FCI Allenwood Medium: Visiting, Mail, Programs, Inspections

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

FCI Allenwood Medium at a glance

FCI Allenwood Medium is a medium-security federal prison for men on U.S. Route 15 in Union County, Pennsylvania, holding 1,070 men as of September 2026, the most of the three prisons at the Federal Correctional Complex at Allenwood, with FCI Allenwood Low and USP Allenwood. Its visiting room, open only on weekends and federal holidays, is the smallest on the complex.

Official name	FCI Allenwood Medium · also FCI Allenwood
BOP code	ALM · complex ALX
Security level	Medium; men
Population	1,070 (as of September 2026)
Visiting	Saturday, Sunday, and federal holidays, 8:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m.
Inmate mail	Committed name and register number · FCI Allenwood Medium · Federal Correctional Institution · P.O. Box 2000 · White Deer, PA 17887
Send money	Lockbox · Western Union (code city FBOP, DC) · MoneyGram (receive code 7932)
Phone	570-547-7950 · Fax 570-547-7751
Street address	Route 15, 2 miles north of Allenwood, White Deer, PA 17810 · Union County
Judicial district	Middle District of Pennsylvania
BOP region	Northeast
Designated capacity	916
Special Housing Unit	Yes
Medical care level	2 and 3 · see health care and care levels
Mental health care level	2
RDAP	Yes
UNICOR	See work, school, and trade training
Camp	None

The Medium is one of the federal prisons in Pennsylvania and belongs to the Bureau’s Northeast Region. Its own paperwork calls it simply FCI Allenwood, and under the March 2024 visiting supplement its visiting room holds 150 people, counting staff, prisoners, and visitors.

Which Allenwood prison is FCI Allenwood Medium?

FCI Allenwood Medium is the middle-security prison of the three on the Allenwood complex, Bureau code ALM, with its own mailbox, switchboard, and visiting rules; our Pennsylvania guide covers the state’s other federal prisons.

How the three compare, with populations as of September 2026:

Code	Prison	Security	Population	Inmate mail (White Deer, PA 17887)	Main number	Visiting days
ALM	FCI Allenwood Medium (this page)	Medium	1,070	P.O. Box 2000	570-547-7950	Sat., Sun., holidays
ALF	FCI Allenwood Low	Low	1,037	P.O. Box 1000	570-547-1990	Fri., Sat., Sun., holidays
ALP	USP Allenwood	High	351	P.O. Box 3000	570-547-0963	Sat., Sun., holidays

Most confusion starts with the name. The cover of the Medium’s Inmate Information Handbook names the prison only as “FCI Allenwood,” above the Medium’s own post office box and telephone number, and in the complex’s own papers, including the 2024 visiting supplement and the 2025 PREA audit, “FCI” means this prison, “LSCI” the Low, and “USP” the penitentiary. Outsiders are less careful: the Inspector General’s 2025 food-service report called the Medium “FCI #1” and the Low “FCI #2,” and several press releases say “FCI Allenwood” without saying which prison they mean. Tie any record to a register number and the facility code in the Locator’s record (ALM).

The town is the second trap. The roster places the Medium in White Deer and the other two prisons in Allenwood, yet all three share a Route 15 street address two miles north of Allenwood, ZIP code 17810, and all three take prisoners’ mail at White Deer post office boxes, ZIP code 17887. It is one complex, so route a trip to the complex rather than to either town.

The Medium’s records all say Union County. The Bureau’s address record gives Union for each of the Medium’s addresses; a Middle District U.S. Attorney’s release of September 11, 2024, placed “FCI Allenwood,” without naming the prison, in Union County; and the Census Bureau’s geocoder puts the roster’s map point for the Medium, a point the roster also gives the penitentiary and the complex, in Gregg Township, Union County. The Low’s own map point falls in Brady Township, Lycoming County, a conflict our FCI Allenwood Low page lays out. Should an official form turn on the county, confirm it with the institution. The court is the same either way: both counties are in the Middle District of Pennsylvania under 28 U.S.C. § 118(b), where a § 2241 habeas petition about how a sentence is carried out here is filed.

There is no camp. The roster records none for the Medium, and the Bureau’s address record gives it no camp mailing address, so every letter goes to the institution box shown below.

What is the security level at FCI Allenwood Medium?

FCI Allenwood Medium is a medium-security prison for men, and the 2025 PREA audit records its security and custody levels as “Medium/In”; see our guide to medium-security prisons.

The prison does not choose its population. The Designation and Sentence Computation Center in Grand Prairie, Texas, scores each man under the Bureau’s security designation rules, Program Statement 5100.08 (as amended in 2026), whose Table 5-2 sends a man with 16 to 23 points and no Public Safety Factor to a medium. A man with fewer points can land here with more than 20 years to serve or a Serious Escape factor, while a Disruptive Group or Prison Disturbance factor, or more than 30 years to serve, points to a penitentiary instead. Our page on designation explains the scoring.

Some men are here only in passing. In Bouza v. Warden of FCI Allenwood-Medium, No. 4:24-cv-00998 (M.D. Pa. Dec. 3, 2024), the government said a man reclassified to minimum security on July 16, 2024, was placed in administrative detention as a “holdover” “for his protection, to safeguard against any potential interactions with medium security inmates”; he called the detention retaliation, and by early September 2024 he had been moved to a low-security prison in Texas. Chief Judge Brann dismissed his habeas petition on two grounds: he had exhausted none of his claims, since his classification appeal to the Bureau’s General Counsel was rejected as late and never cured and nothing showed he had pursued the others, and none of them, including the detention and a loss of phone privileges, could be brought in habeas. The routes that remain are a classification review, a transfer request, and the administrative remedy process.

Who are the notable inmates at FCI Allenwood Medium?

Two widely reported prisoners are at FCI Allenwood Medium today, according to the Bureau’s Inmate Locator, and a third left in 2024 after a federal judge shortened his sentence.

Kifano Jordan (register number 86333-054), known as “Shotti,” is at the Medium with a projected release date of April 24, 2032. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced on September 6, 2019, that he had been sentenced to 15 years after pleading guilty to a firearms count over an April 3, 2018, assault in Manhattan, which the release’s headline calls an armed robbery, and admitting a Brooklyn shooting on April 21, 2018, both part of his participation in the Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods. The New York Daily News described him as the former manager of the rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine; he is not the rapper, and the Locator shows him at Allenwood Medium FCI, not the penitentiary.

Mohammed Jabbateh (75217-066), the former Liberian rebel commander known as “Jungle Jabbah,” is here with a projected release date of November 17, 2040. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania announced on April 19, 2018, that he had been sentenced to 30 years for immigration-document fraud and perjury, for lying about his wartime role in Liberia when he sought asylum and permanent residence.

James Cromitie (70658-054), one of the four Newburgh, New York, men convicted of terrorism charges in 2010, left the Medium on April 17, 2024, according to the Locator’s record. The Associated Press reported that Judge Colleen McMahon had granted him compassionate release on January 19, 2024, reducing his sentence to time served plus 90 days after 15 years of a 25-year minimum, in a ruling that faulted the FBI for inventing the plot; the order left his conviction in place.

Other names that appear on lists for this prison belong elsewhere, as their locator records show:

Name	Locator record	What the records show
Farooque Ahmed	FCI Schuylkill (code SCH); projected release July 13, 2030	Held at a different Pennsylvania prison, not the Medium
Kifah Jayyousi	Released September 15, 2017; last listed with the Detroit residential reentry office	No record places him at the Medium
Ronald Pelton	Released November 24, 2015; last listed with the Baltimore residential reentry office	The press mention says only “Allenwood”
Daniel Patrick Boyd	Released December 30, 2024; last listed with the Raleigh residential reentry office	No record places him at the Medium

How do I find someone at FCI Allenwood Medium?

To find someone at FCI Allenwood Medium, use the Bureau’s Inmate Locator: enter the eight-digit register number, or a first and last name together, and look for “Allenwood Medium FCI.” A result reading Allenwood Low FCI or Allenwood USP means a different prison, with a different mailbox, telephone number, and, for the Low, visiting schedule. Compound and hyphenated surnames can defeat the name search, so try each part before deciding that a man has been released or moved. Our page on inmate number searches explains how register numbers work.

How do I write to someone at FCI Allenwood Medium?

Letters to a man at FCI Allenwood Medium go to the post office box in the Bureau’s address record, set out like this:

Committed name and register number
FCI Allenwood Medium
Federal Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 2000
White Deer, PA 17887

The Route 15 address, ZIP code 17810, is the physical and shipping address, not the one for letters. The Medium’s inmate handbook gives the box as “P.O. Box 2000, White Deer, PA 17887-2000”; its instruction to include a housing unit, such as 1A or 2A, is for the return address on a man’s own outgoing letters. What may go inside an envelope is covered in our guide to writing to a federal prisoner.

Medium-security mail rules apply. A man’s outgoing letters go into the unit mailbox unsealed with a TRULINCS label, and the handbook says the morning watch officer collects, inspects, reads, and seals them, as the Bureau’s correspondence rules allow for a medium. Hardcover books and newspapers must come straight from a publisher, book club, or bookstore at any federal prison, and at a medium so must softcover books and magazines, so a paperback mailed from home will be rejected. Mail service ordinarily runs Monday through Friday, not on weekends or holidays.

A lawyer’s letter is opened only in the man’s presence when the envelope identifies the sender as an attorney and is marked “Special Mail – Open Only in the Presence of the Inmate”; otherwise it is opened as general correspondence. Men seal their own legal mail and take it to the mail room between 11:00 and 11:45 a.m. on weekdays. After the District of Columbia’s April 2016 inspection, D.C. prisoners reported that staff were not honoring the inspectors’ special-mail privileges and had opened incoming special mail outside the prisoner’s presence. See our page on attorney-client communications.

How do I send money to someone at FCI Allenwood Medium?

Money for a man at FCI Allenwood Medium goes through the Bureau’s national system; nothing is sent to the prison itself. The Bureau’s Send Money page gives three ways:

• By mail: a money order, U.S. government check, certified or cashier’s check, or bank draft, sent to Federal Bureau of Prisons, the man’s committed name, his eight-digit register number, Post Office Box 474701, Des Moines, Iowa 50947-0001, with a return address in the upper left corner. Cash and personal checks are refused, other enclosures are discarded, and non-postal money orders and non-government checks can be held 15 days, foreign items 45.
• Western Union: online, in the Send2Corrections app, or by phone at 1-800-634-3422, option 2, using the code city FBOP, DC and, for the account, the register number with no spaces followed immediately by the man’s last name.
• MoneyGram: Receive Code 7932, company “Federal Bureau of Prisons,” city Washington, DC, with the same account format; online sends are limited to $300, by MasterCard or Visa.

Electronic deposits made between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. Eastern time post in two to four hours, every day including holidays, and later ones post at 7:00 a.m. the next morning, though the Bureau’s trust fund rules, Program Statement 4500.13, say such transfers ordinarily post within two hours. The Bureau answers deposit questions at 202-307-2712, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Eastern time. Our guide to sending money has more.

Two instructions in the Medium’s 2022 handbook are out of date: it still lists personal checks as acceptable and says foreign checks are held 30 days. The Bureau’s page and Program Statement 4500.13 (2026) refuse personal checks and hold foreign items for 45 days.

The handbook adds that a man in refuse status under the Inmate Financial Responsibility Program may spend only $25 a month, cannot work in UNICOR, and cannot earn more than maintenance pay, and that a withdrawal over $500 needs an associate warden’s approval.

What are the visiting hours at FCI Allenwood Medium?

Visiting at FCI Allenwood Medium runs Saturdays, Sundays, and federal holidays, from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Complex supplement ALX-5267.09C, Visiting Regulations (March 15, 2024) opens the rooms on those days “for the FCI and USP”; the Friday hours in the same passage belong to the Low alone. Processing in stops at 2:00 p.m., when staff begin walking visitors out in order of arrival so the room is empty by 3:00, and visitors must have their own transportation both ways, even if a visit is cut short.

Friday visiting existed in April 2016, when the District of Columbia’s inspectors recorded Friday hours and a five-day monthly cap; listings that still give Friday hours are out of date.

Check before a long drive: call 570-547-7950 before setting out. Our visiting guide and the Bureau’s visiting regulations explain the national rules.

Visiting points and who may come

Each man at the Medium has eight visiting points a calendar month, and every Saturday or Sunday visit costs two of them however short it is, which leaves room for four ordinary weekend visits. No points are charged on federal holidays, or for legal visits, a Minister of Record, or Prison Visitation and Support volunteers. If a man leaves the room and a later visitor comes the same day, the supplement counts that as a separate visit. Anything beyond eight points has to be requested in writing and approved beforehand by the designated associate warden, and the supplement allows it “only when there is a significant need.”

Plan the month around that: two days on one weekend use half the allowance, a month with five weekends still holds only four ordinary visits, and federal holidays are the free extra days.

The handbook’s older system, visiting “limited to five days per month” with children two and under left out of the five-visitor count, is gone; the supplement counts every child.

The supplement’s other rules on who may visit:

• No more than five people at a time, children included, unless a larger group is approved in writing in advance; a same-day request is refused.
• Up to 25 immediate family members and 10 others may be listed, each background-checked and ordinarily known to the man before prison.
• A drug or violent felony in the past three years ordinarily draws a recommendation to deny; a visitor under federal, state, or local supervision needs a letter from the supervising agency authorizing the visit; and only the Warden has authority to refuse to add a visitor to the list.
• Men in holdover status are not eligible for visits at the holdover prison under the 2024 supplement; the older handbook allowed immediate family.
• Staff will not tell callers who is on a man’s visiting list, which the supplement treats as private; ask him.

The Medium’s room is also the smallest on the complex: the March 2024 supplement caps it at 150 people, counting staff, prisoners, and visitors, against 190 at the Low and 240 at the penitentiary. When overcrowding forces visits to end, officers first ask for volunteers; after that, visits end in order of arrival, earliest first, with consideration given to how often a family visits and how far it traveled.

Some visits are non-contact only. Every man in the Special Housing Unit gets one-hour non-contact visits, and men with increased security concerns are considered for non-contact visiting first. Under the handbook, a guilty disciplinary finding for a cellphone (code 108), drugs or alcohol (codes 111 to 113), or sexual acts (code 205) means six months in the non-contact cells, counted from the day visiting is restored or, if it was never lost, from the finding. See our page on discipline.

What visitors may wear and carry

Dress for the strictest reading, because the lobby officer decides. The supplement bars colors resembling prison clothing (khaki, tan, beige, and brown, plus green in the body of the document), sweatpants, gray sweatshirts, hoods, tight, stretchy, or see-through fabric, bare shoulders, low necklines and midriffs, camouflage, torn clothes, gang or sports-team insignia, open-toed or open-backed shoes, and hats other than religious headwear. Hemlines may end no more than an inch above the knee, slits included, measured seated under the handbook; a bra is required, a plain white T-shirt cannot be the only top, and watches, sunglasses, and scarves are barred.

In a clear purse or zip-lock bag a visitor may bring identification, life-sustaining medication, two feminine hygiene items, one car key, and up to $50 per adult in quarters or $1 and $5 bills for the vending machines, which the man visited may not touch; purchases are eaten in the room, and make-up, newspapers, and photographs stay out. For a baby: three diapers, three bottles no more than three-quarters full, one sealed container of baby food, a sippy cup, a spoon, wipes, a change of clothes, and a blanket up to two feet by three, in a clear tote, but no strollers, carriers, powders, or pumping supplies.

Phones cannot go into the lobby lockers. The handbook tells visitors to use “lockers provided in the front lobby or left in their cars,” but the 2024 supplement says anyone who arrives “in personal or rented vehicles will not be allowed to place items in a locker,” and no phone or electronic device may enter. Leave the phone in the car before checking in, because a visitor who returns to the car afterward ends the visit.

Identification and drug screening

Visitors 16 and older need a government photo ID showing name, date of birth, sex, height, eye color, and address, a passport with a U.S. visa stamp or I-94, or a U.S. military ID. Consular and border-crossing cards, school and business IDs, expired or altered documents, cards marked “Federal Limits,” and birth certificates are refused.

Everyone must clear a walk-through metal detector; a hand-held detector is authorized for a visitor carrying medical documentation that describes an implant, and is also used if the walk-through unit stops working. Visitors are picked at random for pat searches and for an ion spectrometry scan, in which a hand-held device is passed over clothing and identification to detect drug traces. Refusing a pat search means no visit; refusing the scan bars a visitor for at least 48 hours.

The documents disagree about a positive scan. The 2022 handbook keeps the old rule that a positive “cannot alone provide the justification to deny entry.” The 2024 supplement denies the visit, allows another try after 48 hours, and suspends visiting for 30, 90, and 180 days after second, third, and later positives, including positives recorded at other prisons. Program Statement 5524.01 (2026), the newest, lets the Warden allow a controlled or non-contact visit after a first positive if a pat or vehicle search finds nothing, keeps the 48-hour wait and the suspensions, and requires testing at every visit for a year. A visitor turned away receives form BP-A0732 and may appeal to the Warden, the Regional Director, and then the Central Office. Our pages on ion spectrometry screening and searches, shakedowns and contraband explain the national rules.

Getting there

The complex is on U.S. Route 15 about two miles north of Allenwood. From Interstate 80, take exit 210B (formerly 30B) north on Route 15 through Allenwood and turn left at the red light about two miles on; from Williamsport, head south on Route 15 and turn right at the red light. The supplement gives 13 miles to Williamsport and either 8 or 12 to Lewisburg, and the District’s inspectors put Washington about 193 miles away in 2016.

There is no city bus. The supplement lists Trailways at 1-800-692-6314, and the handbook says taxis may not wait on the grounds; both documents are years old, so call ahead.

How do phone calls and email work at FCI Allenwood Medium?

Men at FCI Allenwood Medium are limited to 510 telephone minutes a calendar month under the Bureau’s telephone regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, issued September 3, 2026. Men eligible for First Step Act telephone incentives get 300 of those minutes free, and anyone who uses up those 300, eligible or not, may buy the other 210; properly arranged unmonitored legal calls do not count. A single call should generally not exceed 15 minutes, with at least 30 minutes between completed calls. The Medium’s 2022 handbook still prints the rescinded 2008 limits, 300 minutes a month plus 100 extra in November and December, and the new statement has no holiday supplement.

The handbook’s local rules may still apply; ask the unit team. Its unit schedule opens the phones from 4:30 to 9:45 p.m. every evening, from 6:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on weekends and holidays, and to everyone from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on weekdays, outside counts, with one phone per unit kept during weekday work hours for men on evening shifts or days off; ten or more calls in a day, or any call during work hours, brings discipline; men in administrative detention or disciplinary segregation get one social call every 30 days; and a man without funds, meaning no $6 balance for 30 days while unassigned or medically unable to work, may request one collect call a month. Under the 2026 statement, the person called can also block a man’s calls through a voice prompt and can lift the block only by written request with a recent phone bill and government identification. See our guide to federal prison phone calls.

To talk with a lawyer without monitoring, a man asks his correctional counselor and gives a reason, such as a court deadline; calls on the unit phones are recorded.

Email runs through TRULINCS, and a contact must accept a man’s invitation before messages can be exchanged; our TRULINCS email page explains the service and how families sign up.

What can people buy at the FCI Allenwood Medium commissary?

Men at FCI Allenwood Medium may spend up to the national ceiling of $460 a month set by the Bureau’s trust fund rules, Program Statement 4500.13, issued May 7, 2026; the limit rises by $50 during the November and December holiday period, for no more than one validation period. The Medium’s own posted form, “FCI Allenwood – Commissary List, January to March 2025,” signed by the Low’s warden, the Medium’s warden, and the complex warden, states no spending limit: it prints prices and quantity caps, including $14.60 in stamps, and exempts stamps, over-the-counter medication, and copy cards from a spending limitation whose amount it never gives. The Low’s and the penitentiary’s lists each print a $90 weekly limit, so ask the unit team whether one applies here too.

The handbook’s figure of $360 a month is obsolete; it was the national ceiling before PS 4500.13 raised it to $460. The program statement also excludes more purchases than the form does, among them nicotine replacement products, vitamins, footwear, and secured media devices.

The form’s rules are blunt: all sales are final, an unreadable or incomplete list is not filled and costs the week’s shopping, a man absent when called forfeits the week, and there are no substitutions. The handbook’s Monday-to-Thursday unit rotation may not hold, since the 2025 form tells men to “be ready to shop any day of the week,” and the handbook ties each man’s monthly cycle to the last digit of the first five digits of his register number, from the 1st for a 0 to the 28th for a 9.

Legal work here still runs partly on typewriters. The handbook says the library’s machines may be used for legal papers if a man supplies the materials, and the form sells them as local items: a ribbon for $7.85, lift-off tape for $2.60, and a print wheel for $49.35. It also lists a Score 7 tablet at $137.80, a Timex Ironman watch at $55.85 (within the handbook’s $100 cap on a watch), cold-weather knitwear, a cosmetics section, and a seasonal Ramadan section, with caps such as seven bags of chips and 24 waters or 12 sodas. Separate lists govern men in the Special Housing Unit. See our page on commissary items.

What programs are available at FCI Allenwood Medium?

FCI Allenwood Medium offers drug treatment, GED and English classes, and building-trades training, and at least in 2024 it had a UNICOR recycling plant. The Bureau’s First Step Act Approved Programs Guide (August 2026) lists “FCI Allenwood – M” among its residential drug-program locations, its other location-specific entries leave the Medium out, and on two programs the Bureau’s own records disagree. For anything a release date depends on, ask the unit team in writing.

Drug treatment

The Medium runs a Residential Drug Abuse Program under the Bureau’s RDAP rules. The June 2026 location list printed in the August 2026 guide, with “57 RDAPS at 50 Locations,” includes it, and the District’s 2024 report describes one program housing unit; in April 2016 the District’s inspectors found 112 men in the 120-bed unit, with treatment from 7:30 to 10:30 each morning. The handbook describes a half-day program of at least nine months, interviews ordinarily 42 to 24 months before release, and a reduction of up to a year under 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e); its count of “76 BOP institutions” is out of date.

Admission and the reduction are separate decisions. The District’s inspectors, reporting in January 2017 on their 2016 visit, found that policy keeps some D.C. Code prisoners serving indeterminate sentences out of the program, because they have no halfway-house date until after a parole hearing, and that many more cannot receive the early-release reduction because a current felony conviction for a crime of violence rules it out. Our RDAP guide explains how eligibility decisions are challenged.

Work, school and trade training

UNICOR at the Medium was a recycling operation when the District’s inspectors toured in early 2024: their 2024 report says “FCI Allenwood operates a recycling plant as its UNICOR program,” with 199 men enrolled, and the Bureau told them the FCI factory posts its waiting list at the entrance “on a weekly basis.” Earlier records point both ways: in April 2016 the inspectors were told the factory would be closing soon, possibly that June, but the Bureau’s letter of January 5, 2017, said it was “still operating, and should continue until 2018.” The August 2026 guide’s Federal Prison Industries entry, which names 54 institutions, leaves the Medium off, and its grid does not mark it either, so ask the unit team whether the plant is operating and how long the list is.

Men with limited English who score below 225 on the CASAS test must take English as a second language, and men without a verified diploma must attend GED classes for at least 240 hours; the handbook bars promotion above pay grade 4 until a man completes 480 hours or the GED. In early 2024 the Medium had five teachers and four vocational instructors. See our education page.

The trade programs lean toward the building trades. The handbook’s 2022 table lists Business Information Processing, Electrical, Building Trades/Carpentry, and Plumbing, with a housekeeper apprenticeship, each requiring a diploma or GED, and the District’s 2024 report adds forklift certification, construction flagging, and ServSafe, many certified through the National Occupational Competency Testing Institute. Aquaculture, still listed in 2016, appears in neither. See our page on vocational training.

Faith-based programs

Life Connections, the Bureau’s residential faith-based reentry program, is the clearest disagreement in the records. The August 2026 guide’s entry for it names five institutions, none at Allenwood, while the guide’s by-institution grid marks the Medium; in 2016 the chaplain told the District’s inspectors it had two participants here, but the Bureau’s reply of January 5, 2017, said the Medium had the Threshold program “but there isn’t a Life Connections Program.” Ask the chaplain in writing; our page on religious programs covers the options.

The grid also marks the Medium, and not the Low, for Franklin Covey’s 7 Habits on the Inside, Narcotics Anonymous, and Social Skills Training, courses the guide says may be offered at any Bureau institution, so those marks show permission rather than a class on the schedule.

Legal work, the law library and marriages

The “Legal Activities” document linked from the Bureau’s page for the Medium is not local: it is the national Program Statement 1315.07 (1999), which never mentions Allenwood and has been rescinded. Its replacement, the Bureau’s inmate legal activities rules, Program Statement 1315.08 (2026), ends the requirement for physical law libraries in favor of the Electronic Law Library, requires each institution to publish a supplement on alternative legal access and on notifying families and lawyers when visiting is disrupted, and calls for alternative legal access once a disruption passes 24 hours.

The handbook lists library hours on weekday mornings and afternoons, Monday-to-Thursday evenings until 8:15, and Saturdays, with a book cart in Recreation on Sundays; a contract notary is available on a “bi-weekly basis” for $35, and legal copies cost 15 cents a page. See our law library guide.

Lawyers should book legal visits in advance and, under the supplement, wear business or business-casual clothing. The visits are watched but not overheard, private attorney rooms are ordinarily used on non-visiting days, papers pass only through staff in a sealed legal-mail envelope or by post, and during modified operations legal visits are arranged case by case; PS 1315.08 also adds guidance on enforcing the dress code for legal visitors.

Weddings are an open question. The handbook says marriages “cannot be accommodated in this institution” because no county official could come to the prison, while the 2024 supplement lists inmate marriages among events scheduled on non-visiting days, so ask the chaplain which applies; see our page on inmate marriages.

The roster also marks the Medium, like the other two Allenwood prisons, as an Institution Hearing Program site, where an immigration judge can decide a non-citizen’s removal case during his sentence; see our page on the Institution Hearing Program.

What is daily life like at FCI Allenwood Medium?

Daily life at FCI Allenwood Medium is cell living on a fixed clock. The Medium’s handbook is written for cells, not dormitories: every cell has a duress alarm button for emergencies, no more than three men may gather in a two-man cell and only with its door open, and cell doors are secured for every count and when the units lock down at 9:45 p.m. See our page on federal prison housing.

A weekday at the Medium, from the 2022 handbook, which calls every time approximate:

Time	Weekdays
12:01, 3:00, and 5:00 a.m.	Counts
6:45 a.m.	Breakfast line opens; laundry open house; sick call on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday
7:15 and 7:30 a.m.	UNICOR work call, then general work call
10:30 a.m.	Lunch line opens
3:15 p.m.	Recall from work
4:00 p.m.	Standing count; mail call once it clears
4:50 p.m.	Evening meal
8:00 p.m.	Recall from evening activities
9:45 p.m.	Units locked down
10:00 p.m.	Standing count

Weekends and holidays add a 10:00 a.m. standing count before brunch. Movement is controlled, with ten-minute moves at half past each hour, and the handbook admits parts of itself are unfinished (its paragraph on passes says “this need to be updated”), so confirm routines with the unit officer. No food, fruit included, may leave the dining hall. Our pages on controlled movement, institutional counts, and prison meals explain each routine.

In April 2016 the District’s inspectors described three buildings with six housing units, including the drug program’s Unit 1B, and a Special Housing Unit designed for 145 men. Each unit then had four six-man cells, which the Warden planned to turn into three-man cells for prisoners with disabilities; the Bureau’s January 5, 2017, letter called the conversion “sixty percent complete,” and the Council’s report put it at 63 percent.

The handbook lists indoor gym, fitness, hobby-craft, band, and piano rooms and a ceramics kiln, and outdoor fields and courts for softball, soccer, flag football, volleyball, handball, basketball, horseshoes, and bocce, with a walking track for men with disabilities; no one may go within 15 feet of the perimeter fence. See our guide to recreation.

Health care and care levels

Each Allenwood prison has its own assistant health services administrator, dental officer, and medical officer, the handbook says. A man’s primary care provider is set by the fourth and fifth digits of his register number and cannot be changed, routine sick call is not held on weekends or holidays, triage moves to the units during a lockdown, and new commitments get a physical within 14 days and a dental exam within 30. Our medical care guide explains sick call.

The Bureau’s 2024 care-level charts print the Medium as medical care levels 2 and 3, though the medical chart’s own list by level shows “ALX – FCI” under level 3 only; the mental-health chart from the same release says level 2. Under the Bureau’s patient care rules, Program Statement 6031.06 (2026), level 3 prisons hold men with “more complex medical conditions,” and the Health Services Division assigns each prison’s level, so a chart from 2024 may no longer be current. See the Bureau’s care-level rules, its mental health care rules, and our page on care levels.

What do inspectors say about conditions at FCI Allenwood Medium?

Inspectors have examined FCI Allenwood Medium through District of Columbia inspections in 2016 and 2024, a 2024 federal food-service inspection, and a 2025 sexual-abuse audit, and a 1999 Inspector General case study describes a failure inside the prison. Several cover the whole complex, so check whether a figure is for the Medium or for all three prisons.

The Inspector General’s 2024 food-service inspection

FCC Allenwood was one of six Bureau institutions the Justice Department’s Inspector General inspected on short notice for Concurrent Inspections of BOP Food Service Operations (E&I Report 25-062, June 17, 2025). The six, chosen on risk-assessment scores and the volume and nature of complaints, were told at 10 a.m. Eastern on June 4, 2024, that teams would arrive by 11, and the work ran through June 6. The report counted 1,209 men at the Medium, labeled “FCI #1: Medium Security,” as of June 4, 2024.

Its Allenwood findings were mostly favorable: clean food-service areas, no obvious sign of unsafe food, and the conclusion that “FCC Allenwood and MCC Chicago had the fewest deficiencies of the institutions we inspected.” It noted food-service staffing at 89 percent (33 of 37 authorized positions filled, though two of those employees were on administrative leave), a warehouse without cameras where prisoners did not work, and ice at a freezer entrance that the Bureau fixed with new gaskets.

One finding cannot be assigned to this prison. The report says drop ceilings “In the FCI kitchen” let inmates hide food, but Allenwood has two FCIs and the report never says which kitchen; the Bureau’s written response says those areas are now searched each time inmates are released from them. By the Inspector General’s own count in May 2026 (Report 26-055), it had inspected 14 Bureau institutions since 2023, a total that includes the six food-service sites, Allenwood among them.

The Inspector General’s 1998 case study at the Medium

An older Inspector General report describes a failure inside the Medium itself. Criminal Calls (August 1999) traced Anthony Jones, a notorious East Baltimore drug dealer who, while held at the Low in February 1997, used an Allenwood telephone to order his step-brother’s murder. Redesignated to “Allenwood’s medium security facility” in September 1997, he was delivered to the Medium by the Marshals Service on June 16, 1998, after his conviction.

Staff at the Medium “were not familiar with his criminal history or recent conviction,” the report found, and after the standard day in administrative detention he went into general population “with no restrictions on his telephone use”; his unit team apparently never read his central file. Only after the Inspector General raised the case did the Bureau act, placing him in administrative detention pending reclassification on July 10, 1998. The report called the Bureau’s failures in his case “inexcusable” and put much of the blame on the Low, whose staff never recorded his murder and racketeering charges in the Bureau’s SENTRY database or placed him in its phone-abuse category. What never reaches the central file, or is never read there, does not travel with a man, so put any safety or separation concern in writing to the unit team and keep a copy.

The District of Columbia’s inspections

The D.C. Corrections Information Council inspects federal prisons holding people sentenced under the D.C. Code, and its figures describe only the small group of D.C. residents who take part. For its complex report of June 27, 2024, it inspected the Medium on January 31 and February 1, 2024, interviewed 34 of the 71 D.C. Code prisoners there, and recorded a rated capacity of 916, a population of 1,235 in early 2024, and an average daily population of 1,132; its tour excluded the Special Housing Unit.

Among the 34 men interviewed, 14 said sick-call requests went unanswered for more than 48 hours; 11 had not seen a dentist at the Medium, though none had been there over three years; 16 had a mental-health diagnosis, and 2 of the 14 prescribed psychiatric medication said they were not getting it; 15 said staff made racist remarks; and 9 had filed grievances. Three men separately alleged that staff sprayed pepper spray into Special Housing Unit cells “without provocation or reason,” and others said they feared placement there. To the medical, Special Housing Unit, and staff-conduct complaints, the Bureau replied that the Council had given it no specific information to act on.

The Council also found PREA signs without a number to call (the Bureau said the handbook lists hotline numbers) and the Medium on modified operations while staff searched each housing unit. Lockdowns, it wrote, kept residents from programs, religious services, family contact, visits, and the law library, and it asked for continued access “especially when a lockdown will exceed 30-days”; the Bureau replied that in-person visiting may be suspended but that men keep daily access to unit team staff and postal mail continues. See our page on lockdowns and modified operations.

The Council’s earlier report, FCI Allenwood Medium Inspection Report (January 9, 2017), rests on a visit of April 22, 2016, and interviews with 20 of the 101 D.C. prisoners then held; it recorded 1,252 men against a rated capacity of 919 in April 2016, or 136 percent. Its most serious item was an “alarming report” that officers took prisoners to a “shack” on the compound and beat them, which the Bureau’s reply of January 5, 2017, called “without merit,” citing a review of fiscal 2016 and asking for specifics.

The Council also objected to strip searches of D.C. prisoners after their interviews; the Bureau answered that staff may conduct a visual search where a good opportunity for concealment has occurred, as after a contact visit. Twenty interviews from a decade ago are a snapshot, not a verdict.

The 2025 PREA audit and allegation counts

Lynni O’Haver of Corrections Consulting Services audited the whole complex under the Prison Rape Elimination Act, on site July 29–31, 2025, and her final report of September 10, 2025, found all 45 standards met. The Bureau links it from the Medium’s page under the label “FCI Allenwood Medium PREA Report,” and the Low’s and penitentiary’s pages serve the same file. See our page on PREA in federal prisons.

For the Medium, the form in the final report of September 10, 2025, lists a designated capacity of 916, a “current population” of 1,249, an average daily population of 1,246 over the prior year, ages 19 to 82, an average stay of 536.2 days, and 954 admissions in a year, and it answers yes to whether the facility had been over capacity in the past 12 months. The form does not date its “current” figures, which add up to 2,530 for the three prisons; the complex held 2,317 on the first day of the on-site audit. Across the complex it recorded five sexual-abuse and four sexual-harassment allegations in the prior twelve months, all against other prisoners, and all nine investigations ended as unsubstantiated. Men can report through a TRULINCS mailbox to the Inspector General, and the handbook lists Transitions of Pennsylvania in Lewisburg (1-800-850-7948) and the National Sexual Assault Hotline (1-800-656-4673). See our page on sexual assault in prison.

The Government Accountability Office’s May 2026 report on sexual abuse in federal prisons (GAO-26-107343) lists, for the Medium from 2020 through 2024, 14 allegations naming another incarcerated person, by year of incident (2, 2, 2, 3, 5), and 17 naming staff, by year reported (5, 2, 7, none, 3). Each is an allegation, not a finding; GAO found that most allegations nationwide from 2014 through 2022 ended as unsubstantiated, meaning the evidence could not settle them either way. Table 7 and Table 8 draw on different Bureau systems, so the Medium’s 14 and 17 should not be added, and without any adjustment for population they cannot rank the Medium against other prisons.

Staffing, safety and deaths

The Bureau’s fourth-quarter fiscal 2024 staffing report gives the Allenwood complex 6.8 prisoners per correctional officer as of September 30, 2024, and its post review shows the Medium with 18, 52, and 25 officers on the weekday morning, day, and evening watches, against 17, 28, and 26 on weekends; the weekend day watch, which covers visiting, had 24 fewer officers.

On January 22, 2016, after a complaint inspection, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued a notice, the federal counterpart of a citation, to “the medium security federal correctional facility” for one willful violation: not requiring puncture-resistant gloves for pat-downs and housing-unit searches.

The Bureau’s FOIA list of deaths in custody for 2019 through 2022 records Adrian Payne’s death at ALM on May 8, 2021, under “Blunt Trauma” and “Assault (homicide) by blunt object.” The Daily Item, reporting the Bureau’s press release, wrote that Payne “suffered life-threatening injuries and was transported to an area hospital where he was subsequently pronounced dead” after an altercation with another prisoner around 5 p.m., and that the FBI was notified.

In court

The pandemic left its numbers in the court record. Denying a petition in Butcher v. Howard, No. 1:20-cv-01994 (M.D. Pa. Jan. 5, 2021), Judge Kane recited Bureau figures as of January 4, 2021, showing 459 positive results among 929 men tested at the Medium, with 141 prisoner and 22 staff COVID-19 cases; the court found neither a sufficiently serious deprivation nor deliberate indifference.

Missed remedy steps end cases from here. Besides Bouza, Judge Kane dismissed without prejudice a First Step Act credit petition from a man who had never filed an administrative remedy, ruling that not knowing how was no excuse (Houston v. Warden of FCI-Allenwood Medium, No. 1:24-cv-01474 (M.D. Pa. Jan. 29, 2025)). Under the Bureau’s administrative remedy rules, Program Statement 1330.18, a regional appeal must arrive within 20 calendar days of the date the Warden signed the response, and a General Counsel appeal within 30 calendar days of the Regional Director’s signed response, unless the man shows a valid reason for the delay. Our guide to filing a BP-9 walks through the first step.

FCI Allenwood Medium in the news

Recent news about FCI Allenwood Medium centers on two 2026 prosecutions and a small cell fire; older items concern a 2025 weapon sentence, a 2025 housing-unit evacuation, and a former officer’s 2024 bribery plea. Several rest on releases that say only “FCI Allenwood,” which is the Medium’s own name for itself but does not rule out the Low. Newest first:

• June 2026. A federal grand jury indicted Edward Garlock, 59, described by prosecutors as “an inmate in FCI Allenwood, Medium,” for possessing contraband in prison and assault with a dangerous weapon, alleging that he used a lanyard with a lock attached to assault another prisoner. An indictment is only an accusation, and he is presumed innocent.
• May 2026. PennLive reported, citing a Bureau spokesperson, that a small fire found about 4 p.m. on May 14 in a Special Housing Unit cell at the medium-security prison was put out with an extinguisher without injuries, and that prisoners and staff were checked for smoke inhalation.
• March 2026. Prosecutors announced the indictment of Josue Franco, 30, of “FCI Allenwood,” on a charge of possessing contraband in prison, alleged to be methamphetamine he held on September 10, 2025; he, too, is presumed innocent.
• April 2025. Anthony Evans, 28, was sentenced to 21 months for possessing a six-inch sharpened piece of metal with a cloth handle, found when an officer searched him at “FCI Allenwood” on July 15, 2024.
• February 2025. PennLive reported that four employees at the medium-security prison were taken to a hospital after an airborne substance was detected in a housing unit, that the unit was evacuated, and that the Bureau’s website said visiting was halted until further notice.
• October 2024. The Inspector General announced that Lino Perez, a former correctional officer at “FCI Allenwood,” was arrested and pleaded guilty to bribery and attempting to provide contraband, on charges that on or about February 17, 2023, he took payments from prisoners to bring in Suboxone.

Frequently asked questions about FCI Allenwood Medium

Where we can help at FCI Allenwood Medium

The problems that recur in the Medium’s own record are mostly about paperwork, deadlines, and access:

• Classification and holdover status. A man reclassified below medium can wait in administrative detention for a transfer, and in Bouza a late appeal to the General Counsel ended any court review of the classification dispute. See our page on security designation and custody classification.
• Administrative remedies. Petitions from the Medium have been dismissed when the BP-9, BP-10, and BP-11 steps were skipped or filed late, and not knowing the process did not excuse them.
• Lockdowns and legal access. When modified operations suspend visiting, Program Statement 1315.08 calls for alternative legal access once a disruption passes 24 hours, and the District’s inspectors recorded how lockdowns here cut men off from calls, visits, and the law library.
• Special Housing Unit and staff-conduct complaints. The Bureau answered such complaints about this prison in 2017 and again in 2024 by asking for specifics, so dates, names, and witnesses are what make a complaint answerable.
• Drug treatment and time credits. RDAP runs here, but the sentence reduction turns on a separate eligibility decision that excludes many D.C. Code prisoners, and First Step Act credit disputes reach court from the Medium; an interim final rule effective September 30, 2026, says an eligible man begins earning credits “after the inmate’s term of imprisonment commences.” See our page on First Step Act time credits.
• Shortening the sentence itself, through compassionate release under the Bureau’s reduction-in-sentence rules, a commutation petition, or other early-release options, when a man’s health, family circumstances, or legal position has changed.
• 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 Allenwood Medium, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. The Bureau’s facility page, with address, contact details, population, and inmate-mail block.
• FCI Allenwood Commissary List, January–March 2025, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCI Allenwood Medium, 2025. Items, prices, and quantity caps; no spending limit stated.
• Complex Supplement ALX-5267.09C, Visiting Regulations, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCC Allenwood, 2024. Visiting days and hours, points, room capacity, dress code, permitted items, and screening at the three Allenwood prisons.
• FCI Allenwood Inmate Information Handbook, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCI Allenwood Medium, 2022. Mail, telephones, commissary, programs, the daily schedule, health care, and other local rules.
• Legal Activities, Inmate, Program Statement 1315.07, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 1999. The copy linked from the Bureau’s page for the Medium; rescinded.
• Inmate Legal Activities, Program Statement 1315.08, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Replaced Program Statement 1315.07.
• Administrative Remedy Program, Program Statement 1330.18, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2014.
• Trust Fund/Deposit Fund Manual, Program Statement 4500.13, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Sets the $460 commissary spending limit.
• Inmate Security Designation and Custody Classification, Program Statement 5100.08, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2006, as amended in 2026. Security-level scoring and Public Safety Factors.
• Inmate Telephone Regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Replaced Program Statement 5264.08 (2008).
• Correspondence, Program Statement 5265.14, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2011.
• Incoming Publications, Program Statement 5266.11, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2011.
• ION Spectrometry Device Program, Program Statement 5524.01, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Replaced Program Statement 5522.02 (2015).
• Patient Care, Program Statement 6031.06, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Care-level assignments; replaced Program Statement 6031.05 (2025).
• First Step Act Time Credits—Revisions, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Interim final rule, 91 Federal Register 55740.
• First Step Act Approved Programs Guide, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Reentry Services Division, 2026. Program availability by institution, including RDAP locations.
• Send Money, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Lockbox, Western Union, and MoneyGram instructions.
• Inmate to Correctional Officer (CO) Ratio, FY 2024 Q4, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2025. Officer ratios and shift staffing for the complex.
• 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.
• Inmate Deaths 2019 to 2022, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2023. Posted in the Bureau’s FOIA library.

Audits and inspections

• 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, with the count of Bureau institutions the office has inspected since 2023.
• Federal Prisons: Improvements Needed to Prevent, Detect, and Address Sexual Abuse, U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2026. GAO-26-107343, with allegation counts for FCI Allenwood Medium.
• PREA Audit Report: Federal Correctional Complex Allenwood, Corrections Consulting Services, LLC, 2025. Complex-wide audit by Lynni O’Haver, on site July 29–31, 2025.
• Concurrent Inspections of BOP Food Service Operations, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2025. Report 25-062, including the short-notice June 2024 inspection at FCC Allenwood.
• FCC Allenwood Report on Findings and Recommendations, District of Columbia Corrections Information Council, 2024. Covers FCI Allenwood Medium, FCI Allenwood Low, and USP Allenwood.
• FCI Allenwood Medium Inspection Report, District of Columbia Corrections Information Council, 2017. The April 2016 inspection, with the Bureau’s response.
• OSHA Finds Allenwood Federal Prison Workers Lack Safety Gloves to Avoid Punctures, Infections from Sharps, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, 2016. News release 16-0038-PHI.
• Criminal Calls: A Review of the Bureau of Prisons’ Management of Inmate Telephone Privileges, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 1999. Chapter V covers the Allenwood case.

Court records

• FCI Allenwood Inmate Charged with Possessing Weapon, Assaulting Other Inmate, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Middle District of Pennsylvania, 2026. Edward Garlock’s indictment.
• FCI Allenwood Inmate Indicted for Possessing Contraband in Prison, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Middle District of Pennsylvania, 2026. Josue Franco’s indictment.
• FCI Allenwood Inmate Sentenced to 21 Months in Prison for Possessing a Weapon, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Middle District of Pennsylvania, 2025. Anthony Evans’s sentence.
• Houston v. Warden of FCI-Allenwood Medium, No. 1:24-cv-01474 (M.D. Pa. Jan. 29, 2025), U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, 2025.
• Bouza v. Warden of FCI Allenwood-Medium, No. 4:24-cv-00998 (M.D. Pa. Dec. 3, 2024), U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, 2024.
• Former BOP Correctional Officer Arrested and Pleaded Guilty to Attempt to Provide Contraband to an Inmate and Bribery of a Public Official, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2024. Lino Perez’s arrest and plea.
• Federal Inmate Charged with Possessing a Weapon, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Middle District of Pennsylvania, 2024. Anthony Evans’s indictment, placing FCI Allenwood in Union County.
• Butcher v. Howard, No. 1:20-cv-01994 (M.D. Pa. Jan. 5, 2021), U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, 2021.
• High-Ranking Member of ‘Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods’ Sentenced to 15 Years in Prison in Connection with Manhattan Armed Robbery and Brooklyn Shooting, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York, 2019. Kifano Jordan’s sentence.
• Former Liberian War Lord Known as “Jungle Jabbah” Sentenced to 30 Years in Prison for Immigration Fraud and Perjury, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, 2018. Mohammed Jabbateh’s sentence.

News and other sources

• Fire Broke Out Inside a Cell at Pa. Federal Prison, PennLive, 2026.
• Housing Unit at Pa. Federal Prison Evacuated Due to Airborne Issue, PennLive, 2025.
• Judge Orders Release of Last ‘Newburgh Four’ Defendant, Associated Press (Voice of America), 2024. James Cromitie’s compassionate release.
• Bureau: Inmate Dies Following Altercation Saturday at FCI-Allenwood, The Daily Item, 2021.
• Tekashi69’s Former Manager Pleads Guilty, New York Daily News, 2019.
• 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e), Imprisonment of a convicted person, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 28 U.S.C. § 118(b), Pennsylvania, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).

Sources reviewed September 2026.

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