FCI McKean: Visiting Hours, Mail Rules and Programs

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

FCI McKean at a glance

FCI McKean is a medium-security federal prison for men at Lewis Run, Pennsylvania, holding 1,080 people as of September 2026: 899 inside the fence and 181 at the minimum-security satellite camp beside it. It sits in McKean County in the far north of the state, between Bradford and Kane, and belongs to the Bureau’s Northeast Region.

Official name	Federal Correctional Institution, McKean
BOP code	MCK
Security level	Medium; men
Population	1,080 (as of September 2026) · 899 at the FCI, 181 at the camp
Visiting	Sundays, Mondays and federal holidays, 7:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m.
Inmate mail	Inmate Name & Register Number · FCI McKean · Federal Correctional Institution · P.O. Box 8000 · Bradford, PA 16701
Send money	Lockbox · Western Union (code city FBOP, DC) · MoneyGram (receive code 7932)
Phone	814-362-8900 · Fax 814-363-6821
Street address	6975 Route 59, Lewis Run, PA 16738 · McKean County
Judicial district	Western District of Pennsylvania
BOP region	Northeast
Housing	Cells at the FCI · dormitory cubicles at the camp
Special Housing Unit	Yes · visits by video
Medical care level	Level 1
Mental health care level	Level 1
RDAP	At the camp only · not at the FCI
UNICOR	Clothing and textiles factory producing mattresses · about 50 full-time jobs
Camp	Minimum-security satellite camp for men (SCP McKean), adjacent to the FCI

It opened in 1989 with its camp, about 90 miles south of Buffalo by the institution’s own reckoning. The one thing a family needs to know before anything else is that the prison stopped visiting on Saturdays: its current visiting regulation runs Sundays, Mondays and federal holidays only.

Is FCI McKean in Lewis Run or Bradford?

FCI McKean stands in Lewis Run, but its inmate mail goes to Bradford, and the distinction decides whether mail arrives. The prison is at 6975 Route 59 in Lewis Run, ZIP 16738, and that is the address a GPS needs. Inmate mail goes to a post office box in Bradford, ZIP 16701, up the road. Send a letter to Lewis Run and it does not reach the man it is addressed to.

There is a second trap inside that one, and it is the institution’s own doing. McKean uses two Bradford post office boxes. Box 8000 is for people in custody. Box 5000 is for staff. The Bureau’s address record for this facility, shown on its facility page, lists Box 8000 as “Inmate Mail/Parcels” and Box 5000 as “Staff Mail” — and the institution’s own visiting supplement, Attachment 1, prints Box 5000 under the heading “Mailing Address.” Anyone copying the address off the back page of the visiting rules is copying the staff box. Use Box 8000.

Use	Address
Letters and parcels to a person in custody	P.O. Box 8000, Bradford, PA 16701
Driving there, and freight	6975 Route 59, Lewis Run, PA 16738
Mail to a staff member	P.O. Box 5000, Bradford, PA 16701
Money	Federal Bureau of Prisons, P.O. Box 474701, Des Moines, IA 50947-0001 — never to the prison

The camp has no separate mailing address. One inmate box serves both prisons, which is unusual: a letter to a man at the camp carries exactly the same address block as a letter to a man behind the fence.

McKean is one of nine federal institutions in Pennsylvania, and the westernmost of them; our guide to federal prisons in Pennsylvania lists the rest, from USP Allenwood and USP Canaan to FCI Lewisburg and FDC Philadelphia.

What is the security level at FCI McKean?

The main institution is medium security; the camp attached to it is minimum security. They share a warden, a commissary list, a mailing address and a visiting schedule, and almost nothing else. Which side of the fence a person lands on is settled at designation, before he arrives, and it changes his sentence more than any other single administrative decision — at McKean it decides, among other things, whether he can get into the residential drug program at all.

The medium institution is cellular. The 2023 PREA auditor recorded thirteen housing units, a designed capacity of 1,004 against a twelve-month average daily population of 1,097, and answered “Yes” to the form’s question about whether the facility had been over capacity in the preceding twelve months. The September 2026 count of 1,080 is still above that designed figure. The Corrections Information Council recorded something more specific in July 2017: a rated capacity of 856, four housing units of 63 double-celled rooms each, all triple-celled rooms already converted to doubles, and units running between 100 and 115 men. The two counts measure different things, and no public document reconciles them.

Designation to a medium rather than a camp turns on a security point score and on whether a Public Safety Factor applies. A Public Safety Factor overrides the points: a man can score low enough for a camp and still be held behind the fence because of one. Most families have never heard of it, and it can be contested. Our guides to the intake process and to preparing for prison cover the first month.

Who are the notable inmates at FCI McKean?

One person on the published lists of notable inmates is still held at FCI McKean: Alphonse Persico.

Alphonse Persico, register number 05517-054, aged 72, is held at FCI McKean with a release date recorded as LIFE. The Second Circuit affirmed his conviction in United States v. Persico, 645 F.3d 85 (2d Cir. 2011): a jury in the Eastern District of New York, sitting before Judge Joanna Seybert after an earlier trial ended in a hung jury, convicted him of the May 1999 murder of William “Wild Bill” Cutolo Sr. in aid of racketeering under 18 U.S.C. § 1959(a)(1), of witness tampering, and of conspiracy to commit witness tampering, and he was sentenced principally to life imprisonment. The opinion records that Persico was “at various times a soldier, a captain, and the acting boss — or leader — of the Colombo Family,” and that the evidence of the murder was circumstantial: there was no eyewitness, and Cutolo’s body had not been found when the case was tried.

Three other names still appear on published lists of McKean inmates. All three men have been released:

Name	Register number	Status in the Bureau’s records
Chaka Fattah	72340-066	Released August 1, 2024
Wesley Snipes	43355-018	Released July 19, 2013
Denny McLain	04000-018	Released October 21, 2003

Denny McLain left federal custody in 2003. Check any “notable inmates” list, this one included, against the Inmate Locator before relying on it.

How do I find someone at FCI McKean?

To find someone at FCI McKean, search the Bureau’s Inmate Locator, which covers everyone held in federal custody since 1982. Search by the eight-digit register number if you have it; that is exact (our guide to the inmate locator explains the search). Searching by name returns everyone who matches, so check the age and race fields before you accept a result, and check the prison it names against the institution you expect.

A result names the prison rather than giving a code: a man held here appears as located at “McKean FCI,” and the three-letter code MCK stays in the record behind the screen. That wording does not distinguish the camp from the institution behind the fence, so a man in either shows the same way; the unit team will tell you which, and so will the return address on his first letter.

Someone newly sentenced will not appear at McKean immediately. Designation runs through the Designation and Sentence Computation Center in Grand Prairie, Texas, and the journey can pass through a transfer center or a holdover institution, during which the Locator may show a different facility or nothing useful at all. Our guide to federal prison transfers sets out how designation and redesignation are actually decided.

How do I write to someone at FCI McKean?

Write to someone at FCI McKean at P.O. Box 8000, Bradford, PA 16701, whether he is at the FCI or at the camp, addressed exactly like this:

INMATE NAME AND REGISTER NUMBER
FCI McKean
FEDERAL CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION
P.O. BOX 8000
BRADFORD, PA 16701

The committed name and the eight-digit register number both have to be there, and the handbook asks senders to add the housing unit as well. Mail is sorted and distributed Monday to Friday only; there is no weekend or holiday delivery inside. First-class letters reach the housing units in the evening.

Because McKean is a medium-security institution, outgoing letters cannot be sealed by the man writing them and may be read and inspected by staff. That is a national rule under the Bureau’s correspondence regulations, not a local one.

What the mailroom rejects

McKean’s rule is stricter than most. From the November 2023 Admission and Orientation handbook: “All incoming general correspondence envelopes and paper must be white in color. If an incoming correspondence envelope is other than white, is written on paper other than white, or contains glitter, stickers, crayon markings, lipstick, is stained or contains an oily substance, the mail will be rejected. Colored photos printed on copy paper will be rejected. Homemade cards that cannot be searched or examined without destruction, or that contain a substance of concern will be rejected. Postage stamps on all incoming mail will be removed prior to being delivered.”

A child’s drawing in crayon does not get through. A birthday card on colored stock does not get through. A photograph printed at home on ordinary copy paper does not get through. When the Corrections Information Council inspected in July 2017, a man told its investigators that his children’s drawing had been returned to the family because it had colors on it. Staff told the Council the restrictions answered a rise in opioids arriving through the mail, and that substances are harder to detect on colored paper. Six years later the handbook still says the same thing. Send photographs printed on photographic paper, write on white paper, and use a plain white envelope.

There is a second McKean rule with a deadline attached to it. “All general correspondence to include photographs, will be photocopied. All originals will be stored in the mailroom for a minimum of 30 days. During the 30-day storage period, inmates will be able to mail any originals to a destination of their choosing at their expense.” What arrives in the housing unit is a copy. The original letter, and the original photograph, sit in the mailroom, and after thirty days they are gone unless he has paid the postage to send them somewhere. Anyone posting a photograph they want kept should say so in the letter and send the stamps.

Special mail and legal mail

Correspondence from an attorney, a court, a probation officer, a member of Congress, a United States Attorney or a state attorney general is special mail: a designated staff member opens it in the prisoner’s presence and checks it for contraband, but does not read or copy it. That protection depends entirely on the envelope. The handbook is explicit that the sender must identify himself adequately on the envelope and mark the front “Special Mail — Open only in the presence of the inmate” or words to that effect; “[w]ithout adequate identification as Special Mail, the staff may treat the mail as general correspondence,” which means opened, read, inspected, photocopied and reduced to a copy like everything else.

Going the other way, McKean requires a paper trail. At the FCI all outgoing legal and special mail must be hand-delivered to the mail room with an Outgoing Special Mail Receipt form attached; at the camp it goes to staff at the noon mainline or during open house hours, with the same form. The institution provides no express mail, no USPS box service and no private carrier. When the Corrections Information Council surveyed here, four of the ten men who took part reported problems sending or receiving legal mail in the previous six months, and one said his legal mail was always opened before it reached him. The receipt form is the record that makes a complaint about that possible. For the national mail rules, see our guide to writing to someone in federal prison.

How do I send money to someone at FCI McKean?

Money for someone at FCI McKean goes to the Bureau’s national lockbox in Iowa, or through Western Union or MoneyGram, never to the prison. Money sent to Bradford or Lewis Run is returned or lost. The three routes differ mainly in how fast the money lands.

Route	What to put on it	How long
Postal money order	Federal Bureau of Prisons, committed name, eight-digit register number, P.O. Box 474701, Des Moines, IA 50947-0001; your name and return address upper left	Mail time, plus a 15-day hold on any non-postal money order or non-government check
Western Union Quick Collect	Register number with no spaces or dashes, immediately followed by the last name; committed full name on the Attention line; Code City FBOP, DC	Two to four hours if sent 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Eastern, any day including holidays
MoneyGram Express Payment	Register number then last name; company “Federal Bureau of Prisons”; city and state “Washington, DC”; Receive Code 7932; committed name on the Beneficiary line	Same two-to-four-hour window; online limit $300 per transaction

Three details decide whether the money arrives. The money order must be made out to the full committed name and the complete eight-digit register number. The envelope must contain nothing else: “The BOP shall dispose of all items included with the funds.” And your name and return address must be on the upper left corner, because that is the only way the Bureau can send it back if it cannot be posted. Personal checks and cash are never accepted.

Get a digit wrong on a wire and the handbook is blunt about what happens: “If an incorrect register number and/or name are used and accepted and posted to that inmate, funds may not be returned.” Western Union and MoneyGram, not the Bureau, handle any query about a transfer. Money cannot be handed over in the visiting room under any circumstances. See sending money to a federal prisoner.

What are the visiting hours at FCI McKean?

Visiting at FCI McKean runs Sundays, Mondays and federal holidays, 7:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., at the FCI and at the camp alike. That is institution supplement MCK 5267.09f, Visiting Regulations, dated August 25, 2025, and approved by the warden, and it is the operative rule. There is no Saturday visiting at FCI McKean, and there is no evening visiting.

Almost everything published about this prison says otherwise, and so does one of the Bureau’s own documents. McKean’s Admission and Orientation handbook — still posted on the facility’s page on bop.gov alongside the supplement — says visiting runs “8:15a.m. – 3:00 p.m. on Saturdays, Sundays, and federal holidays” at the FCI and 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at the camp. That handbook was updated in November 2023. The supplement is twenty-one months newer, it is the institution’s visiting regulation rather than a general orientation booklet, and it governs. Plan a visit around the supplement, not the handbook.

The schedule here has moved three times in eight years, which is itself a reason to telephone before traveling:

Record and date	Days	Hours
CIC inspection, July 20, 2017	Mondays; Saturdays, Sundays and holidays	1:30–8:00 p.m. Monday; 8:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m. otherwise
A&O handbook, November 2023	Saturdays, Sundays and federal holidays	8:15 a.m.–3:00 p.m. (FCI); 8:30 a.m.–3:00 p.m. (camp)
Supplement MCK 5267.09f, August 2025	Sundays, Mondays and federal holidays	7:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m., FCI and camp

The supplement carries its own warning that “[a]ny changes to the following visiting hours will be updated by the institution on the institution website.” The Bureau’s own facility data carries no visiting schedule for FCI McKean, or for any other Bureau institution, so the document and the telephone are the only sources. The Bureau’s national visiting regulations and our guide to visiting a federal prison cover the rules every institution shares.

Then the arrival deadline, which the supplement states two different ways. Section 3 says visitors must be in the front lobby for processing by 9:00 a.m. to prepare for the 10:00 a.m. count. Attachment 1 of the same supplement says 9:30 a.m., and so does the narrative on page 3. Neither is marked as controlling; arrive by 9:00 a.m. and the question does not arise. After the count clears, processing resumes, and the second cut-off is firm: in the front lobby by 12:00 p.m. at the FCI, in the camp lobby by 12:30 p.m.

During the 10:00 a.m. count, visitors and prisoners are physically separated inside the visiting room and no one is processed in or out until the count clears. That is roughly half an hour out of a six-hour window, and it falls in the middle of the morning.

Who can visit, and how many

Six people at a time, “not to exceed three (3) adults and three (3) children,” and the supplement warns that “[c]hildren are not guaranteed a seat.” That is up from the five the 2023 handbook allowed. Everyone must already be on the approved visiting list, which ordinarily holds no more than ten friends and associates besides immediate family; the warden can make exceptions in writing.

Getting onto the list takes a background check and cannot be done on the day. The prisoner mails a Visitor Information Form, BP-629, to the prospective visitor, who completes it and mails it directly to his unit counselor with a copy of a photo ID; the unit team then runs an NCIC check. A visitor bringing children must supply the child’s official birth certificate and proof of parental rights or guardianship. A conviction in the last seven years for drugs or violence, an assault on a peace officer, or any history of trying to bring contraband into a correctional facility means denial by the warden.

Two kinds of visit sit outside the ordinary schedule. A special visit — for someone traveling a long way, or visiting a man in hospital — needs an Inmate Request to Staff two weeks ahead and the warden’s signature, and the supplement caps them: “Inmates will only be authorized one social special visit per year.” The children’s visiting room is separate: a man signs up in Psychology Services on a Wednesday for one thirty-minute block during that weekend’s visit, and he must have completed the National Parenting Program or be enrolled in its first phase to use it.

What visitors can wear and bring

The dress code runs to a page and a half, and two clauses in it turn away more visitors than the rest combined. The first is the color rule: no one may wear anything resembling the khaki inmate uniform, and “[a]ny visitor wearing clothes similarly colored (brown, light brown, beige, khaki, or tan) will not be allowed to enter the visiting room.” The second is smart accessories: “No watches, Fitbits, or otherwise considered ‘smart’ accessories will be permitted.” An ordinary wristwatch is out along with the fitness tracker.

The rest is long and specific: no shorts of any kind; nothing with holes, spandex, leggings or jeggings; no midriff, strapless, see-through or low-cut tops; no tank tops or sleeveless shirts, and every shirt must cover the shoulders, on men and women alike; no camouflage; no open-toe shoes without a heel strap, and shoes on everyone including children; no scarves, gloves or sunglasses; no hooded garments; no stilettos; and no chewing gum, “including items already in the mouth.” Skirts and dresses must cover the knees. Head coverings are barred except approved religious headgear, which is not removed and is searched only through the metal detector.

What may come through the door is short: a clear plastic purse no bigger than three inches by five; life-supporting medication such as nitroglycerin or an inhaler; identification; jewelry being worn; sanitary items; religious headgear; and a coat, which then hangs on the rack. The money rule catches people at the door: $40 per adult, in change or $1 and $5 bills only. A $20 bill is not accepted. The cash is for the vending machines, the visitor does the buying, and everything bought has to be eaten in the room.

Babies get a short allowance of their own — four diapers, three clear bottles of prepared formula, sealed baby food, a clear cup and spoon, wipes in a clear bag, a blanket and a clear tote. Strollers and carriers stay outside, as does anything over the allowance and every other medication, because the institution provides no storage. Toys, games, magazines, photo albums, loose photographs, packages, recorders and cameras all stay in the vehicle.

Inside, a kiss and an embrace are permitted at the start and end of the visit and nowhere in between. Adults sit across from the prisoner and never beside him; children under 16 may sit next to him; he may hold his own children aged two and under. Photographs are taken by a designated prisoner photographer, five tickets maximum. And a detail that surprises most first-time visitors: every man at the FCI changes into a jumpsuit and footwear issued by visiting room staff before the visit and changes back afterward, with a visual search each way. Camp visits are pat searches instead.

Identification, screening and the ion scanner

Every visitor aged 16 and over needs valid state or government-issued photo identification, and there is no discretion about it: “Visitors will not be permitted entry without a valid state or government issued photo identification.” A 16- or 17-year-old needs ID even when accompanied by a parent, and if unaccompanied also needs the written approval of a non-incarcerated parent, guardian or adult family member.

McKean then does something few institutions do. Every visitor except members of Congress, Department of Justice officials, law enforcement, the judiciary and Community Relations Board members has a hand stamped with an invisible ultraviolet mark before entering, and the mark is checked under a black light before they pass the inside sallyport and again before they leave the visiting room. The Control Center officer picks the day’s code and may not reuse one twice in a week. If the stamp has worn off, the visitor waits in the administration building for a lieutenant.

Everyone passes through a metal detector, with three attempts before being sent to the back of the line. Anyone with surgical pins, plates or a prosthesis that will not clear it must carry a medical pass describing the hardware and where it is, and the supplement is unambiguous: “Visitors without a medical pass will be denied entry.” Persons, property, packages and vehicles are all subject to search, and refusing a vehicle search means every visitor in that vehicle is turned away.

McKean also screens visitors with an ion spectrometry device, and the Corrections Information Council recorded the escalating consequences of a positive reading: a first confirmed positive bars that person for 24 hours, a second for 48 hours, and a third for six months. Staff said a positive triggers a confirmation test first and that most visitor tests come back negative. A third positive reading brings a six-month bar without a hearing, so take care over what you handle, and whose car you share, before a visit.

Visits in the Special Housing Unit

No one in the Special Housing Unit at McKean gets a contact visit. The supplement records that the only non-contact visiting facility in the prison is in the SHU, and that a man held there gets one hour of social visiting by video teleconference, one prisoner in the room at a time, on a slot requested at least two weeks in advance and approved by the unit manager and the captain.

Which day depends on which page you read. Section 3 and the Attachment 1 heading put administrative detention visits on Sunday and disciplinary segregation visits on Monday. Section 9(b) of the same document, and the body of Attachment 1, say the opposite. Neither is marked as superseding the other. The two-week notice requirement means the question has to be settled with the unit manager anyway; settle it in writing.

Getting there

The institution publishes its own directions. From Attachment 1 of the visiting supplement: the institution and the camp “are located in northwest Pennsylvania between Bradford and Kane, 90 miles south of Buffalo. The institution is located off route 59, 1/4 mile east of the intersection of State Route 59 and U.S. Route 219. The area is served by Buffalo Airport and Bradford Airport.” Parking is in the lot adjacent to the FCI, and in front of the camp for a camp visit.

The Corrections Information Council put the practical problem in one sentence: “FCI McKean is located in a remote area with limited travel and hotel accommodations.” Its survey found that the commonest visiting problem reported by the District of Columbia prisoners it interviewed was simply the distance, and that two of them had family members turned away at the door after driving 217 miles from Washington. Plan an overnight trip: book a room in Bradford the night before, allow for the fact that the visiting room closes at 1:00 p.m., and telephone the institution on 814-362-8900 before you set out.

Buffalo Niagara International Airport is the practical air option; Bradford Regional is closer but served by very few flights. The route runs south through Salamanca and Olean and crosses into Pennsylvania on US 219; the institution puts the distance at 90 miles. For anyone arriving without a car, McKean’s handbook lists two Bradford-based transit operators, the Area Transportation Authority and Fullington Trailways; rural schedules thin out on weekends.

How do phone calls and email work at FCI McKean?

Phone calls at FCI McKean go out, never in, and email runs through TRULINCS. No one can telephone a man at McKean; he calls you, from a monitored line, using a nine-digit phone access code and a voice sample recorded when he arrived, to a number he has added to his list through TRULINCS. Every call except a properly arranged unmonitored legal call is recorded and may be listened to.

The monthly allowance changed in September 2026, and McKean’s own handbook has not caught up. The November 2023 handbook says “[i]nmates are limited to 300 minutes per month” with “an extra 100 minutes per month in November and December.” The current rule is the Bureau’s telephone regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, issued September 3, 2026, which rescinded the 2008 policy and sets the figure at 510 minutes: “Inmates with ITS accounts are limited to 510 minutes per calendar month. This applies to all inmates with an ITS account in Bureau institutions.” The program statement controls. Every handbook in the federal system still prints 300, because every one of them predates September 3, 2026.

The new policy is not simply a bigger free allowance. Men eligible for First Step Act telephone incentives “receive 300 minutes per month at no charge,” with no 30-minute daily cap on that time; anyone who exhausts the 300-minute limitation “may purchase an additional 210 minutes,” whatever their First Step Act eligibility. The ceiling does not touch legal calls: “The 510 minutes per calendar month limitation does not apply to an inmate’s ability to place unmonitored legal telephone calls.” A single call should generally not exceed 15 minutes.

Local hours are what a family plans a call around, and McKean runs two schedules. The handbook puts the phones in service from 6:00 a.m. until the 9:30 p.m. count is announced, and gives the camp an extra window after that count until 11:30 p.m. On weekdays other than holidays, access is normally shut off from 7:30 to 10:30 a.m. and from 12:30 p.m. until the afternoon count clears, because those are working hours.

Telephone credit is bought out of the commissary account in whole dollars. Email runs on TRULINCS and reaches the outside through CorrLinks; there is no internet access, messages are read by staff, and attachments and photographs do not work. The same terminals carry a standard mailbox that sends an allegation of sexual abuse or harassment straight to the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General rather than through the institution. Our guide to federal inmate phone calls sets out the national rules.

What can people buy at the FCI McKean commissary?

The FCI McKean commissary sells winter clothing, legal supplies and typewriter ribbons, among other lines, under a national spending ceiling of $460 a month. McKean’s own 2012 order form, which is still the document linked from the facility’s page on bop.gov, heads its first column “SPENDING LIMIT $320.00”. The institution’s 2023 handbook gives a different obsolete number, $360. The figure that applies is set by the Bureau’s trust fund rules, Program Statement 4500.13, issued May 7, 2026: “the Bureau implements a spending limitation of $460 per month,” and its own summary of changes records that it “[i]ncreases spending limit from $360 to $460 per month.” Anyone budgeting from the McKean order form is budgeting against a ceiling that moved twice while the form sat there.

Document	Year	Monthly spending limit
FCI McKean commissary order form	2012	$320.00 (obsolete)
FCI McKean A&O handbook	2023	$360.00 (obsolete)
BOP Program Statement 4500.13	2026	$460.00 — the figure that applies

Three details change what the ceiling means. Postage stamps, over-the-counter medication and vitamins, copy cards and paper, footwear including sneakers, and mattresses are all excluded from the monthly limit by Program Statement 4500.13, which also raises the limit by $50 during the November and December holiday period, for no more than one validation period. And the limit drops to $25 a month for anyone in refuse status under the Inmate Financial Responsibility Program — a sanction that also blocks UNICOR work, performance pay above maintenance level, furloughs and favorable transfers.

Shopping day is fixed by register number, not by choice: registers ending 00–24 shop Monday, 25–49 Tuesday, 50–74 Wednesday and 75–99 Thursday. Miss your day and you wait a week. The form carries its own warning in capitals — no refunds, no exchanges, no add-ons, all sales final, and anyone who leaves the commissary after submitting a list is sold nothing.

The stock list tells you two things about this prison that no description does. The first is that legal work here is still done on paper: typewriter ribbons and correction tape are stocked, alongside legal pads, legal envelopes, clear file folders and a pocket dictionary. The second is the winter, and the order form reads like it: thermal tops and thermal pants, a knit hat, a gray scarf, sweat tops and sweat pants, a rain poncho, and Sno-Seal for waterproofing boots. A man arriving in October needs the thermals before he needs anything else on the list. See the federal prison commissary.

What programs are available at FCI McKean?

FCI McKean offers literacy and GED classes, occupational and apprenticeship training, a UNICOR factory, psychology groups and chaplaincy, delivered by a staff that has been small for a long time. The residential drug program runs at the camp and not at the medium institution, and that fact changes designation decisions.

Two national documents describe what is available here, and they answer different questions. The Bureau’s First Step Act Approved Programs Guide (August 2026 edition) says which programs earn First Step Act time credits and where they are approved to run; the institution’s handbook says what it actually delivers. The guide names McKean specifically for exactly one program — the residential drug program, at the camp. For every other program on McKean’s list it says only that it may be offered at all Bureau institutions, which is permission rather than a report.

RDAP and drug treatment

McKean’s handbook says it twice, in plain words: “We do not have an RDAP at the FCI, but we do at the Camp,” and, two paragraphs later, “This institution does have an RDAP at the Camp (FPC) only. You may be eligible for transfer to another institution to participate in RDAP.” The First Step Act guide agrees from the other direction. Its residential drug program location list, updated in June 2026 and covering 57 programs at 50 locations, names this one as “SCP McKean” — the satellite camp, not the institution.

For a man with a substance-use diagnosis, that fact matters most. The residential drug abuse program is the only route to the sentence reduction of up to one year available under 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e)(2), and at McKean it is unreachable from behind the fence. A man designated to the medium who wants it has to be moved — to the camp across the road, which requires his points and any Public Safety Factor to permit a camp, or to another institution entirely. Both take months. Start the request early and in writing.

The program runs a minimum of nine months in a treatment unit set apart from the general population. Admission is ordered by nearness to release, and the handbook warns that a man usually needs at least 22 months left to complete both the unit-based component and the community treatment that follows in a residential reentry center. Requests go by cop-out to the Drug Abuse Program Coordinator box in Psychology Services. Our guide to the Residential Drug Abuse Program covers eligibility.

Non-residential drug treatment and drug education do run on both sides. When the Corrections Information Council inspected in July 2017 it found the non-residential program running four groups for 24 to 30 men and a twelve-week drug education course held in the chapel, delivered by three psychologists, a drug abuse coordinator and a technician, with one psychologist post vacant and no telepsychology.

Education, vocational training, and UNICOR

Two numbers from the 2017 inspection stand out. In the twelve months to July 2017, sixteen men completed the GED at a prison then holding 932 — fourteen in English and two in Spanish. And the department had no fluent Spanish speaker on staff: the GED instructor relied on Spanish-speaking prisoners to translate instruction for their classmates. The 2023 PREA auditor recorded 75 men with limited English proficiency at McKean on the first day of the audit. Nothing published since says the staffing has changed.

Vocational training here has a local character. The Council found an accredited National Center for Construction Education and Research woodworking program running a morning and an evening class with fifteen men, nine of them at the advanced level, building wooden toys and furniture for the Bradford Elf Fund, which distributes holiday gifts to children and older people in the county. It also found a recycling operation begun in October 2015 with thirty men and room for forty, set up by staff in a warehouse that UNICOR had emptied.

UNICOR came back. The November 2023 handbook records that “FCI McKean currently has a Clothing and Textiles, UNICOR factory that currently produces mattresses and employs approximately 50 full-time employees,” with a smaller warehousing detail at the camp; it runs from 6:30 a.m. to 2:15 p.m. with a 45-minute unpaid lunch, pays longevity after eighteen months of full-time work, and pays a First Step Act incentive at 500 hours worked.

The First Step Act guide disagrees with itself about that factory. The guide’s narrative entry for Federal Prison Industries — the half that controls — lists 54 institutions and does not include McKean. Its by-institution grid marks McKean among 105. So the Bureau’s own programming guide both does and does not treat this as a Federal Prison Industries location for time-credit purposes, while the institution’s handbook describes a working factory with about fifty jobs in it. The practical move is the same whichever half is right: ask the unit team in writing whether UNICOR hours here are being recorded as First Step Act programming, and keep the answer.

Faith-based programs and reentry

Religious Services facilitated worship for more than eighteen affiliations when the Council inspected, with two Protestant chaplains, an administrative coordinator, a contract Imam, a contract Catholic priest and 35 volunteers. One practice matters to families: when an immediate family member dies, a chaplain notifies the man, offers counseling, and the institution provides a complimentary call home if the family has not already reached him.

What is daily life like at FCI McKean?

Daily life at FCI McKean is regimented, starts early and is organized around counts. General wake-up is 6:00 a.m.; uniform is khaki at the FCI and green at the camp, worn weekdays between 7:30 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. There are at least five counts in every 24 hours, with a sixth at 10:00 a.m. on weekends and on holidays, and a man has to be standing at his bedside for the 3:30 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. counts on a weekday.

Time	What happens
6:00 a.m.	General wake-up; telephones come into service
6:15–6:30 a.m.	Camp pill line and sick call; FCI pill line at the 6:30 move; FCI dental sick call Monday, Wednesday and Thursday at the 6:15 move
6:30 a.m.–2:15 p.m.	UNICOR shift, with a 45-minute unpaid lunch
7:30 a.m.	FCI sick call sign-up, Monday to Wednesday and Friday; telephones normally restricted from here until 10:30 a.m.
11:15 a.m.–noon	Midday pill line; lunch by housing unit
12:30 p.m.	Telephones normally restricted again until the afternoon count clears
3:30 p.m.	Stand-up count; evening controlled movement begins once it clears
4:00 p.m.	Next day’s call-out sheet posted on the unit bulletin boards
4:20 p.m.	Evening pill line
7:00 p.m.	Stand-up count
9:30 p.m.	Count announced; FCI telephones close. Camp phones run on until 11:30 p.m.
9:45 p.m.	Laundry bags must be in the unit cart

Source: FCI McKean Admission and Orientation Handbook (Nov. 2023). The schedule moves with staffing and with lockdowns.

Housing

Cells at the FCI, dormitory cubicles at the camp. Rooms are inspected daily and rated, and the ratings have a consequence most people do not expect: “Unit meal rotation is ordinarily based on weekly sanitation ratings of each unit. The unit with the highest sanitation is called first, and the unit with the lowest rating is called last.” Movement at the FCI is controlled, in announced windows that “generally begin ten minutes before the hour and end on the hour”; taking more than ten minutes over a move is a disciplinary matter. On weekends the compound is secured at 9:30 a.m. for the 10:00 a.m. count — the same half-hour that shuts down visiting-room processing.

Food, laundry and the shape of the day

McKean runs the national menu with the usual religious, no-flesh and medical options. In July 2017 the Corrections Information Council recorded a dining hall with a maximum occupancy of 400, fourteen cook supervisors, 125 men working in food service, a food budget of $2.65 per person per day, and twenty minutes per housing unit in the hall — breakfast by unit at about 7:15 a.m., lunch at 11:00 a.m., dinner by 5 p.m.

The Council’s prose says all nine men who answered its food questions were dissatisfied with the quantity and quality of meals; its own two charts, printed on the same page, record a third satisfied on quality and more than half satisfied on quantity. The report contradicts itself, and neither figure can be relied on. What can be relied on is the recommendation the Council drew from what it saw, which was to “[i]ncrease quality and size of meals,” and one man’s remark that twenty minutes left him feeling “rushed to eat like an animal.”

One McKean practice drew praise. Staff and wardens here take mainline — standing in the dining hall at breakfast and lunch to answer questions — consistently enough that the Council named it a Bureau best practice, noting that the warden took breakfast mainline often and that executive staff, the education department and unit counselors attended. For a family, that is the cheapest route to a problem being heard: a man can raise something at mainline without filing anything.

Laundry is centralized and unforgiving about weight. Bags go into the unit cart by 9:45 p.m. on the unit’s day and come back the same afternoon; two bags per man, khakis in one and whites and personal clothing in the other, thirteen pounds maximum per bag, and any bag that is overweight or unsorted is rejected. At the camp, linen and worn-out clothing are exchanged at the warehouse on Thursday mornings between 7:30 and 8:30.

Health care

McKean is a Care Level 1 institution for both medical and mental health, which under the Bureau’s care-level classifications means it is built for people who are generally healthy and stable. Sick call at the FCI is Monday to Wednesday and Friday at 7:30 a.m.; at the camp it is 6:15 to 6:45 a.m. on the same days. Dental sick call at the FCI is Monday, Wednesday and Thursday at the 6:15 move and is “for true emergencies (e.g. infection, severe pain)”; everything else is requested by emailing “InmateToDental” to join the national routine treatment list. There is a co-payment unless a man is found indigent.

What a Care Level 1 designation means in practice at a prison ninety miles from a city was set out by McKean’s own medical director to the Corrections Information Council in July 2017. He described “several instances where the facility received inmates who had their care levels lowered at the previous facility and still required medical services beyond the capacity of a Care Level I facility,” and said that in those cases he telephones the regional medical director directly to get the man moved. He listed the department’s constraints without being asked: no rheumatology or endocrinology expertise; difficulty finding a specialist within a reasonable drive willing to take Medicare patients; delays in receiving medical records from the previous institution that hold up prescribing for new arrivals; and insufficient screening equipment, so that “staff struggles to transfer new inmates with medical needs because they lack the tools to properly diagnose individuals to support a transfer request.”

If someone is being designated here with a chronic condition, a care-level reduction on the way in is the thing to look for, and the documentation that supports the higher level is the thing to get into the medical file before the transfer rather than after. Our guide to medical care in federal prison sets out how care levels and the administrative remedy process work.

What do inspectors say about conditions at FCI McKean?

Inspectors have said very little about conditions at FCI McKean, and most of what exists is old. McKean has had one independent conditions inspection in its 37-year history, by a District of Columbia agency, on a single day in July 2017. Its most recent PREA audit was in November 2023. The DOJ Office of the Inspector General has not conducted an on-site inspection of this facility.

What the 2023 PREA audit recorded

An auditor subcontracted by PREA Auditors of America was on site from November 14–16, 2023, and filed her final report on December 26, 2023. She found one standard exceeded — 115.31, employee training — forty met and none unmet, interviewed twenty randomly selected prisoners and twenty-three targeted ones, and recorded that she was “provided access to all areas of the facility, was able to view all cameras and documentation requested was provided.”

The population data on that form is the most current official picture of who is held here. On the first day of the November 2023 audit there were 1,107 men, of whom 75 had limited English proficiency, five identified as transgender or intersex, three had a cognitive or functional disability and one was deaf or hard of hearing. Four had reported sexual abuse at the facility and five had disclosed prior victimization at risk screening; none had ever been placed in segregated housing because of a risk of sexual victimization. The auditor added a caution: “FCI McKean does not track all of the specialized populations.”

Sexual-abuse allegations and what they do not say

In the twelve months before the November 2023 audit, McKean recorded eight allegations of sexual abuse, all prisoner-on-prisoner and all investigated administratively: six closed as unfounded, two as unsubstantiated, none substantiated. It recorded five allegations of sexual harassment — one prisoner-on-prisoner, four staff-on-prisoner — all five closed as unfounded. There were no criminal investigations.

The Government Accountability Office published per-institution counts in May 2026 covering 2020 to 2024. For McKean it recorded sixteen allegations in which the alleged perpetrator was another incarcerated person (one in 2020, one in 2021, three in 2022, six in 2023, five in 2024) and nineteen in which the alleged perpetrator was a Bureau employee (three in 2020, none in 2021, six in 2022, two in 2023, eight in 2024).

Four things about those numbers, all of which the GAO says itself. They are reported allegations, not findings; nationally, most from 2014 through 2022 ended unsubstantiated, which the GAO defines as meaning there was not enough evidence either way, not that the allegation was false. The two tables are not additive — one counts by the year the incident occurred, the other by the year the allegation was reported, from different Bureau systems with different cut-off dates. They are nowhere normalized for population, so a bigger prison out-counts a smaller one at identical risk and a low count can as easily mean no one reports. And they cannot be used to rank institutions against each other.

The GAO recorded six staff-perpetrator allegations reported at McKean in calendar 2022 and two in calendar 2023; the PREA auditor’s return for the twelve months ending November 2023 recorded none at all. The windows overlap heavily without matching, and the two figures come from different Bureau systems. The Bureau’s headquarters data and this institution’s own audit return do not tell the same story, and no public document reconciles them.

What the DC Corrections Information Council found

The Council inspected McKean on July 20, 2017, and published its report on July 11, 2019 — a lag of just under two years, so everything in it describes conditions in 2017, not 2019. It is the only independent inspection this prison has had. Its reach is narrow by design: the Council’s mandate covers people sentenced under the District of Columbia Code, and on the day of the visit there were 33 of them at McKean, 3.54 percent of a population of 932. Ten of those 33 volunteered to be interviewed and completed a survey. Individual questions were answered by between four and ten of those ten. Every percentage below is a percentage of a self-selected group that small.

The finding that matters most is about treatment. Asked how staff treated District prisoners compared with others, seven of the ten said worse, three said the same, and none said better. Asked the same question about other prisoners, six of nine said the same, two said worse and one said better. Respondents told the Council that District prisoners “are seen as trouble.” Nearly all of them — all but one — said they wanted to be moved closer to home.

On the Special Housing Unit, the Council counted 82 men in it on the day of the visit, none of them District prisoners. Executive staff estimated roughly 40 percent were there over drugs, 40 percent in protective custody and 10 percent in disciplinary segregation — which leaves a tenth unaccounted for in the report. Every department visited the unit at least weekly and the warden daily; men in the unit got more than the standard hour of daily recreation, in cages holding four to six. One man said his cell was freezing in winter.

The Council made four recommendations: ensure adequate ventilation in the Special Housing Unit and install a heating system to guarantee appropriate cell temperatures; increase the quality and size of meals; guarantee that a cook supervisor is present whenever more than one prisoner is working in the locked food preparation room or its walk-in fridge, a practice the Council had found permitted; and regularly evaluate wait times for services and access to recovery programs. No public document records what the Bureau did about any of them.

What the Inspector General has and has not done

The DOJ Office of the Inspector General has not conducted an on-site inspection of this facility. McKean is named in six Inspector General products, but five carry it only in appendix tables or survey data — a 2023 evaluation of sexual harassment against staff, a 2021 staff survey on the pandemic, a 2008 audit of inmate health care, a 2004 audit of release preparation, and a 2003 evaluation of drug interdiction. None of the five discusses McKean. The sixth, a 1999 review of inmate telephone privileges titled Criminal Calls, discusses a man transferred to McKean and a prosecutor’s letter to its warden about him, and records that, despite the warden’s assurances, he was not on telephone monitoring there.

The Inspector General began unannounced inspections of federal prisons in 2023 and has been working through them slowly. On its own count in May 2026, in its report on USP Canaan, it had “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.” McKean is not among the fourteen, and it is not among the inspections now under way.

The only independent look inside FCI McKean was a one-day visit in July 2017, by an agency with jurisdiction over 3.54 percent of the people held there.

FCI McKean in the news

Recent news about FCI McKean centers on deaths in custody: the Bureau’s release on the death of Kevin Montemayor in January 2026, local reports of a fourth death later that month, and deaths in December and September 2024.

• January 22, 2026 — The Bradford Era reported that it had “received reports of a fourth death in less than a year and a half” at the institution. The paper framed it as reports it had received; no Bureau news release reports a fourth death.
• January 9, 2026 — Kevin Montemayor, 30, “was found unresponsive” at about 3:15 p.m.; responding employees “initiated life-saving measures,” and he was taken to a local hospital and “pronounced deceased by hospital personnel,” according to the Bureau’s news release. He was serving a 180-month sentence from the Southern District of Texas. Local coverage described it as the third such announcement from the prison in sixteen months.
• December 8, 2024 — A 40-year-old man in custody died, the prison said; the Bradford Era reported it as the second death there in three months and put questions to officials about what it described as allegations of ongoing problems.
• September 2024 — The first of the three deaths local reporting counts; this page has neither its date nor its circumstances.

Three announced deaths in sixteen months have not produced an announced inspection. McKean is not among the fourteen institutions the Inspector General had inspected on its own count in May 2026, and it is not on the list of inspections under way. If someone you know is held here and you cannot reach him, a written request to the unit team creates a record that a telephone call does not.

Frequently asked questions about FCI McKean

Problems at FCI McKean: where we can help

The problems that recur at this institution are the ones its own record shows, and they cluster around isolation, thin medical capacity and paperwork that has drifted out of date. These are the ones families call us about:

• Being held too far away to be visited. Nearly every District of Columbia prisoner the Corrections Information Council interviewed here wanted to be moved closer to home, and two had family turned away at the door after driving from Washington. A request for a nearer transfer turns on security points, Public Safety Factors and Management Variables, and every one of them is arguable. See federal prison transfers.
• A care level that does not match the condition. McKean’s own medical director described receiving men whose care level had been lowered at the previous prison and who still needed more than a Care Level 1 facility can give, with no rheumatology or endocrinology on site and records arriving late. The documentation supporting the higher level belongs in the file before the transfer, not after. See medical care in federal prison.
• RDAP that is on the wrong side of the fence. The program runs at the camp only, so eligibility for the sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e)(2) can turn on a custody classification rather than on a diagnosis. That classification can be reviewed. See RDAP and early release.
• Mail that never arrives. Mail rejected under the white-paper rule is returned to the sender with written notice of the reason, as federal regulations require; the handbook says the originals of delivered mail are kept in the mailroom for at least 30 days, during which the prisoner can mail them out at his own expense. Where legal mail is opened outside the prisoner’s presence, the Outgoing Special Mail Receipt form and a dated administrative remedy are what make the problem fixable; see how to file a BP-9.
• First Step Act credits that are not being applied. The Bureau’s own programming guide disagrees with itself about whether UNICOR here counts, and whether credits are being earned, computed and applied correctly is a separate question from whether someone is enrolled. See the Bureau’s First Step Act time credit rules and First Step Act time credit help.
• Discipline, the Special Housing Unit and lost time. An incident report can cost good conduct time, a program place and a halfway house date at once, and men in the unit here visit only by video. See disciplinary proceedings and special housing units.
• A death in custody. Three were announced here between September 2024 and January 2026. Families are entitled to records, and the routes to them — the Freedom of Information Act, the administrative remedy process, a Federal Tort Claims Act notice — have deadlines that start running immediately.
• Halfway house and home confinement placement, sentence computation errors and compassionate release under the Bureau’s reduction-in-sentence rules. See our pages on halfway houses, home confinement, sentence computation challenges and early release from federal prison.
• 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 McKean, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. The Bureau’s facility page, with the institution’s addresses and published documents.
• Institution Supplement MCK 5267.09f, Visiting Regulations, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCI McKean, 2025.
• Institution Supplement MCK 5267.09f, Reglamento de Visitas, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCI McKean, 2025. The Spanish edition of the visiting supplement.
• FCI McKean Inmate Admission and Orientation Handbook, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCI McKean, 2023.
• Manual de Orientación y Admisión de Reclusos, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCI McKean, 2023. The Spanish edition of the handbook.
• FCI McKean Commissary Form, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCI McKean, 2012. The commissary order form, with the shopping days by register number.
• Trust Fund/Deposit Fund Manual, Program Statement 4500.13, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Sets the $460 monthly spending limit, its exclusions and the holiday increase.
• 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. The RDAP location list and the Federal Prison Industries entries.
• Death at FCI McKean, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. The news release on the death of Kevin Montemayor.
• 1989 State of the Bureau, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 1989. Digitized and published by the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJ 131405); records the 1989 opening of FCI McKean with its satellite camp.

Audits and inspections

• Inspection of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ U.S. Penitentiary Canaan (Report 26-055), U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2026. Counts the Inspector General’s inspections since 2023.
• Federal Prisons: Improvements Needed to Prevent, Detect, and Address Sexual Abuse (GAO-26-107343), U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2026. Per-institution allegation counts, 2020–2024.
• PREA Facility Audit Report: FCI McKean, PREA Auditors of America, 2023. Auditor Grace A. Franks; on-site audit November 14–16, 2023.
• Evaluation of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Efforts to Address Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault Committed by Inmates Toward Staff (Report 23-034), U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2023.
• Staff Perceptions of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Management of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic: A Follow-Up Survey of BOP Staff (Report 21-126), U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2021. Per-institution survey results.
• FCI McKean Inspection Report, District of Columbia Corrections Information Council, 2019. On-site inspection July 20, 2017.
• The Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Efforts to Manage Inmate Health Care (Report 08-08), U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2008.
• The Federal Bureau of Prisons Inmate Release Preparation and Transitional Reentry Programs (Report 04-16), U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2004.
• The Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Drug Interdiction Activities (Report I-2003-002), U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2003.
• 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.

Court records

• United States v. Persico, 645 F.3d 85 (2d Cir. 2011), U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, 2011. Affirming Alphonse Persico’s conviction for murder in aid of racketeering and witness tampering, and his life sentence.

News and other sources

• Reports Allege Fourth Death at FCI McKean, The Bradford Era, 2026.
• 3rd Inmate Death Reported at FCI McKean in 16 Months Friday, WESB, 2026.
• Third Death Reported at FCI McKean Since September 2024, Olean Times Herald, 2026. By Sara Furlong.
• Second Death Within 3 Months at FCI McKean; Officials Respond to Allegations of Ongoing Issues, The Bradford Era, 2024. By Sara Furlong.
• 18 U.S.C. § 1959(a)(1), Violent crimes in aid of racketeering activity, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e)(2), Imprisonment of a convicted person, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 28 C.F.R. § 540.13, Notification of rejections, Code of Federal Regulations (Legal Information Institute).

Sources reviewed September 2026.

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