the District of Massachusetts of defrauding investors in a smartphone application and extorting marijuana businesses; sentenced to six years
Aniel Gomez	Held here in December 2022; sentenced in Concord in October 2023 to 30 additional months	Beat another man at FCI Berlin with two padlocks strapped together while serving a 365-month marijuana-conspiracy sentence
Kareem Davis	Held here in May 2023; sentenced in August 2024 to nine consecutive months	Possessed a sharpened toothbrush at FCI Berlin, his third weapon incident in federal custody, while serving 108 months for a 2020 District of Columbia kidnapping

Kent Hovind appears on published lists of notable FCI Berlin prisoners; he left in 2015. Bureau records show no nationally prominent prisoner held here as of September 2026. This is a working medium-security institution a long way from anywhere, not a destination for famous defendants.

How do I find someone at FCI Berlin?

Which tool you need depends on who holds them, and at this address that is two different agencies.

• Bureau of Prisons custody. Use the free public Inmate Locator the Bureau publishes. Search by the eight-digit register number if you have it; the number is the reliable key, because the locator matches the committed name rather than the name a family uses. Its records run back to 1982, and for a man held here it shows “Berlin FCI” and a projected release date — not an address, and not a housing unit.
• ICE custody. Use ICE’s Online Detainee Locator System. It searches by A-number and country of birth, or by name and date of birth. A person in immigration detention at FCI Berlin will not appear in the Bureau’s locator, and a family that searches only there will conclude, wrongly, that their relative is not in Berlin at all.

If neither finds the person, the usual explanations are state rather than federal custody, pretrial detention under the U.S. Marshals Service, or a committed name spelled differently on the judgment. Our guide to how register numbers work sets out how the number is assigned and why it stays with a person for life.

How do I write to someone at FCI Berlin?

The FCI and the camp share a single post office box, and the Bureau publishes no separate camp address block for this institution. The first line is the committed name and the register number, in that order and nothing else.

For someone in Bureau custody	For someone in ICE custody
Inmate Name & Register Number FCI Berlin Federal Correctional Institution P.O. Box 9000 Berlin, NH 03570	ICE Detainee Name & Register Number FCI Berlin Federal Correctional Institution P.O. Box 9000 Berlin, NH 03570

Berlin’s handbook adds an instruction most institutions do not print: “Do not abbreviate Federal Correctional Institution Berlin.” Write it out, and add the housing unit if you know it.

Under the Bureau’s correspondence rules, and because this is a medium-security institution, outgoing general mail may not be sealed by the person sending it and may be read. Incoming general mail is opened and inspected. Legal mail is different: it is opened only in the addressee’s presence and it is not read — but only if the sender is clearly identified on the envelope and the front is marked “Special Mail – Open only in the presence of the inmate.” An attorney’s letter without that marking is handled as ordinary correspondence. Our guide to attorney-client communication in the Bureau of Prisons covers the privilege question, and our guide to writing to someone in federal prison covers what gets rejected and why. One more medium-security rule catches families out: softcover publications may be received only from a publisher, a book club or a bookstore, never from home.

Mail reaches the units Monday to Friday, distributed by the evening watch officer, with legal and special mail handed over by unit staff; there is ordinarily no weekend or holiday service. Never put money in a letter — funds enclosed in correspondence are disposed of, and the money goes to Des Moines instead.

How do I send money to someone at FCI Berlin?

Money never goes to the prison’s address. Nothing goes to Berlin. It goes to the Bureau’s national lockbox in Iowa, or through one of two wire services. A misspelled committed name or a mistyped eight-digit register number will stop any of the three.

Route	Where it goes	How fast it posts
Postal money order or cashier’s check	Federal Bureau of Prisons Committed Name Eight-Digit Register Number Post Office Box 474701 Des Moines, Iowa 50947-0001	U.S. postal money orders post without a hold; all non-postal money orders and non-government checks carry an automatic 15-day hold
Western Union Quick Collect	Code city FBOP, DC	Two to four hours if sent between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. Eastern, seven days a week; otherwise by 7:00 a.m. the next morning
MoneyGram Express Payment	Receive code 7932, company name Federal Bureau of Prisons, Washington, DC. Up to $300 online	Same posting window as Western Union

No cash and no personal checks — both are refused. If the committed name and register number are wrong the transaction is rejected at the point of sale, or returned by the lockbox. Our guide to sending money to a federal prisoner sets out what each route costs and how long it takes to land. Before sending a large sum, read the commissary section: there is a monthly ceiling on what the money can buy, and anything above it sits in the account.

What are the visiting hours at FCI Berlin?

Visiting at the FCI and the camp runs 8:15 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Saturdays, Sundays and all federal holidays. That is from the institution’s own supplement, BER 5267.09G, dated March 2, 2023, which replaced the October 2020 version.

The same supplement provides that “[s]ocial visitors will not be processed from 9:00 a.m. to approximately 10:45 a.m. due to institutional activities.” With the hard cut-offs — no one processed before 8:00 a.m. or after 2:00 p.m. — the real arrival windows are roughly 8:00 to 9:00 a.m., or 10:45 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. A family that reaches the lobby at 9:30 on a Saturday, after driving up from Boston in the dark, waits an hour and a quarter. The handbook adds that camp visitors are not processed after 1:30 p.m., half an hour earlier than the FCI.

Special Housing Unit visits run on the same days and hours but by video conference only, in two-hour blocks: the visitor is processed and escorted as usual, then placed in a non-contact room while the person in the SHU is taken to a video terminal in the unit.

Who can visit, and how many

Two Bureau documents for this institution give different answers. The visiting supplement of March 2, 2023 allows “a maximum of four adult visitors at one time” plus “a maximum of four children visitors under 16 years of age.” The inmate handbook, updated eight months later in November 2023, says “[i]nmates are allowed a maximum of five visitors, excluding children, at one time,” and describes split visits in which one exchange of visitors is normally approved. Both are published by FCI Berlin. Call 603-342-4000 before you bring a fifth adult.

• Anyone beyond the limit needs written approval from the Unit Manager and the Captain in advance — and if approved, is the first asked to leave when the room fills.
• At capacity the Institution Duty Officer may cut every visit to two hours, curtailing in a set order: volunteers first, then visitors who live closest, then those who visit most often. Distance traveled protects you here, which is the opposite of the rule at many institutions.
• New arrivals may use the approved list from their previous facility once the Correctional Counselor reviews it, within two weeks of arrival; people in holdover status may visit immediate family only.
• Immediate family — mother, father, step-parents, foster parents, brothers, sisters, spouse and children — go on the list absent strong reason. Others need a relationship established before incarceration and an NCIC check, and a proposed visitor “will be denied should it be determined the inmate did not know the proposed visitor prior to incarceration.” A prior conviction sends the request to the Warden, and only the Warden can reinstate someone suspended.
• A minister of record, once verified by the chaplain, does not count against the social visitor total.
• A Walsh Act assignment for a sex offense involving a minor is annotated in the visiting program, and the visit is seated near the officer’s station for closer observation.

What visitors can wear and bring

Berlin’s dress code is written around the two uniforms in the building. Nothing khaki is allowed, because that is what the FCI wears; nothing dark brown, because that is what the camp wears; and nothing orange or gray. Camouflage, medical scrubs and anything resembling a staff uniform are out, as are hats, caps and scarves, hooded shirts, jackets and sweaters, and watches or electronic wristbands of any kind. Skirts and dresses must be at least knee length with no slit above the knee, and shorts are permitted only on a child under 12. Also prohibited: sweat suits and athletic wear; sheer clothing; tank, halter, midriff and strapless tops; strapless dresses; spandex; bib overalls; form-fitting clothing; and ripped clothing that exposes skin. All shoes must be strapped to the foot — no slippers, shower shoes or flip-flops, no open toes, and no heels or wedges over one inch. One easily missed rule: visitors are told not to wear undergarments containing metal, because an underwire bra cannot be removed before passing through the detector.

What you may carry in is short. A clear plastic bag or change purse no larger than six inches by six inches; money for the vending machines in increments of $5.00 or less; photo identification; and essential medication in the exact dose needed, which the Visiting Room Officer holds during the visit. For an infant: four diapers, one clear package of wipes, one change of clothing, two clear bottles three-quarters full, two small unopened jars of baby food, a receiving blanket no larger than 36 by 48 inches, one clear cup, one plastic spoon and one small clear tote. Purses, packages, toys and gifts of any kind are not permitted, and nothing may be brought to give or show the person you are visiting. Everything else goes in a lobby locker, and you keep the key.

Photographs are taken from approximately 11:30 a.m. to approximately 12:15 p.m., using a photo ticket bought by the person inside; after 12:15 there is no photographer. If you want a picture together you need to be in the visiting room before 11:30 — which, given the mid-morning processing blackout, means arriving in the first hour of the day.

Identification and screening

Photo identification is required for everyone 16 and over: a valid driver’s license, a valid state or federal identification card, or a valid passport. Anything altered, forged or expired is refused, and check-cashing cards and similar easily produced cards are not accepted.

Everyone clears a walk-through metal detector or a hand-held Transfrisker; personal property goes through a Rapiscan x-ray machine; and visitors are subject to random pat searches and to drug screening on an ION Scanner, with the randomness set by the Front Lobby Officer. Children under 16 are not pat or visually searched but must clear the detector. A positive ION scan suspends visiting privileges for 48 hours; a second positive after reinstatement carries a suspension of whatever length the Warden sets. Surgically implanted plates, pins or pacemakers need medical documentation in hand before entry. On the way in your hand is stamped and checked under a black-light wand, and checked again when you leave the visiting room and once more at the control center. Religious headwear is treated as part of the person rather than as belongings: a random pat search should not ordinarily include it, the Warden must authorize any pat or visual search of it, and such a search is conducted out of the view of others. See searches, shakedowns and contraband for how these powers work.

Inside, seating is assigned and the gap between the visitor’s chair and the inmate’s is about four feet. Physical contact is limited to a brief embrace and a closed-mouth kiss on arrival and again at the end, in a designated area; children 12 and under may sit on a lap. The vending area is off limits to inmates at all times, and food must be plated rather than shared from the same container. If a visitor leaves the visiting area for any reason, the visit ends. The Bureau’s visiting regulations and our guide to federal prison visitation set out the rules that hold at every institution.

Getting there

Plan the trip before you plan the visit. The prison publishes its own list of airports with distances: Berlin Regional Airport is a few miles away in Milan, but the airports with scheduled service are Portland International Jetport at 71 miles, Lebanon Municipal at 76, Portsmouth International at Pease at 101, Manchester-Boston Regional at 104 and Boston Logan at 166, with rental counters at Portland listed in the handbook. A Greyhound depot operates from the Irving service station at 318 Glen Avenue in Berlin.

The drive from the south is the usual approach. From Interstate 93, take Exit 35 onto US Route 3 north about 12 miles to Twin Mountain; right onto NH Route 115 north about 10 miles to Jefferson; right onto US Route 2 east about 17 miles to Gorham; at the US-2 and NH-16 intersection bear left onto NH Route 16 north about four miles into Berlin; right onto the 12th Street Bridge; left at the end of the bridge onto Hutchins Street, which becomes East Milan Road. From Maine and Interstate 95, the institution routes you over Exit 63 to Maine Route 26 for about 50 miles, then US-2 west into New Hampshire. The last hour of either route is two-lane road through the White Mountains. In winter that is a serious drive, and the visiting room does not wait: arrive after 2:00 p.m. and you will not be processed. The FCI and the camp have separate visitor parking; campers, recreational vehicles and tractor trailers are prohibited from the lot at any time; and anyone not approved to visit must leave the grounds rather than wait in the car.

How do phone calls and email work at FCI Berlin?

The call is always dialed from inside. No number here rings through to a housing unit. The number has to be on their approved list, every call ends automatically after 15 minutes, and the Bureau allows 510 minutes a calendar month under its telephone regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, issued September 3, 2026 — 300 free to anyone eligible for First Step Act telephone incentives, the remaining 210 purchasable. The 2008 policy’s extra 100 minutes in November and December went with it, so a Berlin winter now carries the same allowance as any other month. A properly arranged unmonitored legal call sits outside that allowance altogether.

Two rules in Berlin’s handbook change how that works in practice. First, the phone day is not the same on both sides of the fence: the handbook records that telephone hours begin at 6:00 a.m. and end no later than 11:30 p.m. at the camp but no later than 9:00 p.m. at the FCI. A family on the west coast calling after dinner has a two-and-a-half-hour narrower window than they would at the camp. Access is further restricted Monday to Friday from 7:30 to 10:30 a.m. and from 12:30 p.m. until after the 4:00 p.m. count clears. Second, “A thirty (30) minute waiting period between calls is imposed at FCI/SCP Berlin.” That is the national floor, not a local addition: Program Statement 5264.09 lets the Warden set the wait but requires “a minimum of at least 30 minutes between completed calls” (at 6). Three fifteen-minute calls in an evening therefore take at least an hour and three-quarters of wall-clock time. Our guide to federal inmate phone calls sets out the national allowance and what a call costs.

Email here runs on TRULINCS, which a family signs up to from the outside through CorrLinks. Text only, 13,000 characters a message, no attachments and no internet — and the charge is for minutes spent at the terminal, not for what is sent. The person inside adds your address; the system then sends you an invitation you must accept before anything can pass. Berlin’s TRULINCS also carries the standing Department of Justice Sexual Abuse Reporting mailbox, which goes directly to the Inspector General, is untraceable at the institution, leaves nothing in the sent list and cannot be replied to; it is processed in business hours and is not a 24-hour hotline. Our page on CorrLinks and TRULINCS sets out how a family signs up and what the minutes cost. Email with a lawyer is not privileged; privileged written communication has to travel as marked special mail.

For an unmonitored attorney call, the person inside asks the Case Manager or Correctional Counselor, has to show a need — an imminent court deadline is the handbook’s example — and bears the cost. Attorney visits are arranged through the Unit Team at least 24 hours ahead and are visually but not auditorily monitored; legal material may come into the visiting room with prior approval, and is inspected.

What can people buy at the FCI Berlin commissary?

The monthly spending limit is $460, set nationally by the Bureau’s trust fund rules, Program Statement 4500.13, issued May 7, 2026, which raised it from $360. It rises by a further $50 for the November and December holiday period, and stamps, copy cards and over-the-counter medication are excluded from it.

Two obsolete figures are in wide circulation for this institution, and one of them is the Bureau’s own. FCI Berlin’s November 2023 handbook states that “[t]he National Spending Limit is $320.00 but may be further restricted at the local level.” Most directory pages say $360. Both are out of date; $460 is the figure in force. The institution’s commissary list itself, updated December 2023, prints no monthly limit at all.

What the list does show is a prison in the North Country. Items marked with a hash on the Berlin sheet are local-use-only stock, sold here and not on the national list, and there are exactly three of them: thermal tops, thermal bottoms and a gray scarf, at $11.70 for thermal tops and bottoms in sizes small to extra-large, $14.30 in 2XL to 6XL, and $9.10 for the scarf. A commissary tells you what an institution’s winter is like more honestly than any description of it.

The rest of the sheet is ordinary and specific. Roughly sixty lines carry kosher or halal labeling, from halal summer sausage at $2.80 to kosher vanilla cream cookies at $2.40; a tablet case runs $17.45, a bath towel $6.25, sweatpants $22.10. Numbers in parentheses beside an item are its purchase limit. The shopping rules are printed on the form itself and are unforgiving: all sales final, no substitutions or additions after the list is turned in, identification card in hand, and no one else may turn in your list. Health Services also uses the commissary as its pharmacy for minor complaints — a person reporting seasonal allergies, constipation, athlete’s foot, acne or dry skin is sent back with a shopping list naming which over-the-counter medicines they may buy. Our page on the federal prison commissary sets out the national rules and what a month’s ceiling actually buys.

What programs are available at FCI Berlin?

Drug treatment, and the RDAP question

FCI Berlin does not appear on the Bureau’s list of institutions that run the Residential Drug Abuse Program — and it does not appear on either current edition of that list. The list inside the August 2026 First Step Act Approved Programs Guide, dated “Updated 6/4/2026” and totalling 57 RDAPs at 50 locations, gives eleven Northeast Region sites: FCI Allenwood Low and Medium, USP Canaan, FCI Danbury, FCI Elkton, FCI Fairton, FCI Fort Dix 1 and 2, the camps at Lewisburg and McKean, and FCI Schuylkill. Neither Berlin nor its camp is among them. The Bureau’s older standalone list, updated January 2025, names the same eleven. The guide’s programs-by-institution table marks this institution unmarked for residential drug treatment as well.

For anyone weighing a designation request, that matters more than any other single fact here, because completing RDAP can reduce a sentence by up to a year under 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e) and that benefit exists only where the program actually runs. Berlin’s own handbook describes RDAP at length, as every Bureau handbook does, using the text of the Bureau’s national RDAP policy; it does not say the program runs here. The same handbook records a Psychology Services department of a Chief Psychologist, two staff psychologists, a psychology technician, a Drug Abuse Program Coordinator and five Drug Abuse Treatment Specialists. There is no RDAP here for them to staff; what they run is the institution’s non-residential drug abuse program and its Drug Abuse Education course. Ask the unit team in writing before anyone counts on a § 3621(e) reduction here.

What the guide does mark here is the non-residential drug abuse program. The Drug Abuse Education course runs as it does everywhere: required where the presentence report documents a prolonged drug history, a judicial recommendation for treatment, or a drug-related supervision violation, and refusing it costs performance pay above maintenance level, bonus and vacation pay, and eligibility for a Federal Prison Industries assignment.

Education, work and vocational training

The Education Department runs three blocks a day Monday to Thursday — 7:45 to 10:30 a.m., noon to 3:30 p.m. and 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. — drops the evening block on Friday, and opens on Saturday. Literacy is mandatory for anyone without a high school credential: at least 240 instructional hours, or until a GED is earned. A GED unsatisfactory-progress code costs another 240 hours and stops good conduct time vesting while it stands. English as a second language here runs until a person scores 225 on the CASA certification test and 215 on the listening comprehension test, and a college degree does not excuse attendance. Our guides to prison education and vocational training set out how these programs run across the Bureau.

The August 2026 guide’s programs-by-institution table marks FCI Berlin for all four occupational education categories — job certification, technical certificate or degree, vocational apprenticeship and vocational marketable skills — and leaves post-secondary education unmarked. The same table leaves Federal Prison Industries unmarked, which matches what the Bureau has long said about this institution: there is no UNICOR factory at FCI Berlin, so the best-paid work in the federal system is not available here. The electronic law library is in the Education Department, with an inmate law library clerk, a copying machine at a small fee, and the scales and certified-mail materials a person needs to file something. Legal materials are also brought to the Special Housing Unit. Berlin publishes no local legal-activities supplement: its facility page links the Bureau’s national inmate legal activities program statement instead.

Faith-based programming, reentry, and a greenhouse in the North Country

Religious Services runs the Threshold program, which our guide to religious programs in prison puts in context, and which the August 2026 guide marks here; the residential Life Connections program is not marked at this institution. Chaplains administer the religious diet program and are the route by which a family gets an emergency message inside — the handbook asks families to call the institution so staff can verify a death or hospitalization with the hospital, police department or funeral home, and advises people to keep some phone minutes in reserve at month end for exactly that reason.

One program at Berlin is genuinely unusual. The Hydroponics and Gardening Program is a First Step Act productive activity worth 35 hours, run jointly by Education and Recreation, and the guide’s own program description names the institutions where it runs: six of them, and FCI Berlin is first on the list. In a place where the growing season is short and the greenhouse is the only place anything grows for half the year, that is a real thing to be able to join.

A note on First Step Act programming. The Bureau’s guide lists which programs are approved to be offered. Approval is not delivery. Whether a class is running this quarter, and how long the waitlist is, is a question for the unit team — asked in writing, so there is a record of the answer.

What is daily life like at FCI Berlin?

The shape of the day, from the institution’s 2023 handbook:

	Weekdays	Weekends and holidays
Wake-up	6:00 a.m.; beds made by 7:30 a.m.	6:00 a.m.; beds made whenever the cell is vacated
Counts	12:01, 3:00 and 5:00 a.m., 4:00 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.	The same five, plus a 10:00 a.m. count
Uniform required	Khaki at the FCI, brown at the camp, 7:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.	Not required; sweats and khakis permitted
Controlled movement	Ten-minute moves, announced by staff	First move after the morning meal; compound secured at 9:30 a.m.
Telephones	6:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m. at the FCI, 11:30 p.m. at the camp, with access limited 7:30 – 10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. until the 4:00 p.m. count clears	Same daily end times
Recreation	8:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. and 4:30 – 8:30 p.m.	6:20 – 9:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. and 4:30 – 8:45 p.m.
Education	7:45 – 10:30 a.m., noon – 3:30 p.m., 4:30 – 8:30 p.m. (no evening block Friday)	Open Saturday
Sick call sign-up	First morning move, ordinarily 7:45 a.m., Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday	—
Barber shop	7:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m.	7:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m.; SHU access Sundays only

Which unit eats first is decided by the previous week’s sanitation ratings: cleanest unit called first, worst last, with cells inspected daily and individual ratings published. Callouts for the next day reach the units after 4:00 p.m., and missing a medical callout draws an incident report. Personal property is limited to what fits neatly in the locker, and one radio or MP3 player, one tablet and one watch are the ceiling.

Recreation covers organized and informal games, sports, fitness, table games, music, intramurals and movies — see our guide to recreation in federal prison — with art in oils, pastels, pencils, inks and charcoal and hobby craft in ceramics, mosaics, crochet, knitting and sculpture. Zimmer Amendment restrictions apply: no R, X or NC-17 films, no instruction in boxing, wrestling, martial arts or weightlifting, and no electric instruments.

Psychology Services keeps offices in the Blue Corridor between Education and Religious Services, and holds open house at the FCI on Mondays and Thursdays at 9:30 a.m. and at the camp on Wednesdays at 11:30 a.m. Its group list includes anger management, criminal thinking, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, drug abuse education, the non-residential drug program — and light therapy, marked seasonal. Of the institution handbooks the Bureau publishes in readable form, Berlin’s is the only one that lists light therapy. The latitude explains why.

Health Services takes sick call sign-ups on the first morning move four days a week — Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday — ordinarily at 7:45 a.m. at the FCI and between 6:00 and 6:30 a.m. at the camp and in the SHU, with a $2.00 copay for a requested visit and none for referrals, chronic care, preventive care, emergencies, mental health or substance abuse treatment. Admission examinations are done on Wednesdays. Pill line at the FCI runs 6:30 to 6:45 a.m. daily with refill pickup at 8:30 a.m.; the camp’s runs 6:00 to 6:15 a.m. with pickup from 5:00 to 5:30 p.m. Camp dental sick-call forms are accepted Tuesdays only. Copies of a medical record take a minimum of 45 days, and glasses four to six weeks, from the UNICOR optical shop at FMC Butner. Arriving more than ten minutes late for an appointment without a justified reason cancels it and can be written up.

What do inspectors say about conditions at FCI Berlin?

The Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General has an inspection of FCI Berlin under way now, and that changes what a family should do this year.

The inspection now under way

The Inspector General posted the engagement on January 12, 2026: “The OIG is conducting a routine inspection of Federal Correctional Institution Berlin to assess compliance with correctional policies and standards.” As of September 2026 the entry was still listed as ongoing, no report on this institution had been published, and the Inspector General’s report index carried nothing on Berlin.

Berlin is one of only two federal prisons in that position. The Inspector General’s ongoing-work page lists an inspection of FCI El Reno in Oklahoma, posted June 8, 2026, and nothing else of the kind; a third Bureau entry, at FCI Estill, is oversight of infrastructure spending rather than an inspection of conditions. The Inspector General states the running total itself, with a date. In its report on USP Canaan, published May 21, 2026, it wrote that “[s]ince 2023, the OIG has conducted inspections at 14 BOP institutions: 7 individual facility inspections, 6 inspections conducted as part of the OIG’s Concurrent Inspections of BOP Food Service Operations, and the most recent ongoing inspection effort at Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Berlin in New Hampshire.” Berlin is the fourteenth, and it is named in the count.

What an unannounced inspection is, and when the report lands

The Canaan report describes the method, which is what will happen here. The Inspector General telephoned USP Canaan at about 8 a.m. on June 2, 2025 to say an inspection would begin at noon that day. Ten OIG employees and two contracted medical subject-matter experts were on site from Monday June 2 to Thursday June 5. They toured general population housing, the Special Housing Unit, health services, the employee screening area, the Psychology, Education and Religious Services programming areas, the mail room, the commissary, the laundry, evidence storage, the visiting room, intake, the food warehouses and the kitchens. They reviewed security camera footage and tested whether the cameras worked. They tested air and water temperatures and whether the showers, sinks and toilets functioned. They interviewed people who live there and people who work there, and read records on staffing, overtime, restraints, lockdowns and modified operations, programming, healthcare, restrictive housing and sexual-abuse reporting. The scope was the state of operations at the time plus roughly the preceding year.

What it produces is a public report and a report to Congress, with recommendations the Bureau must answer — a duty the Federal Prison Oversight Act imposes, directing the Inspector General to inspect Bureau facilities periodically based on its own assessment of risk. Canaan produced nine recommendations and findings on restraints, movement restrictions, healthcare, safety and employee professionalism.

Then comes the wait. Canaan’s fieldwork ran June 2–5, 2025; the report was published on May 21, 2026 — eleven and a half months later, and the report itself records that “[t]he lapse in appropriations that began on October 1, 2025, caused the completion and release of this inspection report to be delayed.” Berlin’s engagement was posted in January 2026. On Canaan’s timetable, a published report is plausible but not promised within the next year. If someone you love is at FCI Berlin, that is a reason to document conditions now, in writing, through the administrative remedy process — a contemporaneous, dated, exhausted record is worth far more when an inspection report lands than a recollection afterward.

The 2023 audit under the Prison Rape Elimination Act

FCI Berlin was audited under the Prison Rape Elimination Act on site from October 31 to November 2, 2023 by Lynni O’Haver, an independent auditor subcontracted by PREA Auditors of America. The final report is dated December 14, 2023.

The institution passed: 41 standards met, none exceeded, none unmet, with four standards audited at agency level rather than here. The auditor interviewed 24 randomly selected men and spoke with Coos County Family Health Services and Just Detention International. In the twelve months before the audit the institution reported two allegations of sexual abuse, both by one incarcerated person against another, both investigated administratively and both closed as unsubstantiated; no staff-on-inmate allegations; and no allegations of sexual harassment of any kind.

The audit is also the most detailed public description of this place that exists:

Designed capacity	1,277
Inmate housing units	14
Population on the first day of the audit	807 (the audit’s summary box prints 808)
Average daily population, previous 12 months	726 (the summary box prints 728)
Age range of the population	19 to 69
Limited English proficient	104
Disclosed prior sexual victimization at risk screening	97
Identified as transgender or intersex	3
Staff on day one	228, with 16 volunteers and 4 contractors having inmate contact
Over capacity at any point in the previous 12 months	No

Two findings are worth carrying forward. The institution reported no deviations from its staffing plan in the audit year, and the Warden confirmed it. And on surveillance, the pre-audit questionnaire recorded that the facility “has not updated or installed video monitoring and electronic surveillance since the last PREA audit”: the auditor saw convex mirrors and cameras throughout the compound, but nothing had been added. Camera coverage is not an abstraction here — the 2023 prosecution of an assault at this institution turned in part on prison video showing the assailant waiting outside a shower.

What the sexual-abuse allegation counts do and do not show

The Government Accountability Office published per-institution allegation counts for every Bureau facility in May 2026, and they are the only public figures of their kind. For FCI Berlin, GAO recorded 13 allegations between 2020 and 2024 in which another incarcerated person was the alleged perpetrator — four in 2020, three in 2021, two in 2022, none in 2023 and four in 2024 — and, in a separate table counted on a different basis, 24 allegations in which a Bureau employee was the alleged perpetrator: none in 2020, eight in 2021, ten in 2022, two in 2023 and four in 2024.

Read those numbers carefully, because it is easy to read them wrongly. They are reported allegations, not findings. Nationally, over 2014 to 2022, 5 percent of allegations against incarcerated people and 9 percent of allegations against staff were substantiated, while 81 percent and 77 percent were unsubstantiated — and “unsubstantiated” means there was not enough evidence to establish either that the allegation happened or that it did not. It does not mean false; that is a separate and much smaller category. GAO publishes no substantiation rate for any individual prison. The two tables are also counted differently — one by the year the incident occurred, from one Bureau system, the other by the year the allegation was reported, from another — so they cannot be added together. And GAO does not adjust for population anywhere in the report, which is why no ranking of prisons can honestly be built from these columns: a large institution outcounts a small one at identical risk, and a low count can equally mean that no one reports.

One thing is worth noticing and not over-reading. The PREA audit’s twelve-month window, running roughly from November 2022 to October 2023, records no staff-on-inmate allegations here; GAO’s table records ten staff-perpetrator allegations reported in calendar 2022 and two in 2023. Different windows, different systems, different counting bases — not directly comparable, and neither wrong. But a reader who has seen only the audit result should know the other record exists. Reports of sexually abusive behavior can be made at any level and do not require the administrative remedy process: Berlin publishes a Crime Stoppers line, 603-342-4051, described in its own handbook as a zero-cost, unmonitored line, alongside the TRULINCS mailbox that goes straight to the Inspector General.

FCI Berlin in the news

• August 2026 — ICE last updated its detention-facility page for FCI Berlin on August 6, 2026, a year and a half after publishing it, with the detainee information line, visiting window and attorney-scheduling mailbox described above.
• July 2026 — the Bureau announced closures at six institutions and the conversion of two camps to satellite low facilities, citing a deferred-maintenance backlog above $4 billion. FCI Berlin was not among them.
• January 2026 — the Inspector General posted its inspection of FCI Berlin to its ongoing-work page.
• April 2025 — ICE published a detention-facility page for FCI Berlin, formalizing the arrangement the ACLU of New Hampshire had confirmed on March 6, 2025 through ICE’s public detainee locator.
• August 2024 — Kareem Davis, 23, was sentenced to nine consecutive months for possessing a weapon at FCI Berlin: a toothbrush sharpened to a point with a handle made from latex gloves, recovered in May 2023. It was his third weapon incident in federal custody. The institution’s Special Investigative Services led the case with FBI assistance.
• October 2023 — Aniel Gomez, 48, was sentenced in Concord to 30 additional months and $1,392 restitution for beating another man at FCI Berlin with two padlocks strapped together in December 2022. Prison video showed him waiting outside a shower for the victim, who suffered head trauma, lost teeth and lacerations.
• August 2019 — Joseph Buenviaje, the institution’s chaplain since 2015, was sentenced to 40 months. From April to November 2018 he smuggled Suboxone, synthetic cannabinoids, marijuana, cell phones and tobacco into the prison once or twice a week, taking more than $52,000 in bribes, receiving contraband by mail addressed to his ministry and leaving it in a cabinet in the prison chapel. On the day of his arrest investigators recovered 111 Suboxone strips and notebooks whose pages had been soaked with synthetic cannabinoids. The Inspector General cited the case to the Senate Homeland Security Committee in November 2022 as an example of Bureau staff criminality.
• January 2018 — Latoya Sebree, 37, a former correctional officer at the institution, was sentenced to 15 months for accepting bribes from men held there in exchange for cell phones, tobacco, marijuana and other contraband. She had pleaded guilty in September 2017.
• 2012 — activation. The Department’s FY 2012 budget summary carried FCI Berlin’s activation at 1,280 beds, and the Inspector General recorded in January 2013 that the two institutions activating that year, FCI Mendota and FCI Berlin, added 564 beds of capacity.

Frequently asked questions about FCI Berlin

Problems at FCI Berlin: where we can help

The issues that recur at this institution are the ones its own record shows: distance, a missing program, two custody systems under one roof, and a window of independent scrutiny that will not stay open forever.

• The RDAP problem. The Bureau’s own lists do not place a Residential Drug Abuse Program here. For someone whose presentence report documents substance abuse, that can be the difference between a § 3621(e) reduction and none, and it is an argument for a transfer request or a judicial recommendation made at the right time rather than after arrival. See our guide to federal prison transfers.
• Distance from home. Berlin is 166 miles from Logan and a long way from every district that sends people here. Visiting frequency, halfway house placement and family ties are all arguable on a designation or redesignation request.
• Immigration custody at a Bureau address. A person held for ICE here is on a different visiting schedule, a different locator and a different set of contacts, and a family can lose weeks searching the wrong database.
• Building the record before the inspection report lands. An Inspector General inspection is under way here. Contemporaneous, dated, exhausted complaints through the administrative remedy program — the BP-9 and the appeals above it — are what turn a recollection into evidence, and every rung of that process has a clock on it: 20 days to file, 20 days for the institution to answer, 20 days to appeal.
• Discipline and the Special Housing Unit. This institution generates federal prosecutions for weapons and assaults, and the discipline that precedes them puts good conduct time at risk. See the Bureau’s discipline program, our guide to disciplinary proceedings and SHU placements. SHU visits here are by video only, which makes the outside record harder to build and more important.
• Medical care that is not happening. Sick call runs four mornings a week and a missed callout is an incident report; records take 45 days. See medical care in federal prison, and the Bureau’s tort claims procedure and our guide to Federal Tort Claims Act claims where an injury has already happened.
• First Step Act time credits — whether they are being earned, calculated and applied correctly, and our work on First Step Act time credits — and sentence computation errors under the sentence computation manual, compassionate release under the Bureau’s reduction-in-sentence policy, and halfway house placement under its placement procedures.
• 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 Berlin, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. The Bureau’s facility page, with address, contact details, published resources and the population figure.
• Institution Supplement BER 5267.09G, Visiting Regulations, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCI Berlin, 2023. Visiting schedule and processing windows, visitor numbers, dress code, permitted items, screening, the ION scan, photographs and directions. Replaced Institution Supplement BER-5267.09G (2020).
• Inmate Handbook, FCI and FPC Berlin, New Hampshire, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCI Berlin, 2023. Daily schedule, counts, the corridor system, telephone and TRULINCS hours, mail, commissary, education, psychology, health services, airports and local transportation.
• FCI Berlin Commissary List, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCI Berlin, 2023. Items, prices and purchase limits.
• Trust Fund/Deposit Fund Manual, Program Statement 4500.13, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Sets the $460 monthly spending limit and records the increase from $360.
• 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. RDAP locations, the Hydroponics and Gardening description, and the programs-by-institution table.
• Residential Drug Abuse Programs and Locations, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2025. The standalone locations list, identical as to Berlin.
• Federal Bureau of Prisons Announces Facility Closures and Operational Changes, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026.
• FY 2012 Budget and Performance Summary, U.S. Department of Justice, Justice Management Division, 2011. Gives FCI Berlin’s activation capacity as 1,280 beds.

Audits and inspections

• Inspection of Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Federal Correctional Institution Berlin, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2026. The ongoing-work notice for the inspection under way at this institution.
• Inspection of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ U.S. Penitentiary Canaan, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2026. Report 26-055, which describes the inspection method and counts Berlin as the fourteenth institution inspected since 2023.
• Federal Prisons: Improvements Needed to Prevent, Detect, and Address Sexual Abuse, U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2026. Report GAO-26-107343, with the per-institution allegation counts and the national substantiation rates.
• PREA Facility Audit Report: FCI Berlin, PREA Auditors of America, 2023. On-site audit of October 31 to November 2, 2023 by Lynni O’Haver, an independent auditor; capacity, population, staffing and allegation data.

Court records

• Arias Lara v. FCI Berlin, Warden, No. 1:25-cv-00229, U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire, 2025. A habeas petition naming the FCI Berlin warden and coded as an alien-detainee case.
• Inmate at FCI Berlin Sentenced to an Additional 9 Months in Federal Prison for Possessing a Weapon, U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of New Hampshire, 2024. Kareem Davis’s sentence.
• Inmate at FCI-Berlin Sentenced to an Additional 30 Months for Assaulting Another Inmate, U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of New Hampshire, 2023. Aniel Gomez’s sentence.
• Former FCI Berlin Chaplain Sentenced to 40 Months for Accepting Bribes to Smuggle Drugs into Prison, U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of New Hampshire, 2019. Joseph Buenviaje’s sentence.

News and other sources

• Federal Correctional Institution – Berlin, NH, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 2026. The detention-facility page: detainee information line, visiting window, mailing format and attorney scheduling.
• Online Detainee Locator System, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 2026.
• ACLU-NH Confirms FCI Berlin Already Jailing ICE Detainees, American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire, 2025.
• Northern New Hampshire Correctional Facility (NNHCF), New Hampshire Department of Corrections, 2026.
• 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e), Imprisonment of a convicted person, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).

Sources reviewed September 2026.

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