FCI Edgefield: Federal Prison in Edgefield, South Carolina

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

FCI Edgefield at a glance

FCI Edgefield is a medium-security federal prison for men in Edgefield, South Carolina, holding 1,618 men as of September 2026: 1,250 at the institution and 368 at the adjacent minimum-security satellite camp. It sits on Gary Hill Road in Edgefield County, about 28 miles northeast of Augusta, Georgia, and 70 driving miles west of Columbia.

Official name	Federal Correctional Institution, Edgefield
BOP code	EDG
Security level	Medium; men
Population	1,618 (as of September 2026) · FCI 1,250, camp 368
Visiting	8:30 a.m.–3:00 p.m., no entry after 2:00 p.m. · for the days, see visiting hours
Inmate mail	FCI: Inmate Name & Register Number · FCI Edgefield · Federal Correctional Institution · P.O. Box 725 · Edgefield, SC 29824 Camp: no address published · see how to write to someone
Send money	Lockbox · Western Union (code city FBOP, DC) · MoneyGram (receive code 7932)
Phone	803-637-1500 · Fax 803-637-9840
Street address	501 Gary Hill Road, Edgefield, SC 29824 · Edgefield County
Judicial district	District of South Carolina
BOP region	Southeast
Designated capacity	1,472 · FCI 960, camp 512
Housing	17 units in 25 buildings: 13 multiple-occupancy cell units, 4 open bay or dormitory units
Special Housing Unit	Yes · 72 segregation cells
Medical care level	Level 2
Mental health care level	Level 2
RDAP	Camp only; not at the FCI
UNICOR	Yes · clothing and textiles
Camp	Yes · minimum-security satellite camp at the same address

The institution is one of the federal prisons in South Carolina and falls under the Bureau’s Southeast Region. Unusually, the Residential Drug Abuse Program runs at the camp and not at the institution, so a man designated to the FCI who needs RDAP must be moved to get it.

Which prison in Edgefield, South Carolina?

Two federal prisons, FCI Edgefield and its minimum-security satellite camp, share 501 Gary Hill Road in Edgefield, South Carolina, and a county jail, the Edgefield County Detention Center, sits a few miles away. Families send mail, money and themselves to the wrong one.

Place	Run by	How to find someone
FCI Edgefield (this page)	Federal Bureau of Prisons	BOP Inmate Locator
FCI Edgefield satellite camp	Federal Bureau of Prisons — same address and phone, different rules	BOP Inmate Locator
Edgefield County Detention Center	Edgefield County Sheriff’s Office	County jail roster

Both people arrested in Edgefield’s publicized 2026 incidents — the visitor convicted of smuggling methamphetamine and the camp resident who walked off a work detail — were booked into the Edgefield County Detention Center, not the prison.

FCI Edgefield is not part of a federal correctional complex, and no Federal Satellite Low operates here; the roster record carries no complex code. The Bureau’s facility page still prints a heading reading “Other facilities at the Edgefield Federal Correctional Complex” with nothing under it, and an address block “For inmates at the FSL.” Both are template artifacts.

South Carolina has four federal prisons. FCI Bennettsville and FCI Williamsburg are also medium-security institutions for men with camps; FCI Estill is low security and, on the Bureau’s current roster, holds women. Our guide to federal prisons in South Carolina has the roster. The state prison system is separate and shares none of these rules.

What is the security level at FCI Edgefield?

FCI Edgefield is a medium-security institution, and the satellite camp beside it is minimum security. The two share an address, a phone number, a commissary list and a visiting supplement, but they are different places to serve a sentence, and which one a man lands in is decided before he arrives.

The 2025 PREA audit counts 17 housing units across 25 buildings — 13 multiple-occupancy cell units, 4 open bay or dormitory units, no single-cell units at all — plus 72 segregation cells. No one is housed alone as a matter of course. In November 2014 inspectors described four general-population units of four pods each, about 140 men to a pod, 25 three-person cells to a pod. See the intake process and how to prepare for prison.

Whether a man goes to the FCI or the camp turns on his security point score and on whether a Public Safety Factor applies. A Public Safety Factor — deportable alien, sex offender, serious escape, prison disturbance, violence, sentence length or threat to government officials — overrides the points, however low the score. Waiving one, or applying a Management Variable, is argued with the Designation and Sentence Computation Center in Grand Prairie, Texas, not with the institution.

At Edgefield the consequence is sharper than elsewhere: a Public Safety Factor that keeps a man out of the camp also keeps him away from the only RDAP bed on this compound.

Designated capacity is 1,472 — 960 at the FCI, 512 at the camp. The population has fallen through 2026 — 1,748 in March, 1,643 in June, 1,618 in September — but the FCI, at 1,250, still holds about 30 percent more men than its designated capacity.

Who are the notable inmates at FCI Edgefield?

No one on the widely circulated lists of “notable inmates at FCI Edgefield” is held here. The table below gives every name on the standard list that directory sites copy from one another, with the register number, so anyone can look the person up in the Bureau’s Inmate Locator. Two were released before 2010, and two others are often listed at institutions where the Bureau’s records do not place them.

Name	Register	Where the Bureau’s records placed them, September 2026	Case
Christopher Coke	02257-748	FCI Fort Dix, New Jersey. Projected release January 29, 2028	Shower Posse leader; pleaded guilty 2011 after extradition from Jamaica
Miguel Rodriguez-Orejuela	14022-059	FMC Rochester, Minnesota, aged 83. Projected release July 15, 2028. Not at FCI Loretto	Cali Cartel co-founder; pleaded guilty 2006, cocaine importation conspiracy
Abdulwali Abdukhadir Muse	70636-054	FCI Cumberland, Maryland. Projected release May 30, 2038. Not at Terre Haute	Surviving pirate from the 2009 Maersk Alabama hijacking
Quazi Mohammad Nafis	81710-053	FCI Big Spring, Texas, which the Bureau announced on July 1, 2026, it would close. Projected release June 20, 2038	Pleaded guilty 2013, attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction
Sami Osmakac	55958-018	FMC Rochester, Minnesota. Projected release June 22, 2046	Convicted of plotting attacks in Tampa, Florida, 2012
Kevin Garfield Ricks	77607-083	FMC Butner, North Carolina — the medical center, not one of the three FCIs in the Butner complex. Projected release May 6, 2032	Former teacher; sex offenses against minors
Clay Roueche	36994-177	FCI Oxford, Wisconsin. Projected release November 25, 2027	United Nations gang leader; pleaded guilty 2009
Aaron Zahn	89841-509	Record read IN TRANSIT, with no facility (the screen shows “NOT IN BOP CUSTODY”). Projected release January 12, 2027	Former JEA chief executive; conspiracy and wire fraud
Lawrence R. Lawton	52224-004	Released August 24, 2007	Former jewel thief
Thomas W. Noe	26157-018	Released from federal custody October 27, 2008	Ohio fundraiser; campaign-finance offenses, 2006
George Thacker	97243-509	Died at FCI Edgefield, December 26, 2022	Former Rhea County, Tennessee executive; pandemic relief fraud

Copied lists go stale as soon as a man transfers. To learn where someone is held now, search the Inmate Locator by register number.

How do I find someone at FCI Edgefield?

To find someone at FCI Edgefield, search the Bureau’s free public Inmate Locator, by the eight-digit register number if you have it. The number is the reliable key: the locator matches the committed name on the judgment, not a nickname. It covers everyone in federal custody since 1982: for someone still held it gives the facility and a projected release date, and for someone released it shows “Not in BOP Custody as of” and a date, with no facility.

If it returns nothing, the person is usually in state custody, in pretrial detention under the U.S. Marshals Service, or spelled differently on the judgment than at home. See how register numbers work.

The locator also records deaths: the screen shows “Deceased:” and the date.

How do I write to someone at FCI Edgefield?

Mail for someone at the FCI goes to P.O. Box 725, Edgefield, SC 29824, with the committed name and the eight-digit register number on the first line. Mail without a register number is returned.

Purpose	Address
Mail to someone at the FCI	Inmate Name & Register Number FCI Edgefield Federal Correctional Institution P.O. Box 725 Edgefield, SC 29824
Mail to staff	Staff Name FCI Edgefield Federal Correctional Institution P.O. Box 723 Edgefield, SC 29824
Freight and non-USPS parcels	Staff Name FCI Edgefield Federal Correctional Institution Attn: Warehouse 501 Gary Hill Road Edgefield, SC 29824

The camp address. The Bureau’s facility page prints a block headed “For inmates at the Camp,” but the block is blank — the words “Inmate Name & Register Number” and “Satellite Camp,” then a bare comma where the box, city, state and ZIP should be. The Bureau publishes no camp box; listings that give one repeat the institution’s box. Call 803-637-1500 and ask before sending anything to a man at the camp.

General correspondence is opened, inspected and may be read under the Bureau’s correspondence rules. Legal mail is opened only in the inmate’s presence and is not read — but only if the envelope identifies the sender as an attorney and carries the special-mail marking. The 2011 handbook puts the burden on the inmate: “It is your responsibility to inform your attorney of the procedures for handling Special Mail.” An unmarked letter from a lawyer is opened and read like any other. See attorney-client communication in the Bureau of Prisons and writing to someone in federal prison.

Outgoing legal mail runs on a narrow clock, which matters when a deadline is close. Special mail must be hand-delivered to mail room staff with the inmate’s account card as identification, in these windows only: FCI, Monday to Friday excluding holidays, 6:15 to 7:00 a.m. and 2:00 to 2:30 p.m.; camp, 7:10 to 7:40 a.m.; Special Housing Unit, on a round at about 3:00 p.m. Mail left in a SHU cell door is not collected, and anything failing the criteria is handed straight back.

Two limits trip families up. Under the 2011 handbook, books, magazines and newspapers may come only from a publisher or bookstore, never a home address (at the camp, a minimum-security facility, 28 C.F.R. § 540.71(a)(3) lets softcover books and magazines come from any source; hardcovers and newspapers still need a publisher, book club or bookstore), with five books and five magazines held at a time and a cell limit of fifteen combined. And nothing of value may arrive by mail: stamps sent in a letter go back to the sender, as does money.

How do I send money to someone at FCI Edgefield?

Money for someone at FCI Edgefield goes to the Bureau’s national lockbox in Iowa or through Western Union or MoneyGram, never to the institution, and all three routes need the committed name and the eight-digit register number. The institution’s handbook says so in terms: “The institution mail room at FCI Edgefield does not accept funds from outside the institution.”

Route	Where it goes	What to know
Postal money order or cashier’s check	Federal Bureau of Prisons Committed Name Eight-Digit Register Number Post Office Box 474701 Des Moines, Iowa 50947-0001	U.S. postal money orders post without a hold; other instruments carry one. No cash, no personal checks, and no letters or photographs in the envelope — the lockbox cannot forward them
Western Union Quick Collect	Code city FBOP, DC	Fastest route. Funds sent between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. Eastern post within two to four hours according to the Bureau’s money page, and ordinarily within two hours under Program Statement 4500.13; later transfers post at 7:00 a.m. the next day
MoneyGram	Receive code 7932, company name Federal Bureau of Prisons, Washington, DC	Same speed as Western Union

The sender’s name and return address must appear in the upper left corner. If they do not and the funds cannot be posted — a misspelled name, a wrong register number — there is nowhere to send the money back to. See sending money to a federal prisoner.

Before sending a large sum, know the ceiling. Commissary spending is capped at $460 a month under the Bureau’s trust fund rules, and money above that sits in the account, where a court-ordered obligation under the Inmate Financial Responsibility Program is drawn against it; it buys nothing at the window.

What are the visiting hours at FCI Edgefield?

Visiting at FCI Edgefield runs 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., and no visitor is admitted after 2:00 p.m. The hours are set by the institution’s visiting supplement, EDG-5267.09A, dated April 22, 2024, which rescinded the January 2020 version and applies the Bureau’s visiting regulations to both the FCI and the camp.

There is no Friday evening visiting. The 2011 handbook’s line “Visiting is conducted on Friday from 5:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m.” is out of date, and so are listings that repeat it.

The supplement disagrees with itself on the days. Its narrative says “Social visits occur on Saturdays, Sundays, and on Federal Holidays.” The schedule table printed directly beneath that sentence, on the same page, reads: Sunday 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.; Monday 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.; Federal Holidays 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. There is no Saturday line in the table and no Monday in the narrative. Everything else in the supplement — the camp’s odd/even weekend rotation, the Saturday-only SHU schedule — assumes Saturday and Sunday. Call 803-637-1500 and confirm the day before you travel.

Two hard stops inside the day. Admittance ceases at 9:30 a.m. for the count; anyone arriving from then until it clears must leave institution grounds and return. And no one is processed in after 2:00 p.m., whatever the posted closing time. Special Housing Unit visits are Saturdays only, 12:30 to 2:30 p.m., non-contact, minimum one hour — with no SHU visitor processed after 12:50 p.m., a twenty-minute window. Attorney visits for SHU inmates are scheduled before noon.

Who can visit, and how many

• Normally a maximum of twenty people on the visiting list, changed only once a quarter by Inmate Request to Staff — so a name left off in error stays off for months.
• Seven visitors at a time: no more than four adults and no more than three children under sixteen.
• Every proposed visitor is run through the National Crime Information Center except law-enforcement officials and officers of the court. A check is valid two years, then redone.
• No social visits during the first 72 hours after arrival, and immediate family only until proposed visitors are verified. A man transferring in keeps his approved list, but everyone is rechecked.
• The camp runs an odd/even system the institution does not: men whose register number’s first five digits end odd visit one weekend, even the next. The Unit Team holds the schedule.
• Visits by people with criminal records, business visits, consular visits and community-group visits each need the Warden’s authorization. A Minister of Record counts against neither the visitor total nor the number of social visits.
• Neither the FCI nor the camp is a holdover facility. A man on holdover status may be visited by verified immediate family only, on three days’ notice, under SHU rules.
• The visiting room holds 288 at the FCI and 164 at the camp; the non-contact area holds two.

Edgefield’s crowding rule runs the opposite way from what most people assume. When the room fills, the supplement authorizes a two-hour maximum visit and begins terminating visits for people who live within fifty miles of the institution, widening in fifty-mile increments. The address on the visitor’s identification decides where they live. If crowding continues, the most frequent visitors are ended first. A family driving from Columbia is comparatively protected; a family that moved to Aiken to be close is first to be sent home.

What visitors can wear and bring

Edgefield’s dress code carries a rule most prisons do not, and it differs between the two sides of one address: khaki is prohibited when visiting the FCI, olive drab when visiting the camp, camouflage at both. Visiting institution and camp in one weekend means two wardrobes.

Also prohibited: low-cut or V-neck shirts and dresses, see-through clothing, spandex, leggings, tube tops, tank tops, halter tops, crop tops, sleeveless and backless clothing, swimsuits, sweat suits, hoodies, mesh, break-away pants, open-toe shoes, slides, gang-affiliated logos and anything suggestive or skin-tight. Shorts must be no higher than above the bend of the knee, and a dress no shorter than the bend of the knee including any slit. Hats, bandanas and scarves are barred except religious headgear — kufi, headbands, turban, hijab. The supplement advises avoiding under-wire bras because they may not clear the metal detector. No visitor may be turned away over attire without the Operations Lieutenant or Duty Officer being consulted.

Everything you carry in must fit one clear bag or container no larger than six by six by three inches: photo identification; vending money, no more than $25 per adult visitor with no note larger than $5; feminine hygiene products in sealed packaging; and life-essential medication such as heart medication or an inhaler, limited to the amount needed and held by the Visiting Room Officer. Non-excessive worn jewelry is allowed, and staff look hard at anything that could be an electronic device.

For an infant, per child: one clear diaper bag or container, four diapers, one unopened package of wipes, one change of clothing, two bottles with contents, two small unopened jars of baby food, a receiving blanket and a see-through cup. Breastfeeding is permitted under the Fairness For Breastfeeding Mothers Act of 2019, with draping expected.

Two small things end visits before they start. No outside gum or candy may enter. And no wrist watches, timepieces or electronic devices of any sort are authorized — so the watch you wear every day goes back to the car.

Across the table, the man you are visiting may carry in one wedding band without a stone, one religious medallion on a chain and prescription eyeglasses. Legal material may come in for a legal visit with prior Unit Team approval, inspected but not read. Every man at the FCI is visually strip-searched entering and leaving; men leaving the camp room are searched at random. And there is to be no exchange or delivery of legal documents between an inmate and an attorney during visitation — which is why a lawyer who needs a signature plans for it in advance.

Identification and screening

Photo identification is required for everyone sixteen and over; under-sixteens are exempt. The supplement accepts a current state driver’s license, a state identification card, verifiable government-issued identification or a passport, or verifiable foreign-government identification — and says flatly that an expired ID of any type is not valid. Attorneys on legal business must also present a valid bar identification card; law enforcement must present professional credentials. If all the attorney–client rooms are occupied, an attorney visit may proceed in the main visiting room at the attorney’s and the client’s election.

At the FCI every visitor must clear the walk-through metal detector, and the supplement states that no alternative method is authorized. Belongings are screened electronically, and all visitors face random pat searches under a method fixed daily. You may refuse any search and leave, but refusal means you do not come in. Service animals need verifiable certification and advance notice; a visitor in a wheelchair must submit to a thorough search and, where possible, transfer to a Health Services chair. See searches, shakedowns and contraband and federal prison visitation.

In March 2025 visiting room staff noticed a visitor behaving oddly and called the Edgefield County Sheriff’s Office. Tracy Alic Rel, of Portland, Oregon, had flown to Atlanta carrying methamphetamine in empty pill capsules hidden in vitamin bottles, repacked it into small rubber balloons at a motel near the prison, and passed the balloons to a man during visitation. An Edgefield County jury convicted her in February 2026, and she was sentenced in July 2026 to ten years in state prison.

Getting there

The institution is at 501 Gary Hill Road, just south of the town of Edgefield. The visitors’ handout attached to the 2024 supplement gives Columbia as 70 miles and about an hour and twenty minutes — I-20 west, SC-19 north at exit 18 toward Johnston and Edgefield, then US-25, Bauskett Street and Gary Hill Road — and Atlanta as 170 miles and about three hours.

For anyone without a car, the same handout says: “Edgefield County does not provide any public transportation Systems. Taxi Cabs are available from Augusta, GA to the institution, while public transportation is available from both Atlanta, GA and Columbia, SC.” You can reach Augusta, Atlanta or Columbia by bus — then you need a taxi or a ride. Visitors park in the designated lot; loitering there or on institution grounds is not permitted at any time.

How do phone calls and email work at FCI Edgefield?

Calls at FCI Edgefield go one way: the incarcerated person places them, and you cannot call in. Unit phones run 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., every number must be on an approved list holding up to 30 numbers and 100 contacts, and the Bureau allows 510 minutes a month under its telephone regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, issued September 3, 2026 — 300 free to anyone eligible for First Step Act telephone incentives, and 210 more that anyone may buy after using up the first 300. At Edgefield the minutes revalidate on the same day each month by register number and do not carry over.

A single call should generally not exceed 15 minutes, and at least 30 minutes must pass between completed calls before the same person may dial again; the program statement sets that minimum and leaves any longer wait to the Warden. No calls during a count. Three-way calls and credit-card billing are prohibited, and the handbook defines a three-way call broadly enough to catch a relative who conferences in a cousin. Everything except a properly arranged legal call is monitored and recorded. Unmonitored attorney calls must be arranged in advance by written request to the Correctional Counselor. See federal inmate phone calls.

Email runs on TRULINCS, reached by families through CorrLinks: text only, no attachments and no internet, paid for in units at five cents a unit; inspectors recorded five cents to send and five to receive here. See CorrLinks and TRULINCS.

Email with a lawyer is not privileged: attorneys may be on the messaging list, and those messages are monitored like any other. Privileged writing travels as marked special mail, hand-delivered into one of the narrow windows above.

What can people buy at the FCI Edgefield commissary?

The monthly commissary spending limit at FCI Edgefield is $460. The Bureau’s trust fund rules, Program Statement 4500.13, issued May 7, 2026, raised it from $360, and the limit rises by $50 during the November and December holiday period, for no more than one validation period. Items excluded from the cap include postage stamps, nicotine replacement products, over-the-counter medications and vitamins, copy cards and copy paper.

Listings that give $290 or $360 are out of date. The $290 comes from this institution’s 2011 handbook and was the limit in force when inspectors visited in 2014. The Bureau’s published Edgefield order form (2019) prints no limit at all.

Shopping is once a week, the FCI units rotating by register number on a schedule posted in the commissary and every unit: sales 10:30 a.m. to work call and 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. or last call, Monday to Thursday. The camp sells Monday to Thursday from 10:30 a.m. until last call, with Monday afternoon sales for outside work details. Order blanks reach the units the night before.

The rules on the back of the order form are strict. Prices change without notice. No substitutions once the list is in, and no add-ons. No exchange or repair of a damaged item. If a man does not reach the window after three calls, his merchandise goes back to stock and he cannot shop until his next scheduled day. A day missed on an official callout can be made up through the Correctional Counselor; a day missed because funds had not cleared cannot. And any personal item taken out of its original container becomes contraband.

The form runs to several hundred lines with per-item caps — twelve of each soup, two of each coffee, one of each hygiene item, twenty mackerel fillets. It stocks a Prestige 402 typewriter at $38.20, typing paper, lift-off correction tape at $8.85, legal pads, clear legal binders and a pocket dictionary — the tools legal work here still depends on. It also stocks prayer oil, eight colors of yarn, a G-Shock watch at $94.00 and an MP3 player at $88.40 — and exactly one camp-only line, brown work gloves at $2.10. See the federal prison commissary.

Two basics are not covered. There are no washers or dryers in the housing units and no laundry soap in the commissary; laundry is institutional and on a fixed schedule. And no over-the-counter medication is issued here — a limited range must be bought, so the exclusion of medication from the spending limit matters.

What programs are available at FCI Edgefield?

FCI Edgefield offers drug education and nonresidential drug treatment at both the FCI and the camp, GED and vocational training, a UNICOR clothing and textiles factory, and faith-based reentry programming; the Residential Drug Abuse Program runs only at the satellite camp.

RDAP and drug treatment

The Residential Drug Abuse Program at Edgefield runs at the camp only. The Bureau’s current list of RDAP locations, updated June 4, 2026, and printed in the August 2026 First Step Act Approved Programs Guide, records 57 programs at 50 locations and names “SCP Edgefield (SC)” in the Southeast Region. FCI Edgefield does not appear on it.

RDAP is 500 hours of unit-based treatment over six to twelve months, and for nonviolent offenses completion can mean up to a year off under 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e). Under the Bureau’s RDAP rules it needs a documented substance-abuse history in the twelve months before incarceration, a release date within 36 months, and a signed agreement. One disqualifier for the § 3621(e) year catches more people than any other: a firearm offense under § 922(g) or § 924(c) is treated as a crime of violence under the Bureau’s categorization policy, so a man may complete the whole program and receive no time off it. Detainers disqualify too.

At Edgefield this is a transfer question, not a program question. The Southeast Region places eligible men on a regional waiting list that follows them between institutions, and the handbook states a man will not be sent to another region to participate. So the argument is about designation — points, Public Safety Factors, Management Variables — and anyone at the FCI who needs RDAP should raise it with his Unit Team years, not months, before release. See federal prison transfers.

Both sides run the lower tiers. Drug Education is offered at the FCI and the camp — about 40 hours with a final test, required where the presentence report shows drugs or alcohol contributed to the offense, where drug use caused a supervision violation, or where the judge recommended it. The Nonresidential Drug Abuse Program is voluntary. Transitional Services continue monthly for up to twelve months after RDAP and again at the halfway house.

Education, vocational training and UNICOR

Every man is interviewed by an Education representative on arrival. The department runs K–5, pre-GED and GED levels plus English as a Second Language, Adult Continuing Education and parenting classes. A man without a high school credential must complete 240 instructional hours before he may withdraw — and the credential is not merely educational: under the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and the Prison Litigation Reform Act it governs how much good conduct time vests, 54 days a year with satisfactory progress against 42 without. See prison education and vocational training.

The leisure and law library at the FCI opens Monday to Thursday 7:30 to 10:00 a.m., 1:00 to 3:30 p.m. and 5:30 to 8:00 p.m.; Friday without the evening session; and Saturday 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. The camp libraries are open daily 7:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. — better access than the FCI offers, and useful when a filing deadline is running.

Vocational training here is strong on paper and thin on instructors. Inspectors recorded culinary arts, computer and employment skills, automotive repair, small appliances and welding, plus a 6,000-hour culinary apprenticeship carrying ServSafe and National Occupational Competency Testing Institute certifications. The automotive program ran with Meineke, which had hired three men released from here. Staff also said “the remote location of the facility makes it difficult to get certified trainers,” and by April 2017 the Bureau reported one vocational instructor in post against three vacancies.

UNICOR at Edgefield is a clothing and textiles factory — the Bureau’s current factory list names Edgefield, South Carolina, under that heading. Inspectors found it making t-shirts and pants for the Bureau, pants for the military and chef coats for a private company, ISO-9000 certified and audited every six months by an outside body, employing 325 men with 150 to 180 on the waiting list, with a 6,000-hour quality-assurance apprenticeship certified through the South Carolina Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation taking six men a year by staff vote.

Two details for anyone weighing the job. The waiting list is worked in priority order — veteran status, prior UNICOR experience, a financial responsibility plan, or a release date within 24 months — and a GED is required unless demand is unusually high. UNICOR workers are concentrated in one housing unit so the factory keeps running when the compound is locked down. Pay runs $0.23 to $1.15 an hour; a man in Inmate Financial Responsibility Program refusal status is dismissed from UNICOR and capped at maintenance pay.

Faith-based and reentry programming

Religious Services was staffed by a supervisory chaplain, two chaplains and an assistant, with a rabbi under contract, when inspectors last looked. Twelve faith groups were represented, the largest Christian Protestant, Sunni Muslim and Roman Catholic. There is an indoor chapel and an outdoor religious area including a sweat lodge, open seven days a week with an hour of worship and an hour of study per faith group per week. Between 45 and 50 volunteers were active, most of them Christian; staff noted difficulty recruiting Muslim volunteers locally.

Edgefield runs the Threshold Program, a nonresidential faith-based reentry program taught by chaplains and volunteers over six to nine months in groups of fifteen — a modified Life Connections Program. Halfway house placement is arranged by the Residential Reentry Management office for the district a man is going home to, wherever he is held. For South Carolina that is RRM Atlanta, whose Bureau page lists the District of South Carolina with the three Georgia districts — not RRM Raleigh, which despite the geography lists only the Virginia and North Carolina districts.

Approved is not the same as offered. The Bureau’s First Step Act Approved Programs Guide lists the recidivism-reduction programs approved to be offered at each institution. Whether a class is running, whether there is a waitlist, and whether time credits are being posted correctly are three different questions, and a published list answers only the first. The Fourth Circuit case below arose from exactly that gap.

What is daily life like at FCI Edgefield?

Daily life at FCI Edgefield follows a fixed schedule of counts, work, meals, sick call and recreation, set out in the institution’s Admission & Orientation handbook. Treat it as the rhythm of the place, not a timetable to rely on: the handbook dates from 2011, and it is the current version the Bureau publishes.

	Weekdays	Weekends and holidays
Official counts	Midnight, 3:00 a.m., 5:00 a.m., 4:00 p.m. (stand-up), 10:00 p.m. (stand-up)	Same, plus a 10:00 a.m. standing count
Beds made / cells inspection-ready	7:30 a.m. / 8:00 a.m.	On waking
Uniform required	7:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. and at every meal	Dress-down; uniform at meals and stand-up counts
Laundry drop-off	6:30 – 7:30 a.m.; pick up at lunch mainline (camp 10:30 – 11:30 a.m.)	—
Special / legal mail handed in	FCI 6:15 – 7:00 a.m. and 2:00 – 2:30 p.m.; camp 7:10 – 7:40 a.m.; SHU round about 3:00 p.m.	—
Sick call sign-up	6:30 – 7:00 a.m., Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday	Emergencies only
Pill line (FCI)	Insulin 6:15 a.m.; 10:00 – 11:00 a.m.; 3:00 – 3:30 p.m.; insulin 4:30 p.m.; 7:00 – 8:00 p.m.	Insulin 7:00 a.m.; 11:00 – 11:30 a.m.; 3:00 – 3:30 p.m.; insulin 4:30 p.m.; 7:00 – 8:00 p.m.
General clean-up	7:30 – 10:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m., 5:30 – 6:30 p.m., and before lockdown	Same
Recreation	6:00 – 10:30 a.m., 11:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m., 4:30 – 8:30 p.m.	6:00 – 9:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m., 4:30 – 8:30 p.m.
Commissary (FCI)	10:30 a.m. to work call; 4:00 – 8:00 p.m. or last call, Monday – Thursday	Closed
Library	7:30 – 10:00 a.m., 1:00 – 3:30 p.m., 5:30 – 8:00 p.m. (no Friday evening)	Saturday 7:30 – 9:30 a.m., 11:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.
Telephones	6:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m.	6:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m.
Callouts posted / lockdown	By 4:00 p.m. on unit boards / 10:00 p.m.	10:00 p.m.

Sick call has a strict lateness rule. Appointments run Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, sign-up and triage 6:30 to 7:00 a.m., with a $2 co-payment. The handbook then says: “Inmates more than fifteen (15) minutes late will be considered Out of Bounds, have their sick call appointment canceled, and be subjected to disciplinary actions.” A man held up at his work detail can lose the appointment and collect an incident report for the same fifteen minutes. See medical care in federal prison and the Bureau’s patient care rules.

Housing is two- and three-person cells at the institution and open dormitories at the camp. Sanitation is inspected daily and formally on Wednesday mornings, and the cell rules are exact: one pillow, two blankets with the spare folded at the foot of the bunk, nothing taped to a door, window, wall, light or locker, one religious book on the locker top, and all legal material inside the locker or the gray bin issued for it.

Recreation covers intramural softball, basketball, volleyball and soccer, an art room, a music room, an exercise room and a hobby craft and band room; inspectors found men running their own band and an annual Veterans Day concert. The handbook adds a seasonal rule: “The outside recreation yard will be closed prior to the 8:30 p.m. recall by a Lieutenant starting late October through the end of March as the light hours diminish, however, the inside recreation will remain open.”

Food Service runs the national menu, employed 234 men when inspectors counted, and spends roughly $3.31 a man a day. Nothing leaves the dining room and nothing comes in — books, bags, shoes and radios go on racks at the door. See what people eat in federal prison. Work details run through Food Service, Mechanical Services, the warehouse, the hospital, Education, the clothing room, sanitation and maintenance, at $0.12 to $0.40 an hour with $5.25 a month maintenance pay.

What do inspectors say about conditions at FCI Edgefield?

The only independent inspection of conditions at FCI Edgefield, by the District of Columbia’s Corrections Information Council in November 2014, drew more complaints about health care than about anything else, and the prison passed its 2025 PREA audit. The DOJ Office of the Inspector General has not conducted an on-site inspection of this facility — the unannounced conditions inspection it publishes for a handful of prisons, a program that had reached fourteen institutions on the Inspector General’s own count in May 2026 (Report 26-055), has never been run at Edgefield, and none is announced for it. The Inspector General has still worked here: its auditors did site work inside this prison in 2014, and its criminal investigators have worked here four times over in the last five years. The Corrections Information Council looked at conditions only because DC residents are held here; it inspected on November 17, 2014, and published two and a half years later.

The only outside account of how this prison treats the men inside it is therefore nearly twelve years old.

What the Inspector General has done

Auditors were inside the warehouse here, and the subject was contraband. In June 2014 the Inspector General published an audit of 65 pallet-sized x-ray machines the Bureau bought in September 2011 for $3,955,382 after a smuggling attempt at FCC Pollock (Audit Report 14-27). FCI Edgefield appears in the report’s own table headed “BOP Site Visit Locations and Security Levels” — one of nine institutions visited — and again in the table of the seven where warehouse staff ran a live demonstration for the auditors. At Edgefield, staff hid an item inside two loaded pallets; the auditors could make it out in one pallet and not in the other. Across the seven demonstrations the OIG wrote that it was “still unable to identify the contraband in many of the scanned images” even knowing where it was hidden, and that the machines “may offer a false sense of security and increase the risk of contraband entering into the secure facility if no additional screening methods are used.” Thirty-eight of the 64 staff who answered its survey said the machines did not meet expectations.

The rest of the Inspector General’s work here is criminal. Four of its investigations at FCI Edgefield have produced convictions since 2021.

• Jonathan Owens, an information technology specialist, disguised personal purchases on a government credit card as institution purchases between May 2014 and May 2019. Sentenced on May 17, 2022, to time served, one year of supervised release and $29,060 in restitution.
• Phillip Coleman, a Worker Foreman, took bribes to bring contraband cigarettes in between February and June 2021. Sentenced on August 30, 2022, to time served and three years of supervised release, forfeiting $49,051 in cash and two firearms, a total of $52,500.
• Altemus Johnson, a correctional officer, was sentenced on October 17, 2023, to four years of probation for possessing marijuana with intent to distribute.
• James Lindley, a correctional officer, sought bribes from men held here between January and November 2023 to smuggle contraband in. Sentenced on December 17, 2024, to three years of probation and ordered to forfeit $30,156.

Two of the four were worked by the Inspector General’s Atlanta Area Office, one by its Southeast Region, one with the FBI. Read alongside the staffing account below, they describe a contraband economy that needs a staff member to work, at an institution that has been short of staff for years. Separately, the Inspector General’s September 2021 follow-up survey of Bureau staff on the pandemic publishes its results broken out for this institution by name, under “Edgefield FCI.”

The 2025 PREA audit

FCI Edgefield was audited under the Prison Rape Elimination Act on January 28–30, 2025, by an independent auditor, Lori Fadorick of Corrections Consulting Services LLC; the final report is dated March 6, 2025. The facility passed — 45 standards met, none exceeded, and the audit records the number of standards not met as “N/A” rather than as zero, with no corrective action — and the auditor records no access problem: “The Auditor had full, unimpeded access to all areas of the facility,” including segregated housing.

Buildings	25
Inmate housing units	17 — 13 multiple-occupancy cell, 4 open bay or dorm, 0 single-cell
Segregation cells	72
Designated capacity	1,472 — FCI 960, camp 512
Population on day one of the audit	1,706
Average daily population, preceding 12 months	2,000 — FCI 1,554, camp 446
Over capacity in the preceding 12 months	Yes
Staff who may have inmate contact	283, of whom 22 hired in the preceding 12 months
Contractors / volunteers with inmate contact	8 / 11
Age range of population	20 to 85
Average length of stay	FCI 682.9 days, camp 368.1 days
Accreditation within three years	American Correctional Association only
Admissions in the preceding 12 months	1,663

The institution has a designated capacity of 1,472 but ran at an average of 2,000 for the year before the audit, and the staffing plan was not adjusted to match: the audit records that “the current staffing is based on 1,472 inmates.” Correctional services run three eight-hour shifts, with an officer and a case manager to each housing unit and medical staff on site around the clock.

The audit also sets out who was in the building on day one: of 1,706 men, 133 had disclosed prior sexual victimization during risk screening, 17 identified as transgender or intersex, 20 as lesbian, gay or bisexual, 54 were limited English proficient, 112 had a cognitive or functional disability, 13 were deaf or hard of hearing, 9 blind or low-vision and 11 physically disabled. No housing units are designated for LGBT or intersex residents, and sexual assault forensic examinations are done at a local hospital.

The allegation data qualify the passing result. In the twelve months before the audit the facility recorded 6 allegations of sexual abuse and 12 of sexual harassment. All 18 received an administrative investigation; none received a criminal one. All 6 abuse allegations were inmate-on-inmate. Of the 12 harassment allegations, 7 were staff-on-inmate — and all 7 were still open at audit time. None of the 18 was substantiated.

The 2017 inspection report

The Corrections Information Council inspected on November 17, 2014, and published in May 2017. Its findings describe the prison of 2014 with some 2017 updates from the Bureau, and should be read as history. Twenty DC residents volunteered for interview, out of 82 DC residents then held here, in a population of 1,600. Nothing below is a facility-wide percentage.

• The prison was at 138.8% of its rated capacity — 1,600 against a rated 1,152 — and the camp held 500, which the Council called the largest satellite camp attached to a secure facility in the Bureau.
• Health Services drew the most complaints, 53 from the DC group. The Council found it “received more numerous and serious concerns at FCI Edgefield than at the majority of other medically similar facilities,” noted that the department was not understaffed compared with other Care Level II prisons, and recommended that the facility evaluate and replace medical staff producing poor outcomes.
• Several respondents reported that a DC resident had died in the law library months earlier. The Bureau’s published response was that the Council “did not provide any specific information regarding the unsubstantiated allegation,” and that with specifics it would investigate.
• The wait for partials or dentures was roughly 24 to 36 months. On optometry the Bureau responded that increasing the contract optometrist from four to six sessions a month had cut the wait “from a one year waiting list to a three month waiting list,” with eyeglasses filled through the UNICOR optics operation at FCC Butner.
• Eighteen concerns were raised about the Special Housing Unit — prolonged Special Investigative Services investigations producing extended stays, and shortages of hygiene items, envelopes, visitation forms, GED material and cop-out forms. The SHU was designed for 144 and held 93 that day: 25 in disciplinary segregation, 68 in administrative detention.
• Respondents reported long waits for staff to answer the in-cell panic button. The Bureau replied that without specifics the claims were unsubstantiated, and that staff “respond to the duress alarms immediately.”
• Of the administrative remedies the Bureau supplied as of September 2014, 13 medical BP-9s were submitted, 9 filed, none answered and none granted, with the same outcome for 13 medical BP-10s. Filings about the SHU at every level: zero.
• Staff drew more praise here than at most prisons the Council visited — 14 positive comments against 11 concerns — though one DC resident reported being told not to speak poorly of the facility to inspectors.
• Twenty complaints concerned daily life: vermin in the kitchen, unsanitary food handling, dirty laundry, a library described as small and antiquated, and one man unable to eat before sunrise during Ramadan.

Staffing

In October 2025 The State reported that FCI Edgefield is meant to run on roughly 120 correctional officers at full staff and was operating with almost 30 vacancies, with nurses, electricians and social workers pulled to cover housing-unit posts. The practice has a name inside the Bureau — augmentation — and the PREA audit had recorded it the previous January as one of the ways required staffing levels are maintained.

The same reporting caught three pressures at once: a federal shutdown that stopped pay for essential staff who still had to report; the Bureau’s announcement that it would no longer recognize the master agreement with the Council of Prison Locals; and a long-running recruitment problem. Talmadge Coleman, recently retired from Edgefield and president of the union local there, described morale as “very low,” with the last pre-shutdown paycheck leaving many staff $400 to $500 short. Brandy Moore White, president of Council of Prison Locals 33: “We’re an agency in a staffing crisis.”

The Bureau’s own records show this is not new. When it gave the Attorney General’s Award for Excellence in Administrative Support to the Warden’s Secretary at FCI Edgefield in November 2020, the citation praised work done “especially in the absence of a permanent Warden, Associate Warden(s) and Executive Assistant” — the Bureau describing, in a press release, a period when this institution had no permanent executive staff at all.

For a family, short staffing is why a callout is canceled, a class has a waitlist, a medical appointment slips past the fifteen-minute rule, or a visit is cut to two hours.

Deaths in custody and litigation

Three men died at FCI Edgefield in 2026. The Bureau announced each death in a news release, and Augusta broadcasters reported each at the time.

Name	Date recorded by BOP	What was reported
Dale Scott, 39	May 25, 2026	Found unresponsive at the facility; died at a local hospital
Harold Hayward Nolan, 45	June 26, 2026	Found unresponsive at about 11:40 a.m.; died after being taken to a local hospital
Antjuan Pierre Jackson, 41	August 17, 2026	Found unresponsive at about 7:00 a.m.; staff began life-saving measures and EMS was called; pronounced dead at hospital. The FBI was notified. He had been here since May 20, 2026

An earlier death produced the conditions litigation against this facility with the clearest public resolution. George Thacker, the former Rhea County, Tennessee executive convicted of pandemic relief fraud, died at FCI Edgefield on December 26, 2022, less than a month into his sentence. In July 2025 his daughter, as administrator of his estate, sued the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act: Wesolowski v. United States, No. 6:25-cv-06675 (D.S.C.), a wrongful-death action docketed as a prison-conditions case. The parties moved jointly for a mediator in December 2025; the case was terminated on January 22, 2026, and the Chattanooga Times Free Press reported that month that a $750,000 settlement was pending. A settlement is not a finding of fault, and none was made.

The most consequential case out of this prison is not about conditions at all. In Benson v. Warden FCI Edgefield, No. 24-6713, decided April 22, 2026, the Fourth Circuit published an opinion vacating the dismissal of a habeas petition by a man designated to Edgefield who spent fifteen months in a Rhode Island detention center before transfer. He claimed roughly 150 days of First Step Act time credits earned in that period; the Bureau refused them because his risk and needs assessment was not administered until he arrived here, and the district court dismissed without discovery and without requiring the Government to respond. The Fourth Circuit sent the case back to decide, in the first instance, whether the Bureau’s reading of “successful participation” is the best reading of the statute — distinguishing White v. Warden of FCI–Cumberland, 164 F.4th 326 (4th Cir. 2025), and urging the district court to act “with the utmost expediency” because the petitioner’s release date was approaching.

Two practical points follow. First Step Act credits for the months between sentencing and arrival at a designated institution are a live question in this circuit, and anyone who waited that long in a detention center before reaching Edgefield should be asking what happened to that time. The regulation is changing too: an interim final rule published August 31, 2026 (91 Fed. Reg. 55740) deletes from 28 C.F.R. § 523.42(a), effective September 30, 2026, the clause that started credits on arrival at the designated facility, so credits begin “after the inmate’s term of imprisonment commences” — though credit still depends on completing assigned programs, and pretrial detention still earns none under 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4)(B)(ii). And the court reaffirmed that when the Bureau moves a petitioner after he has properly filed, the district court where he filed keeps jurisdiction — a transfer out of South Carolina does not undo a petition filed here. See the administrative remedy program for the exhaustion steps that come first.

FCI Edgefield in the news

Recent news about FCI Edgefield centers on three deaths in 2026, a methamphetamine-smuggling sentence, a camp walkaway and a week without water; older items concern staffing shortages, a correctional officer’s bribery sentence, Hurricane Helene damage, deaths reported between 2020 and 2023, and a 2019 official visit.

• August 2026 — third death of the year. The Bureau reported that Antjuan Pierre Jackson, 41, “was found unresponsive” at FCI Edgefield on August 17 and was “subsequently pronounced deceased by hospital personnel”; the FBI was notified (Bureau news release).
• July 2026 — Tracy Alic Rel, 61, of Portland, Oregon, was sentenced on July 28 to ten years after an Edgefield County jury convicted her of trafficking methamphetamine into the prison in balloons passed during weekend visitation.
• June 2026 — the Bureau reported that Harold Nolan, 45, “was found unresponsive” at FCI Edgefield on June 26 and was “subsequently pronounced deceased by hospital personnel” (Bureau news release).
• May 2026 — the Bureau reported that Dale Scott, 39, “was found unresponsive” at FCI Edgefield on May 25 and was “subsequently pronounced deceased by hospital personnel” (Bureau news release).
• March 2026 — Johnathan Pineda-Diaz walked away from a camp work detail at about 9:00 a.m. on March 25 and was found at a motel on Augusta Road and taken into custody without incident (WJBF).
• March 2026 — a week without water. The Bureau confirmed “a temporary interruption with the institution’s water supply in certain areas” from March 10; the Edgefield County Water & Sewer Authority said it was “unaware of any supply issues” at the prison and had received no call from it that week (WJBF).
• October 2025 — The State reported almost 30 vacancies against a complement of roughly 120 officers, with teachers, nurses and electricians covering housing units while pay was suspended by the federal shutdown.
• December 2024 — James Lindley, formerly a correctional officer here, was sentenced in the District of South Carolina to three years’ probation and ordered to forfeit $30,156 after pleading guilty to bribery for smuggling contraband to men inside between January and November 2023.
• September 2024 — Hurricane Helene. The Bureau reported that “FCI Edgefield sustained significant damage, including a roof failure and consequential flooding,” with everyone accounted for and no injuries.
• September 2020 to March 2023 — the Bureau posted four news releases reporting the deaths of people held at FCI Edgefield or its satellite camp; the Bureau’s releases are listed on its press release page.
• 2019 — the Attorney General and members of Congress toured FCI Edgefield; the Bureau later recorded that the institution prepared for the visit while operating without a permanent Warden, Associate Wardens or Executive Assistant.

Frequently asked questions about FCI Edgefield

Problems at FCI Edgefield: where we can help

Edgefield’s own record points at one thing before any other: this prison has been run for years with more men in it than it was staffed for. The 2025 PREA audit puts designated capacity at 1,472 and the year’s average at 2,000, and records that “the current staffing is based on 1,472 inmates.” Everything below is what that gap produces in an individual case, and each of these has a deadline attached.

• First Step Act time credits — Edgefield’s live legal question after the Fourth Circuit’s April 2026 decision in Benson, which matters to every man who waited months after sentencing before arriving here. Whether credits are being earned, calculated and applied is worth checking against the sentence computation, not assumed.
• RDAP and the § 3621(e) year. Because RDAP here is at the camp, this is usually a designation and transfer argument rather than a program application, and the regional waiting list follows a man between institutions. See our federal prison early release practice.
• Designation, Public Safety Factors and transfer — all arguable, and all decided at Grand Prairie rather than in Edgefield. See federal prison transfers.
• Medical care that is not happening. It was the leading complaint in the only independent inspection this prison has had, and the institution’s own sick-call rule punishes lateness with an incident report. The route is a written request to staff, then the administrative remedy process — and the BP-9 must be filed within 20 calendar days. Where neglect has caused injury or death, see Federal Tort Claims Act claims.
• Halfway house and home confinement placement, arranged by the reentry office for the district of release — RRM Atlanta for anyone going home to South Carolina.
• Disciplinary proceedings that threaten good conduct time, and Special Housing Unit placements that outlast their justification — inspectors here recorded eighteen complaints about prolonged investigative segregation — including protective custody.
• Compassionate release under the Bureau’s reduction-in-sentence rules, and sentence computation errors measured against the Bureau’s sentence computation manual, including good conduct time that has not vested because an education requirement was misapplied.
• Challenges to the conviction or sentence itself, through a direct appeal or a § 2255 motion.

Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. is a federal criminal defense, appeals and post-conviction firm based in Columbia, South Carolina — seventy miles and about an hour and twenty minutes from the visiting room at Edgefield. We practice nationwide, but this institution sits in our home district, the District of South Carolina, and the Fourth Circuit is our court of appeals. 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 Edgefield, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Contact details, population and mailing addresses.
• Institution Supplement EDG-5267.09A, Visiting, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCI Edgefield, 2024. Visiting schedule, rules, dress code and crowding procedures; replaced Institution Supplement EDG-5267.09 (2020).
• FCI Edgefield Commissary List (Medium/Camp), Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCI Edgefield, 2019.
• FCI Edgefield Inmate Handbook (Admission & Orientation), Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCI Edgefield, 2011. Daily schedule, mail, commissary, telephones, sick call, libraries, recreation and work; several figures are superseded.
• Trust Fund/Deposit Fund Manual, Program Statement 4500.13, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Commissary spending limit and exclusions.
• Inmate Telephone Regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Replaced Program Statement 5264.08 (2008).
• First Step Act Time Credits—Revisions, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Federal Register, 2026. Interim final rule revising 28 C.F.R. § 523.42(a), effective September 30, 2026.
• First Step Act Approved Programs Guide, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Reentry Services Division, 2026. Includes the current RDAP locations list.
• RRM Atlanta, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Judicial districts served.
• RRM Raleigh, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Judicial districts served.
• Community Ties: Send Money, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026.
• Death at FCI Edgefield, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. News release on the death of Antjuan Pierre Jackson.
• Death at FCI Edgefield, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. News release on the death of Harold Nolan.
• Death at FCI Edgefield, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. News release on the death of Dale Scott.
• Hurricane Helene, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2024.
• FCI Edgefield Staff Member Receives AG Award, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2020.
• Press Releases, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2020–2023. Includes four releases from 2020 to 2023 reporting deaths at FCI Edgefield and its satellite camp.
• UNICOR, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Factory locations, listing Edgefield, South Carolina, under Clothing and Textiles.

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. Includes the Inspector General’s count of institutions inspected.
• PREA Audit Report: FCI Edgefield, Corrections Consulting Services LLC, 2025. On-site audit of January 28–30, 2025, by Lori Fadorick.
• 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. Survey results broken out by institution.
• FCI Edgefield Inspection Report, District of Columbia Corrections Information Council, 2017. Inspection of November 17, 2014, with the Bureau’s response.
• Audit of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ September 2011 Procurement of X-Ray Equipment Under Contract GS-07F-0182T (Report 14-27), U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2014. Site visits and warehouse demonstrations, including FCI Edgefield.

Court records

• Benson v. Warden FCI Edgefield, No. 24-6713 (4th Cir.), U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, 2026. Published opinion vacating and remanding the District of South Carolina’s dismissal in No. 0:24-cv-01195-HMH.
• White v. Warden of Federal Correctional Institution–Cumberland, 164 F.4th 326 (4th Cir.), U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, 2026.
• Wesolowski v. United States, No. 6:25-cv-06675 (D.S.C.), U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, 2025. Docket of the wrongful-death action over George Thacker’s death.
• BOP Correctional Officer Sentenced for Bribery, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2024. James Lindley’s sentence.
• BOP Correctional Officer Pleaded Guilty to Bribery, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2024. James Lindley’s guilty plea.
• Former BOP Correctional Officer Sentenced for Possession with the Intent to Distribute Marijuana, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2023. Altemus Johnson’s sentence.
• Former BOP Correctional Officer Sentenced for Bribery, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2022. Phillip Coleman’s sentence.
• BOP Correctional Officer Sentenced for Mail Fraud and Theft of Government Money, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2022. Jonathan Owens’s sentence.

News and other sources

• Edgefield Federal Prison Inmate Dies, 3rd Death Reported This Year, WRDW/WAGT (Augusta), 2026.
• Oregon Woman Gets 10 Years for Smuggling Meth into Edgefield Prison, WJBF (Augusta), 2026.
• Edgefield Inmate Escapes Work Camp, Recaptured Peacefully, WJBF (Augusta), 2026.
• Federal Bureau of Prisons Responds to Water Issues at FCI Edgefield, WJBF (Augusta), 2026.
• $750K Settlement Pending in Former Rhea County Executive’s 2022 Death, Chattanooga Times Free Press, 2026. By Ben Benton.
• Government Shutdown Adds to Problems for SC Federal Prisons, The State (Columbia, S.C.), 2025. By Ted Clifford.
• 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e), Imprisonment of a convicted person, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4)(B)(ii), Development of risk and needs assessment system, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 28 C.F.R. § 523.42(a), Earning First Step Act Time Credits, Code of Federal Regulations (Legal Information Institute).
• 28 C.F.R. § 540.71(a)(3), Procedures, Code of Federal Regulations (Legal Information Institute). Sources from which inmates may receive publications.

Sources reviewed September 2026.

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