FCI Memphis: Low Security, Visiting, Mail and Programs

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

FCI Memphis at a glance

FCI Memphis is a low-security federal prison for men in northeast Memphis, Tennessee, with a detention unit for pretrial and pre-sentence defendants. It held 1,069 people as of September 2026. It opened in 1977 beside Interstate 40, sits in Shelby County in the Western District of Tennessee, and is the only federal prison in the state.

Official name	Federal Correctional Institution, Memphis
BOP code	MEM
Security level	Low; men; with a detention unit for pretrial and pre-sentence defendants
Population	1,069 (as of September 2026)
Visiting	Saturdays, Sundays and federal holidays, 8:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m. · see visiting hours
Inmate mail	FCI and detention unit: Inmate Name & Register Number · FCI Memphis · Federal Correctional Institution · P.O. Box 34550 · Memphis, TN 38184 Camp, as the Bureau still prints it: Inmate Name & Register Number · FCI Memphis · Federal Correctional Institution · Satellite Camp · P.O. Box 2000 · Millington, TN 38083
Send money	Lockbox · Western Union (code city FBOP, DC) · MoneyGram (receive code 7932)
Phone	901-372-2269 · Fax 901-384-5462
Street address	1101 John A. Denie Road, Memphis, TN 38134 · Shelby County
Judicial district	Western District of Tennessee, Western Division
BOP region	South Central or Mid-Atlantic · see which regional office handles appeals
Designated capacity	1,180
Housing	10 housing units, all multiple-occupancy cells
Special Housing Unit	Yes · 32 segregation cells
RDAP	Yes
UNICOR	Unconfirmed · see programs
Camp	Satellite Prison Camp, Millington · status unsettled · see whether the camp is still open

Three records about the prison are easy to misread. It is now low security, although a 2021 Bureau release still called it medium. The Bureau’s roster places it in the South Central Region, while several Bureau documents still say Mid-Atlantic. And the Millington camp still shown on the Bureau’s facility page has no line in the population count. The Bureau also still serves a Spanish visiting rulebook from February 2013 beside the English one of June 2026, and the two describe different prisons.

One prison, three Bureau labels: FCI, detention center and the Millington camp

There is one federal prison in Tennessee, but the Bureau’s paperwork gives it three parts, and which part someone is in changes how you visit, how you write and how soon he will move. The main institution is the low-security compound on John A. Denie Road. The second is what the facility page calls a detention center, a unit the Bureau’s 1990 directory described as holding “pretrial and presentenced Federal detainees,” people whom the rules on programming, halfway-house planning and First Step Act credits do not yet reach in the same way.

The third part is the Satellite Prison Camp at Millington, 6696 Navy Road, about twenty miles north on what the 1990 directory calls the U.S. Naval Air Station, Memphis. It opened in 1990 with a rated capacity of 96 men in four dormitories, the same directory says. Whether anyone is there today is a question the Bureau’s records answer three ways, set out below.

Two other places trip up families. The West Tennessee Detention Facility at Mason closed in 2021 when the Justice Department did not renew CoreCivic’s contract to run it, and in August 2025 the town approved its reopening as an immigration detention center. The Shelby County jail at 201 Poplar Avenue is a county facility, and someone charged in state court is not in the federal locator at all.

What is the security level at FCI Memphis?

FCI Memphis is low security. The Bureau’s facility page reads “a low security federal correctional institution with a detention center,” its roster carries the value Low, and the Prison Rape Elimination Act auditor who walked the compound in February 2026 recorded its security and custody levels as “Low / Minimum; Community / In / Out.” The June 2026 visiting supplement says it in passing: a transferred man’s visiting list is honored only if his file “reflects proper documentation for a low facility.”

The change is recent. In January 2021 a Bureau press release described it as “a medium security facility that currently houses 1,036 male offenders.” The Inspector General reported the change in September 2025, in an audit noting that the Bureau had picked four facilities for mission changes to make room near people’s release locations: “The BOP lowered security levels at FCI Oxford and FCI Memphis from medium to low and, according to the BOP, resulted in 1,070 inmates being placed within 500 miles of the release residence as of February 2025.” Neither document says when the switch happened.

Low security here means cell housing rather than open dormitories: the 2026 audit counted ten multiple-occupancy cell housing units, no single-cell units, no open-bay or dormitory units and 32 segregation cells. Designation to a low rather than a camp turns on the security point score under the Bureau’s security designation rules and on whether a Public Safety Factor applies; a deportable-alien finding or more than ten years remaining to serve keeps a man in at least a low however low his points. Someone who arrived when Memphis was a medium may find the institution reclassified around him while his own custody classification has not moved; a program review is where to raise it. Our guides to the intake process and preparing for a self-surrender cover the first days.

Is the Millington camp still open?

The Bureau’s public records do not settle whether the Millington camp is still open. In date order, they show the following.

• On October 26, 2025, two men were found missing at 3:00 a.m. from “the satellite camp of Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Millington” and turned themselves in that afternoon, according to Justice Department and Bureau statements reported by WMC Action News 5. The camp held people then.
• The Prison Rape Elimination Act audit of February 2026 records the facility’s security levels as “Low / Minimum” but never mentions a camp.
• The visiting supplement the Warden, Charles Harrison, signed in June 2026 is written “for inmates housed at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI), Memphis and the Satellite Prison Camp (SPC) Millington,” sets camp hours and gives the camp’s seating capacity as 250.
• The camp is not in the Bureau’s July 1, 2026 announcement, which names six closures, among them the satellite camps at Big Spring, La Tuna and Lexington, and moves the Morgantown and Duluth camps to satellite-low status.
• The Bureau’s population report for September 2026 returns one line, “MEMPHIS FCI,” with 1,069 people and no camp line; for institutions with a working camp the same report prints a separate camp count.
• As of September 2026, the Bureau’s roster carries no camp flag for Memphis, yet its facility page still shows a mailing address “For inmates at the Camp” at P.O. Box 2000, Millington, and still links a “Camp” handbook that is identical to the main handbook.

The Bureau’s population report no longer counts Millington separately, the Bureau has not said why, and the institution’s documents and web page carry on as before. If your family member has been told he is going to “the camp at Memphis,” ask the unit team in writing which location and mailing address apply before you post anything or plan a trip.

Which regional office handles FCI Memphis appeals?

The Bureau’s publications place FCI Memphis under two regional offices, South Central and Mid-Atlantic, so ask the unit team in writing which one receives its appeals, and keep the answer. The Bureau’s roster lists FCI Memphis in the South Central Region, run from Grand Prairie, Texas, as of September 2026, and the Warden’s June 2026 visiting supplement names “SCRO,” the South Central Regional Office, in its distribution list. But the Bureau’s Mid-Atlantic regional-office page still lists Tennessee among its states, though not Memphis among its institutions; its August 2026 First Step Act guide files “FCI Memphis (TN)” under the Mid-Atlantic Region on one page and South Central on the next; its 2025 legal resource guide lists the prison under the Mid-Atlantic consolidated legal center; and the 2012 handbook prints the Mid-Atlantic Regional Office as the address for regional correspondence.

The region matters most for appeals. A regional appeal in the administrative remedy program, the BP-10, must reach the Regional Director within 20 calendar days of the date the Warden signed the response, and a sensitive complaint goes to the Regional Director directly; the deadline is measured by receipt at the regional office, and an appeal sent to the wrong region can be rejected and returned. Confirm the receiving office with the counselor before the envelope is sealed and keep proof of when it left. South Central is at 344 Marine Forces Drive, Grand Prairie, TX 75051, telephone 972-730-8600; Mid-Atlantic is at 302 Sentinel Drive, Suite 200, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701, telephone 301-317-3100. Halfway-house placement for releases to any of Tennessee’s three federal districts runs through RRM Nashville, which the roster still keeps in the Mid-Atlantic Region.

Who are the notable inmates at FCI Memphis?

The notable inmates at FCI Memphis are Ron Rockwell Hansen, a former Defense Intelligence Agency officer, and Joseph Chase Winkle, a former Muncie, Indiana police officer. Both were held here as of September 2026, and their register numbers let you check the Bureau’s Inmate Locator yourself.

Name	Status at Memphis	Case
Ron Rockwell Hansen (49078-086)	Currently held here; projected release December 9, 2026. He was at FCI Safford, Arizona, in March 2024	Former Defense Intelligence Agency officer; pleaded guilty in the District of Utah in March 2019 to attempting to deliver national defense information to China and was sentenced that September to ten years
Joseph Chase Winkle (17517-028)	Currently held here; projected release March 7, 2031	Former Muncie, Indiana police officer; pleaded guilty to five civil-rights counts for assaulting arrestees and six obstruction counts for false reports and was sentenced in the Southern District of Indiana on August 30, 2023, to ten years

Listings that give Hansen’s release as September 2026 are out of date. Craig Petties, the Memphis trafficker the U.S. Marshals added to their 15 Most Wanted list in 2004, is held at USP Tucson, not at Memphis: the Bureau’s record places him there, register number 82553-179, serving life. He was held at FCI Memphis once, and the U.S. Attorney recorded in 2013 that he pleaded guilty to possessing a weapon there. Mitchell Johnson, one of the two boys who killed five people at Westside Middle School in Arkansas in 1998, is not listed here either. On the day he was released in 2005, his 21st birthday, a spokesman at the prison told reporters Johnson had never been held there or at its camps, and in 2007 a local sheriff placed the other shooter, Andrew Golden, in Minnesota or Montana.

How do I find someone at FCI Memphis?

Search the Bureau’s Inmate Locator by register number if you have it; it matches the committed name on the judgment, so a man known as Chase is filed as Joseph, and under heavy use the locator can ask for a captcha. The result names the facility as “Memphis FCI”; the facility code in the person’s record, MEM, is not shown on screen. The detention unit, the camp and the main compound all carry that one code, so the locator will not say which he is in; his counselor will, and so will the return address on his first letter. A record the Bureau marks “IN TRANSIT” means, in its words, that he “has been moved from a BOP facility, and may or may not be returned”; the screen shows “NOT IN BOP CUSTODY” instead of a facility. A release date of “UNKNOWN” says nothing about custody on its own; ask the counselor. Our guide to how register numbers work explains the suffix; “-076” is the Western District of Tennessee.

How do I write to someone at FCI Memphis?

Write to the person’s committed name and register number at FCI Memphis, Federal Correctional Institution, P.O. Box 34550, Memphis, TN 38184, a post office box with a different ZIP code from the prison itself; letters to the detention unit use the same box. The Bureau’s page still prints a second box for the Millington camp; use the block the unit team confirms.

Main institution and detention unit	Satellite camp, as still printed by the Bureau
Inmate Name & Register Number FCI Memphis Federal Correctional Institution P.O. Box 34550 Memphis, TN 38184	Inmate Name & Register Number FCI Memphis Federal Correctional Institution Satellite Camp P.O. Box 2000 Millington, TN 38083

Put the eight-digit register number on the envelope; the 2012 handbook asks for the housing unit as well. General mail can be opened and read, and after a transfer ordinary mail is forwarded for only 30 days before it is returned to the sender, so wait for the new address.

Legal mail gets different handling only if it is marked. Under the Bureau’s correspondence rules, the mailroom opens special mail in the presence of the person it is addressed to and does not read it, provided the sender is identified on the envelope as an attorney and the front is marked “Special Mail — Open only in the presence of the inmate”; an unmarked lawyer’s letter is opened as ordinary mail. Our guides to writing to someone in federal prison and attorney-client communication in the Bureau cover what gets rejected. Never put money in a letter.

How do I send money to someone at FCI Memphis?

Money for someone at FCI Memphis goes to the Bureau’s national lockbox in Iowa or through Western Union or MoneyGram, never to the prison, and each route needs the committed name and register number exactly as the Bureau holds them.

Route	Where it goes	Timing
U.S. postal money order	Federal Bureau of Prisons Committed Name Register Number Post Office Box 474701 Des Moines, Iowa 50947-0001	Postal money orders carry no hold; other money orders and non-government checks are held 15 days. Lockbox inquiries: 202-307-2712 (2012 handbook)
Western Union Quick Collect	Code city FBOP, state code DC	Posted within two to four hours when sent 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Eastern; after 9:00 p.m., at 7:00 a.m. Eastern the next morning
MoneyGram	Receive code 7932, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Washington, DC	Same schedule as Western Union

Cash and personal checks are not accepted at the lockbox. For the wire services the Bureau warns that a wrong name or number can get the transfer rejected or, worse, posted to someone else’s account. Commissary spending is capped at $460 a month under the Bureau’s national rule of May 2026, and the 2012 handbook says Memphis resets that limit on a date fixed by the fifth digit of the register number; money above the limit stays in the account. Our guide to sending money to a federal prisoner covers the national rules.

What are the visiting hours at FCI Memphis?

Visiting at the main institution runs from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Saturdays, Sundays and federal holidays, with the last visitors processed at 2:30 p.m., under Institution Supplement MEM 5267.09P, Visiting Regulations, dated June 17, 2026, which replaced the October 2025 edition. The same document gives the camp identical hours and puts Special Housing Unit visits on the third Monday of each month, 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., limited to two hours.

The supplement contradicts itself on Mondays. The visitor handout attached to it as Attachment 6, over the Warden’s name, says general-population visiting is permitted “on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and federal holidays except for the third Monday of each month.” The body of the supplement, eleven pages earlier, gives general-population visiting no Monday hours. Both carry the same directive number and date, and neither says which the front-lobby officer will apply. If a Monday is the only day you can make, call 901-372-2269 the week before.

Listings that give Friday or Thursday evening hours are out of date. The Bureau’s 2012 handbook, still the one it publishes for this prison, lists Friday visiting from 2:30 to 9:00 p.m. and Thursday visiting from 1:00 to 9:00 p.m. on the first, second, fourth and fifth Thursdays; none of it survives in the 2026 supplement. Check the Bureau’s facility page for a lockdown or visiting suspension the morning you travel; the Bureau’s lockdown rules explain how modified operations work.

Who can visit, how many, and the seven-point rule

• The approved list holds up to 25 people, no more than ten of them friends and associates. Immediate family named in the presentence report go on after an NCIC check; everyone else needs form BP-629 and a background investigation. An initial list is ordinarily ready within seven days.
• No social visits during the first seven working days after arrival, and immediate family only during the 72-hour orientation period.
• The body of the supplement allows five visitors at a time including children; the Warden’s handout allows five adults with no limit on children under sixteen. Assume the stricter rule until the lobby says otherwise. Children under sixteen come with a parent or legal guardian who is on the list.
• Visits are rationed by points at the main institution only: seven a month, three for a Saturday or Sunday visit, none for holiday, attorney, professional and volunteer visits, and none carried over. Seven points buys two weekend visits a month, not three.
• When the room is full, visitors who traveled under 100 miles count as local, and the lieutenant asks them for volunteers to end their visits. The room seats 111; there is no non-contact area and no nursing room, though nursing mothers may leave and come back, and a Parenting Room is open in one-hour slots to men enrolled in the parenting program or finished with its classes.

What visitors can wear and bring

Every garment must have sleeves, and skirts, dresses and any slit in them come no higher than two inches above the knee. Barred: sleeveless tops, V-necks, anything see-through or skin-tight including leggings, shorts on anyone but children, capris, sweat suits, plain white T-shirts, hats except on infants, scrubs, camouflage, open-toed shoes, and khaki, orange, brown or gray, because that is what the men wear.

Bring your keys and a clear plastic bag no bigger than six by six by three inches with up to $20 in coins for the vending machines; paper money stays outside. For a baby: two clear empty bottles, three diapers, wipes in a clear container, two sealed packages of baby food or formula, one change of clothes and one receiving blanket, but no stroller and no diaper bag. Leave in the car: handbags, sunglasses, phones, any watch or fitness band, make-up, reading material, food including gum, tobacco, and any medication other than a life-maintaining drug cleared by the Operations Lieutenant. The lobby lockers are only for visitors who were dropped off.

Identification and screening

Every visitor shows a valid government photo identification, signs the Notification to Visitor form, BP-224, in front of a staff member, and signs the log in and out. You get three attempts at the walk-through metal detector before a hand wand is used, everything you carry goes through the X-ray, and visitors are pat-searched at random, children under eighteen excluded. Lawyers are processed as visitors too: bar card and identification at the lobby, a briefcase allowed, laptops and recorders only with the Warden’s prior written approval, and no handing documents to the client, who must receive them by mail. Legal visits need the Warden’s approval on 24 hours’ notice through the unit team, but an attorney who arrives outside visiting hours “will not be turned away due to lack of an appointment.” The Bureau’s visiting regulations and our guides to searches and contraband and federal prison visitation cover the national rules.

If you were given the Spanish visiting rules, stop

The Bureau publishes a Spanish-language visiting supplement for FCI Memphis at the same address pattern as the English one, and it is thirteen years out of date. The English edition is MEM 5267.09P (2026). The Spanish edition is MEM 5267.08J, dated “El 7 de Febrero de 2013”; it rescinds a 2010 edition, rests on Program Statement 5267.08 (2006), which the Bureau replaced in 2015 with Program Statement 5267.09, and describes the institution as “una instalación media,” a medium. The 2026 edition names only its predecessor of October 2025 and never mentions the Spanish document; the English supplement is the current rule.

The Spanish edition tells families they may visit on Friday afternoons and evenings and on the evenings of the first, second, fourth and fifth Thursdays, that visits are rationed by a 30-point system counted in hours, that four adults may visit at once with unlimited children, that clergy visits cost points, and that the detention unit visits on Thursday afternoons. All of that was true in 2013 and none of it is in the 2026 rules. A family that follows the Spanish document and arrives on a Friday evening will find no visiting at all.

The rules matter to many families here: the PREA auditor recorded 203 men with limited English proficiency among the 965 held on the first day of her visit in February 2026, one in five. The Spanish document is not linked from the facility page as the English one is; it is still there at the conventional address. If you read Spanish rather than English, use the English supplement with a translator or ask the unit team for the current rules in Spanish, and keep what they give you. The 2012 handbook’s Spanish edition is dated the same day as the English one, so it is equally old in both languages.

Getting there

The prison is at 1101 John A. Denie Road in northeast Memphis, near the junction of Interstate 40 and Sycamore View Road. Take Exit 12 from I-40, go through the light at Macon Road, and turn right at the fourth street, Long Line Road, which bends around to become John A. Denie Road; the institution is on the right, and the supplement’s instruction is to “[p]ark in the first parking lot behind the Trailers.” Visitors may not wait in the lot before hours and may not use the staff lot.

The camp’s address is 6696 Navy Road, Millington, TN 38053; the supplement prints its telephone as 901-872-2277 on one page and 901-372-2269 on another. Read the section on the camp’s status before planning a visit there. The supplement’s list of airlines still includes Northwest, which has not flown under its own name since 2010.

How do phone calls and email work at FCI Memphis?

Calls from FCI Memphis go one way: he calls you, your number must be on his approved list, and you cannot call him. The allowance is national: under the Bureau’s telephone regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, issued September 3, 2026, everyone with a telephone account gets up to 510 minutes a calendar month, of which 300 are free only to people eligible for First Step Act telephone incentives; the other 210 can be bought only after the first 300 are used up, by anyone, eligible or not. A single call should generally not exceed 15 minutes, at least 30 minutes must pass between completed calls, and unmonitored legal calls arranged through the unit team fall outside the 510. The November and December bonus minutes belonged to the 2008 policy, which is rescinded.

The Bureau’s own 2012 handbook for Memphis still says 300 minutes a month; the 510-minute rule of PS 5264.09 controls. What the handbook can still tell you is the local shape: three telephones in each housing unit, usable only from the unit a man is assigned to, available from 6:00 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., with money moved from the commissary account to the phone account by the “118” option. National policy now permits phones until 11:30 p.m.; whether Memphis has extended its hours since 2012 is a question for the unit team. See our guide to federal inmate phone calls.

Email runs on TRULINCS, reached through CorrLinks after he adds your address and you accept the invitation. The handbook puts terminals in each unit plus twelve in the law library, with 60-minute sessions, 100 contacts, 13,000 characters a message and no attachments. Every piece of outgoing paper mail must carry a label printed from TRULINCS or it comes back to him. In July 2026 the Bureau awarded a contract for secure tablets with messaging and video on a phased rollout; the 2025 Memphis commissary list already prices a “Score 7T” tablet at $131.30. Our page on CorrLinks and TRULINCS sets out the charges.

What can people buy at the FCI Memphis commissary?

The monthly commissary spending limit at FCI Memphis is $460, set nationally by the Bureau’s trust fund rules, Program Statement 4500.13, issued May 7, 2026, which raised it from $360; the limit rises by $50 during the November and December holiday period, for no more than one validation period. The 2025 Memphis commissary list prints no dollar figure and the 2012 handbook says $320; the program statement controls.

The exclusions have changed too, and the local form has not caught up. The 2025 list says everything counts “with the exception of stamps, copy cards, and over the counter medication.” The program statement’s list is longer and stated to be exhaustive: postage stamps; nicotine patches and lozenges; over-the-counter medications, medical products and vitamins; kosher and halal shelf-stable entrees for men in Financial Responsibility Program refusal status; copy cards and copy paper; footwear; mattresses; and the secured media device. Telephone credit is not on it. Special purpose orders, the route for shoes and religious items, are now capped at $600 a quarter, up from $300, and at one order a month unless the Warden approves more.

The 2012 handbook has Memphis validate the limit on a date set by the fifth digit of the register number, a 0 on the first of the month and a 9 on the twenty-eighth, in three-day steps between, and allows one shopping trip a week on a posted schedule. The commissary form’s rules are blunt: no substitutions once the list is in, no additions at the window, all sales final, and every item limited to five unless it says otherwise. Soups and bottled water are capped at 24, legal envelopes and photo tickets at ten, stamps at one book, and footwear, on the camp’s list, at one pair of each kind every six months.

The stock says something about who lives here. Café Bustelo, Goya Sazón seasoning and Chi-Chi’s flour tortillas sit beside the Keefe coffee, and a kufi sells at $4.00 while the yarmulke is a special order. Running shoes are $74.95 by special order, a Sangean digital radio $58.50, a book of Forever stamps $14.60, and typewriter ribbons are still on the stationery page. Omeprazole at $8.95 is on the medication page, a detail that matters in a lawsuit described below. The national rules are on our page about the federal prison commissary.

What programs are available at FCI Memphis?

FCI Memphis offers a Residential Drug Abuse Program, literacy and GED classes, vocational training, a driver’s-license program for men near release, and faith-based and reentry courses; whether its UNICOR factory is still running is unconfirmed.

RDAP and drug treatment

FCI Memphis has a Residential Drug Abuse Program, named in the Bureau’s list of RDAP locations (updated in June 2026) inside the First Step Act Approved Programs Guide (2026), which counts 57 programs at 50 locations. Under the Bureau’s drug-treatment rules it is a 500-hour residential course of at least nine months, and for people convicted of non-violent offenses completion can bring up to a year off under 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e). The June 2026 list marks a Spanish-language program only at FCI Miami and in FMC Carswell’s women’s program; the Memphis entry carries no such mark. Non-residential treatment, drug education and AA and NA groups are marked for Memphis in the grid on the strength of a national permission rather than a Memphis-specific statement.

Education, vocational training and a Tennessee driver’s license

Literacy classes are mandatory for 240 hours or until a GED. The 2012 handbook lists a Spanish GED track beside the English one and English as a Second Language, which matters in a prison where one man in five has limited English, along with computerized business skills, vocational training in construction technologies and the building trades, an apprenticeship program, Adult Continuing Education classes taught by prisoners, and a pre-release course for men within a year of the door. The same handbook describes a Saturday out-count in the library, so that men can work through the 10:00 a.m. count for eight uninterrupted hours, a schedule to ask about for anyone with a filing deadline. Our guides to prison education, vocational training and the law library explain the national framework.

Ask early about one local program. In early 2023 the Bureau signed a five-year agreement with the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security under which eligible men within twelve months of release at Memphis and Millington can obtain a Tennessee driver’s license, a state identification card, a commercial learner’s permit or a commercial driver’s license before they walk out. The CDL track is four to six weeks in the classroom, then 30 to 60 days of practice driving and a road test, according to the announcement carried by FOX13 Memphis in May 2023, which said the prison’s Reentry and Education Departments would coordinate it. Ask them before the 12-month mark, not after.

UNICOR is where the record is least clear. Federal Prison Industries ran a cable factory here that employed about a third of the population in 1990, and the 2012 handbook says it “produces and services electronic cable assemblies and a printing operation” with a waiting list. The August 2026 guide’s by-institution grid marks Federal Prison Industries at Memphis, but the same guide’s narrative entry names 54 institutions where the program operates and Memphis is not among them; the narrative half controls. Anyone counting on UNICOR wages should ask the unit team whether the factory is running.

Faith-based and reentry programming

The 2012 handbook says staff chaplains are supplemented by contract and volunteer representatives of particular faiths; the visiting supplement lets each man carry one minister of record on his list without spending a visiting slot, and religious diets run through the Chaplain. Religious Services also runs the Threshold reentry course marked for Memphis in the program grid. Halfway-house referrals under the Second Chance Act are prepared by the unit team and, for releases to Tennessee, go to RRM Nashville. Of the 52 programs the August 2026 grid marks for Memphis, 49 rest on a blanket sentence that the program “may be offered at all BOP institutions”; that is permission, not a report that a class is running, and the person to ask is the case manager, in writing, so the answer is on record when time credits are computed.

What is daily life like at FCI Memphis?

Daily life at FCI Memphis runs on cell housing and a fixed routine of counts, work call, open movement and meals. The only published schedule is the 2012 handbook’s, written for a medium-security routine, so treat the table as the shape of the day rather than a timetable.

	Weekdays	Weekends and holidays
Wake-up	5:45 a.m.	Beds made by 10:00 a.m.
Official counts	12:00 a.m., 3:00 a.m., 5:00 a.m., 4:00 p.m. standing, 9:30 p.m.; cell doors secured at 9:00 p.m.	Same, plus a 10:00 a.m. standing count
Work call	6:30 a.m. facilities details, 7:40 a.m. everyone else; back to detail after the noon meal	—
Open movement	Ten minutes at 9:30, 10:30, 12:30, 1:30, 2:30 and 3:30; on the hour after dinner until the compound closes about 8:45 p.m.	Ten minutes on the hour from 8:00 a.m.
Meals	Breakfast from 6:15 a.m., lunch from 10:45 a.m., dinner after the 4:00 p.m. count; units called by weekly sanitation rating	Coffee from 7:00 a.m., brunch from 11:00 a.m., dinner after the count
Sick call	Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, 6:30 to 7:00 a.m.	—
Telephones and TRULINCS	6:00 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Recreation yard	6:00–10:30 a.m., noon–3:45 p.m., 5:00–8:45 p.m.	7:00–10:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m.–3:45 p.m., 5:00–8:45 p.m.
Law and leisure library	7:35–11:30 a.m., 12:30–3:45 p.m.	Saturday 7:30 a.m.–3:30 p.m., with an out-count through the 10:00 a.m. count

Source: FCI Memphis and SPC Millington Admission and Orientation Handbook (2012), still the edition the Bureau publishes.

Housing is cells, not dormitories. Under the 2012 handbook no item of personal property may be worth more than $100, and each meal at the FCI is logged by scanning the prisoner’s identification card. The same handbook lists a 1/3-mile track, softball field, gymnasium, music room and hobby-craft shop for recreation, and a contract psychiatrist available by appointment for medication management.

The Special Housing Unit has its own rules, and the use-of-force case described below began on an escort back to a SHU cell. Under the handbook a man in the SHU gets five hours of recreation a week, may keep two books, twenty stamps and his current legal case only, may make one fifteen-minute social call every thirty days, and reaches the electronic law library by written request. Someone placed there “pending investigation” can wait a long time on those terms, and the rules on administrative detention set the clocks a family should be counting.

What do inspectors say about conditions at FCI Memphis?

The DOJ Office of the Inspector General has not conducted an on-site inspection of this facility. Its staff know the building as investigators: since 2012 the office has issued eight press releases about six criminal cases arising from FCI Memphis, every one involving someone the Bureau employed or contracted. Its list of ongoing work as of September 2026 shows no pending inspection here; the open inspections are at FCI Berlin and FCI El Reno. The District of Columbia’s Corrections Information Council has published no inspection of FCI Memphis. What independent scrutiny exists comes from the Prison Rape Elimination Act auditor, from the Government Accountability Office’s allegation counts, and from the federal court across town.

Staff who were prosecuted

The Inspector General’s releases, all on cases in the Western District of Tennessee, describe a pattern that runs from the kitchen to the officers’ ranks over more than a decade. In August 2012 a jury convicted Mark Evans, a prisoner, of running a marijuana ring in 2009 and 2010 in which a food-service employee carried the drugs in through the kitchen; the enterprise took in at least $85,000. In April 2016 former officer Keair Kemp was sentenced to a year and a day for taking cash to bring marijuana in. In May 2020 a contract medical worker got time served for bringing in cigarettes for money. In November 2023 former officer William Smith IV received probation and a $5,000 fine for supplying tobacco to a prisoner. In April 2025 former officer Bryan Miller was sentenced to a year and a day after accepting $19,500 over four months to smuggle narcotics and other contraband. Visiting rules here allow coins only and X-ray everything a visitor carries in, yet every smuggling case the Inspector General has announced here involved someone who worked inside.

The 2026 PREA audit

FCI Memphis was audited under the Prison Rape Elimination Act by Cynthia Swier of Corrections Consulting Services, on site on February 3–5, 2026, with a final report dated March 17, 2026; the previous audit was in March 2022. The result was 42 standards met, three exceeded and none unmet, with no corrective action required; the three exceeded concern prisoners with disabilities and limited English, screening for risk of victimization, and the use of that screening in housing and work assignments.

The audit is the most detailed public description of the prison as it stands. It records a designated capacity of 1,180, a population of 965 on the first morning, February 3, 2026, and an average daily population of 1,140 over the previous year. It gives the age range in February 2026 as 21 to 82 and the average stay as 412.6 days, and records 1,027 men admitted in the previous twelve months. It counts 215 staff on the first day and records the Warden’s statement that posts may not go unmanned, that overtime, mandatory if necessary, fills the gaps, and that non-custody staff can be used to augment.

Allegations in the twelve months before the audit were five of sexual abuse, four between prisoners and one against a staff member, and one of sexual harassment; all were closed as unsubstantiated and none was referred for prosecution. Three things in the fine print carry weight. Two of three required notifications to other prisons about abuse alleged to have happened there went out after the 72-hour deadline, which the auditor still rated compliant after a memo from the Warden. The prison’s agreement with an outside organization for emotional support was still a draft: a pending memorandum with the Shelby County Rape Crisis Center. And the Bureau told the auditor its 2012 handbook would be updated by March 2026 to explain how PREA education reaches men with disabilities, limited English or limited reading skills; the handbook the Bureau publishes is still the 2012 edition.

The Government Accountability Office’s May 2026 report on sexual abuse in federal prisons gives a longer series. Where another prisoner was the alleged perpetrator, counted by year of incident, Memphis recorded 5, 4, 5, 2 and 8 allegations in 2020 through 2024, 24 in all; where a Bureau employee was the alleged perpetrator, counted by year reported, the figures are 5, 1, 6, 4 and 7, 23 in all. For 2014 through 2022, GAO found nationally that most allegations ended as unsubstantiated, meaning there was not enough evidence either way. The two tables count differently and come from different Bureau systems, so they should not be added, and neither is adjusted for population.

What the federal court in Memphis has said

The prison’s lawsuits land in the Western District of Tennessee’s courthouse a few miles away, and the orders in those cases are part of the public record on conditions here. Two rulings matter to anyone thinking about suing.

The first is Ceide v. Trout, No. 2:21-cv-02803 (W.D. Tenn. Jan. 22, 2025). A prisoner alleged that on May 4, 2021, handcuffed behind his back, he was knocked to the ground and briefly unconscious by one officer while two others let go of his arms. The court did not decide whether that happened. It held that the excessive-force claims arose in a “new” Bivens context, that alternative processes, including the Bureau’s administrative remedy program, counsel against extending the damages remedy there, and that the due-process claim, to the extent it challenged the disciplinary hearing, was barred because the finding had not been overturned. It dismissed with prejudice. The practical consequence is that a Bivens damages claim against Memphis officers over a use of force runs into this ruling; the routes the order itself points to are the administrative remedy program, a suit for injunctive relief and, for the disciplinary finding, habeas corpus.

The second is Bates v. Bowers, No. 2:23-cv-02574 (W.D. Tenn. July 16, 2024), brought by a man at the Millington camp whose application for home confinement under the CARES Act was rejected because he had not served half his sentence. The court dismissed for lack of jurisdiction: the Bureau “has the sole authority to determine the place of an inmate’s confinement,” placement decisions are insulated from review by 18 U.S.C. § 3625, there is no liberty interest in home confinement, and “[t]he Court has no authority to grant release to home confinement.” Anyone counting on a judge to order a halfway house or home confinement from this prison should read that order first.

The rest of the docket is medical. In Mabine v. United States, No. 2:24-cv-02556 (W.D. Tenn. Aug. 29, 2025), a man with lupus alleged that after his transfer to Memphis in August 2023 a nurse stopped dispensing the prescribed amount of the prednisone he had taken since 2015 and confiscated his prescribed omeprazole, telling him to “buy it on commissary”; the court let him amend his deliberate-indifference claims and his tort claim against the United States. In Williams v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, No. 2:21-cv-02069 (W.D. Tenn. Dec. 8, 2021), a man alleged that in April 2020 staff took his post-surgical pain medication and told him to buy substitutes at the commissary. These are allegations, screened rather than tried, but the same instruction appears in complaints three years apart.

FCI Memphis in the news

Recent news about FCI Memphis centers on staff prosecutions, the 2025 walkaway from the Millington camp and the Bureau’s change of the prison to low security; older items concern two deaths in 2020 and 2021, a 2018 fight and a marijuana ring run through the prison kitchen.

• November 2025 — Magwenta Moore, a former unit secretary previously assigned to the prison, was sentenced to time served and $59,166 in restitution after pleading guilty to submitting a false tax form with a pandemic-loan application in January 2021.
• October 2025 — two men were found missing from the Millington camp early on Sunday the 26th and turned themselves in that afternoon, the most recent public report of the camp holding anyone.
• September 2025 — the Inspector General reported that the Bureau had lowered FCI Memphis and FCI Oxford from medium to low security, changes the Bureau said placed 1,070 people within 500 miles of their release residence as of February 2025.
• April 2025 — former officer Bryan Miller was sentenced to a year and a day for taking $19,500 over four months to smuggle narcotics and other contraband into the prison.
• November 2023 — former officer William Smith IV was sentenced to probation and a $5,000 fine for selling tobacco to a prisoner in 2021.
• May 2023 — FOX13 Memphis reported a new program under a five-year agreement between the Bureau and the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security, letting eligible men within a year of release obtain state driver’s licenses, commercial licenses or identification cards before leaving.
• December 2020 to January 2021 — the Bureau posted two news releases reporting the deaths of people held at FCI Memphis; the Bureau’s releases are listed on its press release page.
• April 2018 — a Saturday-afternoon fight sent eleven men to outside hospitals and the prison went to limited operations; WREG’s report of the Bureau’s statement described it as a medium-security prison holding 1,326 men.
• April 2016 — former officer Keair Kemp and prisoner Travonte Johnson were sentenced for their 2015 marijuana-smuggling scheme.
• August 2012 — Mark Evans was convicted of running a three-state marijuana network through the prison kitchen with a food-service employee’s help.

Frequently asked questions about FCI Memphis

Problems at FCI Memphis: where we can help

This prison’s own documents and dockets point to a short list of problems that recur here, each on a clock:

• Prescriptions cut or confiscated with an instruction to buy a substitute at the commissary. That allegation appears in Memphis complaints filed in 2021 and 2024. The route is a sick-call slip, then a written request to the Health Services Administrator, then the administrative remedy process, every step dated; where neglect has caused injury, a Federal Tort Claims Act claim has to name the United States, not the nurse or the doctor, as the Memphis court told the plaintiff in the lupus case. See also medical care in federal prison.
• A regional appeal sent to the wrong region. The Bureau’s documents split between Mid-Atlantic and South Central for this prison, and a BP-10 sent to the wrong office can be rejected and returned, while the 20-day limit is measured by when an appeal reaches the regional office.
• Reclassification. A man designated to Memphis when it was a medium is now in a low; his custody score and Public Safety Factors should be reviewed against the new mission, and a transfer or redesignation request is the vehicle. See our federal prison consulting services.
• Special Housing Unit stays that outlast their stated reason. Administrative detention has review clocks, the disciplinary process has its own, including 20 days to appeal a hearing officer’s report, and video of a use-of-force incident is not kept forever; a written preservation request should go in at once.
• Halfway-house and home-confinement dates. The Memphis court has held that the Bureau alone decides where a prisoner is confined and that the court cannot order home confinement, so the work has to be done inside the Bureau’s own placement review, early and in writing.
• First Step Act credits and RDAP timing: whether credits are being earned and applied, and whether the year off under § 3621(e) has been computed correctly. See our federal prison early release practice.
• Language. One man in five here is limited in English, and the Bureau’s Spanish visiting rules are thirteen years stale; families who read Spanish should not have to guess at the rules.
• Sentence computation errors under the Bureau’s sentence computation manual, including jail credit for men who came through the detention unit, and compassionate release, which under the Bureau’s reduction-in-sentence rules has its own exhaustion requirement.
• 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 Memphis, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. The Bureau’s facility page, with address, contact details, population and the inmate-mail blocks for the institution and the camp.
• Institution Supplement MEM 5267.09P, Visiting Regulations, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCI Memphis, 2026. Visiting times and rules for the FCI and SPC Millington, including Attachment 6; replaced MEM 5267.09O (2025), which the Bureau no longer publishes.
• FCI Memphis Commissary List and SPC Commissary List, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2025. Items, prices and purchase limits; no spending limit stated.
• Suplemento de Institución MEM 5267.08J, Regulaciones Institucional de Visitar para Presidiarios, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FCI Memphis, 2013. The superseded Spanish-language visiting supplement; replaced MEM 5267.08I (2010).
• FCI Memphis and SPC Millington Admission & Orientation Handbook, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2012. Daily schedule, housing, telephone, commissary, programs and the Special Housing Unit.
• FCI Memphis and SPC Millington Admission & Orientation Handbook (Spanish edition), Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2012.
• Administrative Remedy Program, Program Statement 1330.18, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2014. Deadlines for regional appeals.
• Trust Fund/Deposit Fund Manual, Program Statement 4500.13, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Sets the $460 commissary spending limit, its exclusions and the special purpose order cap.
• Inmate Security Designation and Custody Classification, Program Statement 5100.08, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2006, as amended in 2026. Public Safety Factors and the security-level floor for long sentences.
• Inmate Telephone Regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Replaced Program Statement 5264.08 (2008).
• Correspondence, Program Statement 5265.14, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2011. Special mail marking and handling.
• Visiting Regulations, Program Statement 5267.09, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2015, as amended in 2023. Replaced Program Statement 5267.08 (2006).
• First Step Act Approved Programs Guide, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Reentry Services Division, 2026. Program narratives, the RDAP locations list, institutions by region and the by-institution program matrix.
• Legal Resource Guide to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2025. Lists the prison under the Mid-Atlantic consolidated legal center.
• Community Ties, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. How to send money through the lockbox, Western Union and MoneyGram.
• About Federal Inmate Records, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. What each search-result field means, including the “IN TRANSIT” status.
• Mid-Atlantic Regional Office, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026.
• South Central Regional Office, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026.
• RRM Nashville, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. The residential reentry office for releases to Tennessee.
• Federal Bureau of Prisons Announces Facility Closures and Operational Changes, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Press release.
• Federal Bureau of Prisons Awards Transformational Inmate Tablet Contract to Modernize Communication, Education and Rehabilitation Services, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Press release.
• Inmate Death at FCI Memphis, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2021. Press release; describes the prison as medium security.
• Press Releases, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2021. Includes the December 2020 and January 2021 releases reporting deaths at FCI Memphis.
• Facilities 1990, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 1990. The Bureau’s 1990 directory, describing the detention unit and the Millington camp; digitized and published by the National Criminal Justice Reference Service as NCJ 150187.

Audits and inspections

• PREA Audit Report: Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Memphis, Corrections Consulting Services, 2026. On-site audit of February 3–5, 2026, by Cynthia Swier; capacity, population, staffing and allegation data.
• Federal Prisons: Improvements Needed to Prevent, Detect, and Address Sexual Abuse, U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2026. Report GAO-26-107343, with sexual-abuse allegation counts by institution for 2020–2024.
• Ongoing Work, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2026.
• Audit of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Efforts to Place Inmates Close to Home, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2025. Report 25-083; reports the change of FCI Memphis from medium to low security.

Court records

• Former BOP Unit Secretary Sentenced for Paycheck Protection Program Loan Fraud, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2025. Magwenta Moore’s sentence.
• Mabine v. United States, No. 2:24-cv-02556, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee, 2025. ECF No. 11, the August 29, 2025, order dismissing the complaint in part and granting leave to amend.
• Former BOP Unit Secretary Arrested and Pleaded Guilty to One Count of False Statements, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2025. Magwenta Moore’s guilty plea.
• Former BOP Correctional Officer Sentenced for Bribery of a Government Official, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2025. Bryan Miller’s sentence.
• Ceide v. Trout, No. 2:21-cv-02803, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee, 2025. ECF No. 7, the January 22, 2025, order dismissing the case.
• Bates v. Bowers, No. 2:23-cv-02574, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee, 2024. ECF No. 8, the July 16, 2024, order dismissing the case; the docket is captioned Bates v. Peters.
• Former BOP Correctional Officer Sentenced for Introduction of Contraband, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2023. William Smith IV’s sentence.
• Former Muncie, Indiana, Police Officer Pleads Guilty to Eleven Civil Rights and Obstruction Offenses, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, 2022. Joseph Chase Winkle’s guilty plea.
• Williams v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, No. 2:21-cv-02069, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee, 2021. ECF No. 8, the December 8, 2021, order.
• Former BOP Medical Contractor Sentenced for Bribery of a Public Official, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2020. The contract medical worker’s sentence.
• Former Intelligence Officer Convicted of Attempted Espionage Sentenced to 10 Years in Federal Prison, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, 2019. Ron Rockwell Hansen’s sentence.
• Former Federal Correctional Officer, Inmate Sentenced for Contraband Smuggling Conspiracy, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2016. Keair Kemp’s and Travonte Johnson’s sentences.
• Former Federal Correctional Officer, Inmate Indicted for Attempting to Smuggle Marijuana into a Federal Prison, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2015. Keair Kemp’s indictment.
• Drug Trafficking Ringleader Craig Petties Sentenced to Life in Federal Prison, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Western District of Tennessee, 2013. Craig Petties’s life sentence.
• Federal Inmate Found Guilty of Conspiring to Distribute Marijuana within the Federal Correctional Institution in Memphis, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2012. Mark Evans’s conviction.

News and other sources

• 2 Inmates Back in Custody After Escaping Facility in Millington, WMC Action News 5, 2025.
• West Tenn. Town Approves CoreCivic to Run Immigration Detention Facility After Chaotic Meeting, Tennessee Lookout, 2025.
• Tennessee Town Officials Approve Proposal to Reopen Closed Detention Facility as ICE Site, FOX 17 Nashville, 2025.
• In the Matter of Ron Rockwell Hansen, Inmate Number 49078-086, 89 Fed. Reg. 19,803, U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security (Federal Register), 2024. Order denying export privileges, giving his location as FCI Safford.
• Reentry Program Enables Certain Inmates to Get Driver’s License via TN Dept. of Safety, FOX13 Memphis, 2023.
• Former Muncie Police Officers Sentenced for Federal Excessive Force Charges, WFYI, 2023.
• Fight at Local Prison Sends Multiple Inmates to the Hospital, WREG, 2018.
• Westside Shooter to Be Released From Prison, KAIT, 2007.
• Mitchell Johnson’s Whereabouts Remain Uncertain, KAIT, 2005.
• Former Student Gunman Released, NPR, 2005.
• Memphis Drug Fugitive Is Now a U.S. Marshals 15 Most Wanted, Drug Enforcement Administration, 2004.
• 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e), Imprisonment of a convicted person, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 18 U.S.C. § 3625, Inapplicability of the Administrative Procedure Act, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).

Sources reviewed September 2026.

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