FCI Beaumont Medium: Federal Prison, Beaumont TX

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

FCI Beaumont Medium at a glance

FCI Beaumont Medium is a medium-security federal prison for men on Knauth Road in Beaumont, Texas, one of the federal prisons in Texas and one of three institutions on the Federal Correctional Complex there. It held 1,111 people as of September 2026 and has no camp of its own.

Official name	Federal Correctional Institution, Beaumont Medium
BOP code	BMM · complex BMX
Security level	Medium; men
Population	1,111 (as of September 2026)
Visiting	Friday 5:00–8:00 p.m.; Saturday, Sunday and federal holidays 8:30 a.m.–3:00 p.m. · see visiting hours
Inmate mail	Inmate Name & Register Number · FCI Beaumont Medium · Federal Correctional Institution · P.O. Box 26040 · Beaumont, TX 77720
Send money	Lockbox · Western Union (code city FBOP, DC) · MoneyGram (receive code 7932)
Phone	409-727-0101 · Fax 409-720-5000
Street address	5830 Knauth Road, Beaumont, TX 77705 · Jefferson County
Judicial district	Eastern District of Texas
BOP region	South Central
RDAP	Not listed · see RDAP
UNICOR	Not listed
Camp	No

The complex sits on one campus in Jefferson County, about 85 miles east of Houston, in the Bureau’s South Central Region; its other institutions are FCI Beaumont Low, with the satellite camp, and USP Beaumont. The Medium publishes nothing of its own: all six documents on its Bureau facility page — the visiting supplement, the handbook, the commissary list and the audit, plus the Spanish editions of the handbook and the supplement — are complex-wide, and the Medium’s own visiting supplement was rescinded in 2008 and never replaced.

Four federal prisons share one address in Beaumont

Four federal prisons — three institutions and a satellite camp — share one address in Beaumont, so mail, money and travel go wrong here more often than at most institutions. They sit on one square of ground off West Port Arthur Road, reached through the same gate and answering to phones in the same 409 exchange. Settle which one before anything else.

Facility	Code	Street	Telephone	Inmate mail	Held there
FCI Beaumont Low	BML	5560 Knauth Road	409-727-8172	P.O. Box 26020, 77720	1,317
FCI Beaumont Medium (this page)	BMM	5830 Knauth Road	409-727-0101	P.O. Box 26040, 77720	1,111
USP Beaumont	BMP	6200 Knauth Road	409-727-8188	P.O. Box 26030, 77720	1,227
Satellite prison camp	counted under BML	—	—	P.O. Box 26010; the ZIP code is in dispute (see below)	517

Four things follow from that table.

Nothing the Bureau posts under this institution’s code is specific to it. The six documents on the Medium’s facility page are the same six files the Bureau posts for the Low and the penitentiary, so a rule in any of them may describe any of the three prisons.

The post office box is different for every one of the four, and 26010, 26020, 26030 and 26040 belong to four different mailrooms — a letter to the wrong one is not walked across the yard. So is the telephone number. The Inmate Locator names the prison — “Beaumont Medium FCI,” “Beaumont Low FCI” or “Beaumont USP” — and only the first is this institution; the Low’s name covers its camp as well.

The camp is not the Medium’s. The roster records this institution with no camp at all, and the 517 people at the camp are reported under the Low’s code — though the only camp mail block with an address on the Bureau’s three facility pages is the penitentiary’s, which reads: “INMATE NAME & REGISTER NUMBER / USP Beaumont / U.S. PENITENTIARY / SATELLITE CAMP / P.O. BOX 26010 / BEAUMONT, TX 77710.” The Postal Service’s ZIP Code lookup turns the address into “PO BOX 26010, BEAUMONT TX 77720-6010,” and the complex handbook also gives the camp 77720, so end a camp letter with “BEAUMONT, TX 77720-6010.” Our FCI Beaumont Low page, which covers the camp, has the full record.

And most of what the internet says about “Beaumont” is about the penitentiary: the nickname, the killings, the gang litigation and the 2025 independent inspection all belong to BMP. Two of the deaths most often attributed to this institution happened there, and the sections below set out which is which.

One last piece of local geography, from the complex’s own directions. Enter the property, drive to the stop sign at the flagpole, and turn clockwise: the Low is the first drive on the right, the Medium is the second, the camp the third and the penitentiary the fifth. There is no fourth.

Texas holds thirteen federal prisons on the Bureau’s roster, FPC Bryan among them, which is a camp in its own right; eight of the other twelve have an attached satellite camp. Three of the thirteen are here at Beaumont. Our guide to federal prisons in Texas lists them all.

Is FCI Beaumont Low closing, and what does that mean for the Medium?

Yes, FCI Beaumont Low is closing; the Medium is not on the list. The Bureau announced on July 1, 2026, that it will close FCI Beaumont Low. That release does not mention this institution. As of September 2026 the Low had not closed either: the Bureau’s population report counted 1,834 people under its code — 1,317 at the low-security institution and 517 at the camp — and its facility page was still live.

The release says the Bureau “will close the following institutions” and lists six, one of which is “Beaumont FCI Low.” The reason given is “decades of deferred maintenance and extreme staffing challenges,” against “a deferred maintenance backlog exceeding $4 billion.” No closure date is given for any of the six, and no destination is named for anyone held at any of them.

One sentence in it is about this institution without naming it. Staff at the Low “will be transferred to other units onsite or nearby for continued employment with the BOP.” Onsite, at Beaumont, means the Medium or the penitentiary. Where the Bureau meant a reduction in force it said so, at Big Spring and La Tuna; where it meant a camp it named the camp. For Beaumont it named the low-security institution and nothing else.

What the population numbers have done since

This institution has grown since the announcement. The Bureau’s facility page for FCI Beaumont Medium reported 1,056 people on August 13, 2026; the population report dated September 10, 2026 gives 1,111. That is 55 more people in four weeks, at an institution the announcement did not mention, on a campus where a 1,317-person institution has been marked for closure.

Fifty-five people is a month’s movement, not the transfer of a prison, and the Bureau moves people for many reasons unconnected to a press release. At the other complex on the July list, Petersburg, the medium-security institution’s population fell over the same weeks while the low-security institution emptied; here the numbers so far point the other way.

A low and a medium are not interchangeable, and no one is moved from one to the other because a building shut; designation here requires the point score and the absence of the Public Safety Factors that go with it. A closure produces a redesignation exercise, and most people scored again go somewhere else entirely.

What this institution has been through before

The Medium has been emptied once already.

Hurricane Rita came ashore 30 miles east of the complex on September 24, 2005, with sustained winds of 110 miles an hour. Every roof on the campus needed replacing, and the Bureau did not repair around the people held here: “Following the storm, the Regional Director and the 3 FCC Beaumont wardens decided to move 1,761 inmates housed at the Medium Security Unit to other BOP institutions,” the Inspector General’s audit of the roofing contract records.

When the auditors visited on March 13, 2006, the Medium held 305 people. It had held 1,761 in September. It holds 1,111 now.

Two things to do rather than wait for news. Run the Inmate Locator by register number before you post mail or book a flight, every time, because the institution it names is the only current answer. And if a transfer is coming, make the argument for where. Under 18 U.S.C. § 3621(b) the Bureau designates the place of imprisonment, may “at any time” direct a transfer, and is told to place a person “as close as practicable to the prisoner’s primary residence, and to the extent practicable, in a facility within 500 driving miles of that residence.” A designation is not reviewable by any court, so that argument goes in writing, under the Bureau’s designation rules, to the Designation and Sentence Computation Center and the unit team, with a documented release address. Our guide to federal prison transfers sets out how that request is built.

What is the security level at FCI Beaumont Medium?

Medium, and only medium. There is no camp here, no satellite low and no detention center; the Bureau’s roster records this institution with a single security level and no attached facility of any kind. The other two institutions on this campus are a low and a penitentiary; custody levels are not mixed inside one fence.

What that looks like in practice is in the complex handbook, and the pattern across its rules is that the Medium is grouped with the penitentiary rather than the Low almost every time something is restricted. Outgoing mail goes into the box unsealed at the penitentiary and the Medium; the Low and the camp may seal their own letters. Books and magazines must come from a publisher or bookstore at the penitentiary and the Medium; at the Low and the camp a paperback may come from any domestic address. Movement is controlled at the penitentiary and the Medium, in “three separate five minute one-way moves announced for each building,” with traffic routed onto the outer-circle sidewalks. The Low and the camp have no such regime.

Two small rules show the regime. Nothing may sit on the desk top and nothing on top of the lockers — the Low allows a picture and a religious book on the lockers, the penitentiary three books, a picture and a clock on the desk. And a sanitation violation at the Medium or the Low “may result in disciplinary action including placement in a six-man cell.”

Whether a person lands here rather than at the Low turns on the point score and on whether any Public Safety Factor applies. A Public Safety Factor overrides the points — it is what puts a low-scoring person behind a medium-security fence, and it is the part of the classification that is actually arguable. Our guides to medium-security federal prisons and the intake process cover what follows. The complex as a whole is far more mixed: the 2023 PREA audit records custody levels running from “community” to “max,” 40 housing units, and an age range of 18 to 84.

Who are the notable inmates at FCI Beaumont Medium?

No widely written-about person is known to be held at FCI Beaumont Medium as of September 2026; most lists of “famous inmates at Beaumont” describe the penitentiary next door. The name most often attached to this institution is Joseph Ebron, and both halves of that claim are wrong.

What is usually written	What the record shows
Joseph Ebron was a prisoner at FCI Beaumont Medium	Bureau records for register number 08655-007 place him at ADX Florence, Colorado, as of September 2026; the locator displays it as “Florence ADMAX USP.” He is not at Beaumont
The killing of Keith Barnes happened at the medium-security institution	The Fifth Circuit’s own statement of facts places it at the penitentiary: Barnes “arrived at the United States Penitentiary in Beaumont, Texas,” was placed in that prison’s general population, and was found dead the following day
Ebron is under sentence of death	He was sentenced to death on May 18, 2009. President Biden commuted the sentence on December 23, 2024, and Bureau records now show his projected release as “LIFE”

The underlying case is United States v. Ebron, 683 F.3d 105 (5th Cir. 2012). Keith Barnes arrived at USP Beaumont from Washington, D.C., on May 6, 2005, told a case manager at intake that he had testified against his codefendants in two 1998 murder trials and was worried that other D.C. prisoners knew it, and was placed in general population anyway. He was found dead the next morning with 106 stab wounds over his heart, left lung and liver. The Fifth Circuit affirmed the conviction, the sentence and the denial of a new trial. Michael Bacote, identified by another prisoner as a participant, is at USP Allenwood, Pennsylvania, with a projected release date of December 23, 2035.

The killing happened at the penitentiary, three drives further along the same road, not at the Medium.

How do I find someone at FCI Beaumont Medium?

The Bureau’s free public Inmate Locator is the only current answer, and the eight-digit register number is the search term to use if you have it. The number is the reliable key; names are matched against the committed name on the judgment, not the name anybody uses. Its coverage runs back to 1982: for someone still held it gives the facility and the projected release date, and for someone released it shows “Not in BOP Custody as of” and a date, with no facility.

At this complex, read the answer carefully: the line beginning “Located at” says “Beaumont Medium FCI” for this institution, “Beaumont Low FCI” for the Low and its camp, and “Beaumont USP” for the penitentiary. Getting it wrong sends mail to the wrong box and a visitor to the wrong lobby.

If the locator returns nothing, the usual reasons are that the person is in state rather than federal custody, that they are still in pretrial detention held by the U.S. Marshals Service, or that the committed name is spelled differently from the name you know. Our guide to how federal register numbers work takes the number apart digit by digit.

How do I write to someone at FCI Beaumont Medium?

Address general mail to the Medium’s own post office box, with the committed name and the eight-digit register number on the first line. The complex handbook prints a separate box for each of the four facilities, and mail sorted to the wrong one is not redirected. FCC Forrest City’s 2026 handbook prints this box, 26040, and the Low’s and the penitentiary’s under “Forrest City, AR 77720”; do not copy an address from it.

For someone at FCI Beaumont Medium	Do not use these — they are other prisons
Inmate Name & Register Number FCI Beaumont Medium Federal Correctional Institution P.O. Box 26040 Beaumont, TX 77720	P.O. Box 26020 is FCI Beaumont Low P.O. Box 26030 is USP Beaumont P.O. Box 26010 is the satellite camp P.O. Box 26045 is staff mail, not inmate mail

Several local rules are stricter than the national ones, and each turns letters back.

• Anything over 16 ounces counts as a package, and a package has to be marked “AUTHORIZED BY BUREAU POLICY” on the outside or it is refused at the post office and returned to sender. The handbook is explicit that it “will not be brought back to the institution,” and that the rule applies to packages from family, attorneys and everyone else.
• Books and magazines for people at the Medium must come from a publisher or a bookstore. That is a penitentiary-level rule; at the Low and the camp a paperback may come from any domestic address. Newspapers must come from a publisher or bookstore everywhere on this campus.
• Sexually explicit material and material featuring nudity is rejected and returned to sender, there is no mail service at all on weekends and federal holidays, and outgoing mail from the Medium goes into the box unsealed and will not be processed without a TRULINCS label.

Legal mail is opened in front of the person addressed and not read, but only if the envelope carries the attorney’s name, an indication that the sender is an attorney, and the words “Special Mail — open only in the presence of the inmate” on the front, the marking rules in the Bureau’s correspondence regulations. Without all three it is opened as ordinary correspondence. This complex adds a step: incoming special mail is delivered by Special Investigative Supervisor staff, in the Lieutenants’ Office or on mainline, between noon and 12:30 p.m., Monday to Friday, so a letter arriving on a Friday afternoon waits until Monday lunchtime. The privilege rules are set out at attorney-client communication in the Bureau of Prisons, and what else gets rejected at writing to someone in federal prison.

Never put money in a letter. See the next section.

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

Money does not go to Beaumont at all. As the Bureau’s funds page sets out, it goes to the Bureau’s national lockbox in Iowa or through one of two wire services, and every route needs the committed name and register number on the instrument itself.

Route	Where it goes	Posting
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	A U.S. postal money order clears without a hold. Almost anything else is held automatically for 15 days
Western Union Quick Collect	Code city FBOP, DC	2–4 hours if sent 7:00 a.m.–9:00 p.m. Eastern (Program Statement 4500.13 § 9.7 says two hours); later ones post by 7:00 a.m. the next morning
MoneyGram	Receive code 7932, company name Federal Bureau of Prisons, Washington, DC	The same window as Western Union

Cash and personal checks are not accepted; funds enclosed in a letter go back to the sender, or to the Treasury if there is no return address. A visitor cannot hand money over in the visiting room either — the complex supplement says money “will not be accepted for deposit into the inmate’s account through the visiting room,” and that people held here are not authorized to receive funds or enter the vending machine area. Our guide to sending money to a federal prisoner compares the routes and fees.

Before sending a large sum, know what it buys. Commissary spending is capped at $460 a month, so money beyond that sits in the account — and one call on it is not discretionary: restitution, fines and special assessments are paid from it under the Inmate Financial Responsibility Program, and refusing the plan caps performance pay at $5.25 and bars UNICOR work outright.

What are the visiting hours at FCI Beaumont Medium?

Saturdays, Sundays and federal holidays from 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., plus Friday evenings from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m., is FCI Beaumont Medium’s visiting schedule in the newest of the three Bureau documents that answer this question, the 2013 complex handbook. All three are published, and they do not agree with each other. Call 409-727-0101 before you travel. The Bureau’s visiting regulations set the national rules.

Three Bureau documents, three schedules

This is not an old rule and a new one. It is one supplement contradicting its own attachment, and a handbook contradicting both.

Source	Days for the Medium	Hours	Monthly points
FCC Beaumont A&O handbook (September 19, 2013)	Friday evening, Saturday, Sunday, federal holidays not falling on a Friday	Friday 5:00–8:00 p.m.; otherwise 8:30 a.m.–3:00 p.m.	12
Complex Supplement BMX 5267.08A, body (October 9, 2008)	Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and federal holidays	8:30 a.m.–3:00 p.m.	12
The visitor handout attached to that same supplement	Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday and federal holidays	Two sessions: 8:00–11:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.–3:00 p.m.	15

All three agree on the points arithmetic: a weekend or holiday session costs two points, so a visitor who stays from 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. spends four of the month’s twelve in one day. A Friday evening costs one; a Friday that is a federal holiday costs two.

They also agree on the cut-off that catches more traveling families than the schedule does. Processing starts at 8:30 a.m., visitors are not let into the front lobby before that, and no visitor is processed after 9:30 a.m. on a weekend or holiday, because of the 10:00 a.m. count — or after 2:00 p.m. on any day, because of the 4:00 p.m. count. Arriving at ten on a Saturday after a long drive means not getting in at all.

One further rule reads as trivial and is not: if a visitor leaves the visiting room for any reason, the visit is over for the day. There are restrooms inside the room for exactly that reason. A parent who steps out to settle a crying child does not come back in.

Who can visit, and how many

• Five visitors at a time, children included. An infant who has to be carried does not count; a child who can walk unaided does. Both documents state it the same way.
• The approved list may hold up to ten relatives and friends beyond immediate family, with the Unit Manager’s approval, and the relationship must ordinarily predate the sentence. Everyone outside immediate family gets a National Crime Information Center check, starting with Visitor Information Form BP-A629, mailed out from inside and returned to unit staff.
• Anyone under 18 needs a parent or guardian’s written consent, and anyone under 16 must be accompanied by a responsible adult — who need not be related to the person being visited. A former prisoner will “rarely” be approved and needs the Warden.
• Attorney visits and law-enforcement interviews are not charged against the points.
• Split visits are allowed at the Operations Lieutenant’s discretion, but only one interchange, and the group leaving must leave the grounds rather than wait in the lobby or the parking lot.

If the room fills, the order in which visits are ended is written down: first by how often the person has been visited, then by asking visitors from within a 100-mile radius to finish, and only as a last resort first-in, first-out. A visitor who has driven from Dallas is, by design, near the back of that line.

What visitors can wear and bring

Two items on this dress code are not on most others and both are easy to arrive in: khaki-colored clothing, because it is what the institution issues, and camouflage. Neither is a judgment call at the gate. Also barred are halter tops, sleeveless garments and tank tops; sheer or spandex garments; extremely low-cut or tight clothing; skirts or dresses two or more inches above the knee, and any slit above the knee; shorts; thong-type and open-toe shoes; head wear other than religious attire; hooded jackets; and non-prescription sunglasses. The handout attached to the same supplement adds wired bras, plain white T-shirts, medical scrubs and athletic apparel.

What may come in with you is short. One clear change purse holding no more than $20 for the vending machines — and the supplement is specific that this means $1.00 and $5.00 bills and change only, so a $20 bill is the wrong money. A comb, approved heart medication, and jewelry normally worn. Everything else goes in a lobby locker or stays in the car, and if every locker is taken the choice is to wait or go back to the car. For an infant the list is itemized down to one plastic spoon and one empty bottle, each item inspected at the lobby.

Every visitor aged 16 and over needs state or federal government photo identification. Everyone passes through a metal detector; a positive reading brings out a hand-held scanner, and failing to produce the metal object causing it is “just cause for denial of a visit.” Hands are stamped with an invisible ink rotated between visiting days and checked under black light on the way in, in the visiting room, and again at the sallyport on the way out. Our guides to federal prison visitation and searches, shakedowns and contraband cover the system-wide rules.

Visiting someone in the Special Housing Unit

Visits continue in segregation here, but on different days, in a different form and for one hour. Under the complex supplement a person in Administrative Detention or Disciplinary Segregation ordinarily keeps visiting privileges, and the visit is by video: the visitor is escorted to a booth inside the general population visiting room, and the person in segregation is taken to a video cell within the Special Housing Unit “in hand and leg restraints, including a belly chain.”

Those visits run one hour, on Mondays and Fridays only. A family that arrives on a Saturday for someone who went into the Special Housing Unit during the week will not see them at all, and will not have been told. The dress rule inside the cell is an orange jumpsuit, t-shirt, socks, underwear and institution shoes. Attorney visits are the exception: they are held in person, in one of the attorney-client rooms off the visiting room, not by video. Our page on special housing units and the Bureau’s Special Housing Unit rules explain the review timetable that is supposed to govern how long a placement lasts.

Getting there

The complex sits southwest of Beaumont off West Port Arthur Road. From Highway 69 take the West Port Arthur Road / Florida Avenue and Avenue A exit — the sign reads Federal Correctional Complex, Next Exit — then follow West Port Arthur Road about five miles, cross one set of railroad tracks and turn right onto Knauth Road roughly fifty feet past them. Drive onto the grounds to the stop sign at the flagpole and turn clockwise; the Medium is the second drive on the right. Every visitor goes to the front entrance of the administration building.

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

At FCI Beaumont Medium calls are placed out, never in, from telephones in each housing unit, and the phones run from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. daily. Each person may use 510 minutes a month under the Bureau’s 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, eligible or not, may buy after using up the first 300. A single call should generally not exceed 15 minutes. The extra November and December allowance belonged to the 2008 policy and did not survive its rescission. Debit and collect calls both work. Third-party billing, credit-card calls and three-way calls do not, and attempting one is a disciplinary matter.

One local step has to happen before any of it works. The telephone system here uses voice recognition, and a voice has to be registered in person at the Inmate Services open house — Monday to Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., excluding federal holidays, at the Laundry. Until that happens the phones do not work for a newly arrived person, and a family waiting for a first call is often waiting for that appointment. A Phone Access Code is issued on arrival and letting anyone else use it is treated as circumventing telephone monitoring.

All calls are recorded except a properly arranged legal call, which is set up through the Case Manager or Correctional Counselor and which the handbook says “will be a collect call or paid for by the inmate.” A death or crisis in the family is handled through the Unit Team or Religious Services. In the Special Housing Unit there is a phone for limited use, but calls are generally placed by the unit’s officers. See federal inmate phone calls.

Email runs on TRULINCS, reached by families through CorrLinks; messages are monitored and are not privileged with an attorney. Two local details — the electronic request to staff is limited to one a day and costs nothing, and TRULINCS carries a Local Documents feature that serves as the institution’s bulletin board for menus and schedules, which the handbook makes each person responsible for reading. See CorrLinks and TRULINCS.

What can people buy at the FCI Beaumont Medium commissary?

The spending limit at FCI Beaumont Medium is $460 a month, a Bureau-wide figure rather than a local one: the Bureau’s trust fund rules, Program Statement 4500.13, issued May 7, 2026, set it and record that it was raised from $360. The limit rises by $50 during the November and December holiday period, for no more than one validation period. Stamps, copy cards and copy paper, over-the-counter medications and vitamins, footwear including sneakers, mattresses and a secured media device are all excluded from the limit.

Listings that give $360 are out of date. The complex’s own commissary order form states no spending limit at all. It carries no date either, and it is signed only “Watson, Complex Warden,” so the national ceiling is the only figure with an effective date behind it.

Shopping day is assigned by register number here, and specifically by the fourth and fifth digits of it, for the camp, the Low and the Medium alike; only the penitentiary uses a different system, based on which day a housing unit is scheduled for the west recreation yard. You may shop in the morning or at the noon sales on your assigned day. Purchases are authorized by fingerprint at the till. The form’s own notice is blunt about what happens afterward: “Once you receive a receipt and you leave the window, the sale is complete.”

The list itself dates the institution better than anything on it. The most expensive item is a SanDisk Clip Sport MP3 player at $88.40, then a Sangean radio at $50.65 and a Timex watch at $22.10. There is no tablet on the form — no “secured media device” of any kind — although the program statement governing the spending limit already excludes one from the cap. Typewriter ribbons are stocked at $4.50 and correction ribbons at $0.90. Stamps are capped at $9.80 in total and a legal envelope costs 15 cents. What a commissary account actually buys across the system is set out on our federal prison commissary page.

What programs are available at FCI Beaumont Medium?

Less than the complex handbook suggests, on the Bureau’s own current reckoning. The handbook, dated September 19, 2013, describes the programming of FCC Beaumont as a whole; the Bureau’s August 2026 First Step Act Approved Programs Guide reports institution by institution, and on the biggest question the two do not agree.

RDAP, and why the Bureau’s own guide does not list it here

The Residential Drug Abuse Program matters because completing it can take up to a year off a sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e) for someone convicted of a nonviolent offense, which makes it the first question most families ask about a designation. The Bureau’s RDAP rules set who qualifies.

The Bureau’s August 2026 guide does not list RDAP at any Beaumont institution. Its list of Residential Drug Abuse Program locations, which the guide dates “Updated 6/4/2026” and totals as 57 programs at 50 locations, gives ten South Central Region sites — Bastrop, Bryan, Carswell, El Reno, Forrest City Low, Forrest City Medium, Fort Worth, La Tuna, Seagoville and the Texarkana camp. Beaumont appears nowhere in it: not the Medium, not the Low, not the penitentiary, not the camp. The guide’s programs-by-institution table marks this institution with a dot rather than an X for residential drug treatment, and does the same for the other two Beaumont codes.

Against that, the complex handbook describes RDAP at length as available at FCC Beaumont, including that an entry interview “ordinarily is permitted when the inmate is within 36 months of his projected release date.” It is dated September 19, 2013, and nothing in it mentions the First Step Act. And when District of Columbia inspectors visited the penitentiary on this campus in November 2024, the first concern DC residents raised was “the inaccessibility of USP Beaumont’s GED, RDAP, and Challenge programs.”

Ask the unit team and the Drug Abuse Program Coordinator, in writing, whether RDAP runs here and what the referral route is if it does not. If it does not, a person who qualifies and wants the § 3621(e) reduction has to be transferred to an institution that runs it, on a unit team recommendation to the Designation and Sentence Computation Center — which is slow, and is why the answer matters years before release rather than months. What the guide does mark here is non-residential drug treatment and drug education. Neither carries the § 3621(e) year; both carry First Step Act time credits.

Education, vocational training and UNICOR

Literacy is mandatory for anyone without a high school diploma or GED, and promotion beyond the entry grade in any work assignment depends on completing it. English as a second language is mandatory for people who do not speak English, which here is not a marginal group: the 2023 PREA audit counted 746 people with limited English proficiency on the campus on a single day, out of 4,769.

The handbook lists the vocational training offered at FCC Beaumont as major appliance repair, basic diesel engine repair, building trades, micro-computer applications, industrial sewing, commercial driver’s license training, culinary arts, HVAC, business education, welding and desktop publishing, with apprenticeships in carpentry, electrical, painting, teacher’s aide, plumbing and HVAC. A high school diploma or GED is required to enroll. The commercial driver’s license is the most immediately employable thing on that list and one of the rarer offerings in the system.

Two cautions. That is a complex list, not an institution list, and the guide’s programs-by-institution table marks vocational apprenticeship at the Low and the penitentiary but not at the Medium — while marking the Medium for occupational education in job certification, technical certificates and degrees, vocational marketable skills and post-secondary education. Approval to offer a program is also not delivery of it: whether a class is running this quarter is a question for the Supervisor of Education. How these tracks are structured across the Bureau is covered in our prison education and vocational training guides.

UNICOR is a complicated question on this campus. The August 2026 guide’s program-detail cell for Federal Prison Industries names only BML, FCI Beaumont Low, among the three codes on this campus — not BMM, not BMP — and the guide’s programs-by-institution table marks the same single institution. A UNICOR factory-locations catalog of September 2016 lists Beaumont under clothing and textiles without naming the institution, and the Inspector General’s 2016 summary of the combat-helmet investigations recorded that the Beaumont plant which made them “was closed and its entire staff transferred to other duties” — again without saying which of the two FCIs. Listings that put a UNICOR clothing and textiles operation at the Medium are not supported by the Bureau’s current guide. If a job does exist, the handbook’s rules apply: one waiting list in three tiers, previous UNICOR employees first and people with court-imposed fines over $1,000 second, hourly pay from $0.23 to $1.15 with a $0.30 longevity premium.

Faith-based, reentry and the rest of the list

The Threshold program, a faith-based reentry course open to people of any faith or none, is marked for this institution in the August 2026 guide, alongside anger management, basic cognitive skills, criminal thinking, emotional self-regulation, faith-based conflict management, family programming for men, the national parenting program and the inmate companion program. The guide marks no Life Connections, no BRAVE, no Challenge, no Skills or Stages program and no sex offender treatment program here. Among productive activities it marks Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, Victim Impact, Trauma Education, Start Now, K2 Awareness, MoneySmart, a substantial set of older-adult health courses and four veterans programs.

The 2013 handbook starts the Release Preparation Program 30 months out and makes it a condition of halfway house eligibility; Program Statement 5325.09 (2026) now enrolls people 18 to 24 months before departure, and a refuser “will not ordinarily participate in an RRC” but “should not be automatically excluded from consideration.” Religious Services runs worship, religious diets and holiday observances through the Chaplain’s Office — see our page on religious programs in prison — and a session with a psychologist or drug treatment specialist is requested by electronic cop-out.

What medical care is available at FCI Beaumont Medium?

Medical care at FCI Beaumont Medium is delivered under a complex-wide managed-care contract rather than directly by the Bureau, and the handbook describes the arrangement in words families should read before they need them: “FCC Beaumont Medical Services are provided by League Medical Concepts (LMC). The LMC Managed Care Contract is most like a Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) in the community. Only medically necessary, immediate, urgent or emergency care is offered. Services that are not covered are those determined to be medically acceptable, but not medically necessary.“

That last sentence is the whole of the problem in most medical grievances at this complex. A treatment can be appropriate, recommended and refused, and the document that governs the refusal says so in advance.

The Inspector General has looked at the arrangement once, in a contract audit of the Bureau’s medical services agreement with the University of Texas Medical Branch published on December 16, 2011 — an audit of the contract, not of the care given. UTMB Galveston still appears in the 2008 visiting supplement as where people from this complex go for outside treatment — and the supplement records that someone being treated there, at the local hospital, or in Texas Department of Criminal Justice custody “may not receive visits from persons in the community” without the Complex Captain’s approval, so check before driving to a hospital.

Day to day, the person held here makes their own sick call appointment. Triage opens before the morning meal and stays open at least an hour, on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday — not Wednesday, and not on weekends. There is a $2.00 copay for any health care visit requested by the person themselves, and a second $2.00 charge where the disciplinary process finds someone responsible for injuring another person who then needs care. Indigence, which waives the copay, means a trust fund balance that has not reached $6.00 in the past 30 days. Over-the-counter medicine is bought at the commissary, and triage staff routinely send people there rather than treating minor complaints.

Dental care is sequenced and slow by the handbook’s own account: examination with X-rays, then cleaning, then restorative work, then prosthetics, and “between these appointments there is a waiting time of several months.” Acute pain or swelling is signed up for at regular sick call; emergency care is available around the clock. See medical care in federal prison and the Bureau’s patient care rules.

What is daily life like at FCI Beaumont Medium?

The day is shaped by the count and by the movement schedule, and the Medium eats later than everything else on the campus.

	At the Medium	Elsewhere on the campus
Wake-up	6:00 a.m.	6:00 a.m. everywhere
Breakfast, Monday to Friday	6:45 a.m.	6:00 a.m. at the Low, the camp and the penitentiary
Lunch, Monday to Friday	10:45 a.m.	10:15 a.m. at the penitentiary, 10:30 at the camp, 10:45 at the Low
Dinner	After 5:00 p.m., or when the count clears	The same, every day of the week
Work call	Ordinarily 7:30 a.m.	The same
Uniform and boots required	6:45 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. outside the unit, shirt tails tucked	The same
Controlled movement	Three five-minute one-way moves announced per building	The same at the penitentiary; not used at the Low or camp
Television	6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., seven days a week	11:00 p.m. at the Low; midnight at the Low and camp on weekends
Telephones	6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. daily	The same

Which unit eats first is decided by the previous week’s sanitation rating — highest-rated unit called first for the noon and evening meals, lowest last — so the state of somebody else’s locker decides when you eat. Housing units are lettered, all general population, and no one may enter a unit he is not assigned to; even the sidewalk to another unit is out of bounds. Laundry rooms sit in each housing unit for personal clothing, with government-issue clothing exchanged weekly. Haircuts are free, in any style, with no designs or logos cut in.

Unit staff are ordinarily on site 7:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. on weekdays and 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on weekends and holidays, with open-house hours posted on the unit board. That matters more than it looks: a question that needs the case manager is answered in those windows and nowhere else, and the electronic request most questions travel on is limited to one a day. Food Service works a five-week national menu cycle with a heart-healthy and a no-flesh option, and the whole complex is tobacco free — tobacco cannot be used, bought, or transferred in from another institution.

What do inspectors say about conditions at FCI Beaumont Medium?

The DOJ Office of the Inspector General has not conducted an on-site inspection of this facility. The District of Columbia’s Corrections Information Council, which inspected the penitentiary on this campus in 2024, inspected the Medium in February 2015 but never published the report. The only independent examination of this institution in the last decade is a Prison Rape Elimination Act audit that covered all of FCC Beaumont at once and reported nothing broken down by institution.

What exists instead is a scattered file: one 2006 Inspector General audit in which this complex is the subject, a 2021 Inspector General memorandum prompted by an escape from the camp (Report 21-080, June 4, 2021), a per-institution staff survey naming this institution, a contract audit of its medical services, and a long run of criminal prosecutions of its staff.

The one report where this complex is the subject

Audit Report 06-34 of June 2006 examined a $5,180,233 sole-source contract awarded to D.K. Haney Construction on October 11, 2005 to replace roofing across FCC Beaumont after Hurricane Rita, and found the procurement proper. Its value now is the factual record it preserves — the per-unit population table, the evacuation described above, and a footnote that in 2006 each unit here had its own warden with none designated warden-in-charge of the complex, which is no longer the arrangement.

What the Inspector General’s own staff survey says about this institution

This is the only published oversight product reporting on FCI Beaumont Medium by name. The Inspector General’s follow-up survey of Bureau staff on the management of the coronavirus pandemic, Report 21-126 of September 28, 2021, was published with an interactive product breaking results down across 122 named locations, one of them “Beaumont FCI Medium.”

Staff who agreed with the statement	Beaumont FCI Medium	Beaumont FCI Low	Beaumont USP
Required to perform tasks that were not part of my normal duties	60.7%	69.7%	43.8%
Required to work longer shifts	35.7%	27.3%	18.8%
Took leave to recover from increased demands at work	39.3%	18.2%	12.5%
Denied leave	21.4%	12.1%	12.5%
Experienced increased stress or anxiety at work	71.4%	75.8%	58.8%
Considered leaving the Bureau of Prisons	28.6%	30.3%	11.8%
Contracted COVID-19 and believed it was due to exposure at work	35.7%	21.2%	29.4%

It is a staff survey from 2021 about a pandemic, not an inspection of conditions, making no finding about how anyone here is treated. Two of its numbers are still about the mechanics families feel. Staff required to perform tasks outside their normal duties is the practice of assigning teachers, counselors and case managers to correctional posts — the reason a callout gets canceled or a class has no instructor that week. Staff taking leave to recover from work, at more than twice the rate at either neighboring institution, is what that costs. Both figures are five years old, and no newer per-institution measurement has been published.

The 2023 PREA audit of the complex

An independent auditor, Valerie Wolfe Mahfood, subcontracted through PREA Auditors of America, was on site at FCC Beaumont November 14–16, 2023, for the Prison Rape Elimination Act audit and filed a final report dated January 1, 2024. The complex passed: five standards exceeded — zero tolerance and the PREA coordinator, supervision and monitoring, inmate education, ongoing care for victims and abusers, and the frequency and scope of audits — 36 met, none unmet, and ten more met at agency level under the national PREA standards. Three things should travel with any citation of that result.

Across the twelve months the audit looked back on, the complex recorded nine allegations of sexual abuse — seven inmate-on-inmate, two staff-on-inmate — and not one allegation of sexual harassment of any kind, at a campus of 4,769 people. All seven inmate-on-inmate administrative investigations were closed as unsubstantiated; none was substantiated. Both staff-on-inmate matters were criminal investigations, one of them referred for prosecution, and both were still open. The auditor sampled nine investigation files and reviewed nine inmate-on-inmate files and, by the report’s own count, zero staff-on-inmate files.

The auditor also recorded that “the FCC Beaumont has not installed or significantly updated the video monitoring system or other monitoring technology since the last PREA audit,” while finding the existing cameras sufficient to supplement in-person supervision and the standard met. Privacy shields were in place at all toilets and in all medical examination rooms, screens in all showers, and no camera was trained on a restroom or changing area.

The audit is also the fullest published description of the campus that exists. On the day it opened, FCC Beaumont held 4,769 people across 40 housing units against a designed capacity of 4,066, with 735 staff who might have contact with them, 68 contractors and 46 volunteers. Of those 4,769: 746 had limited English proficiency; 25 had a physical disability and 28 a cognitive or functional one; 20 identified as transgender or intersex; and none had ever been placed in segregated housing because of a risk of sexual victimization.

The criminal cases out of this complex

The Inspector General’s file on FCC Beaumont is dominated not by inspections but by prosecutions of its own staff. These are from the Inspector General’s published criminal and civil case summaries; each names FCC Beaumont or an institution within it.

• March 2026 — a former correctional officer previously assigned to USP Beaumont was sentenced to 120 months and three years of supervised release for possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine.
• February 2026 — Rebecca Kays, a retired Safety and Occupational Health Specialist at FCC Beaumont, was arrested and pleaded guilty to theft of government property in the Eastern District of Texas.
• December 2025 — Jere Bolden, a former correctional officer at FCC Beaumont, was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment and three years of supervised release for wire fraud, having been charged by Information the previous July.
• January 2023 — James Pitre, a correctional officer at FCC Beaumont, was indicted in Texas state court on two counts of felony sexual assault.
• Civil rights prosecutions — Tavoris Bottley, a former senior correctional officer, pleaded guilty to assaulting a prisoner here and was sentenced to 18 months; Khristal Ford, a former lieutenant, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting that assault and was sentenced to 24 months.

What is absent is the ordinary kind of oversight. The DOJ Office of the Inspector General has not conducted an on-site inspection of this facility, and none of the six Bureau-wide engagements under way as of September 2026 — among them an evaluation of the use of lockdowns and modified operations and oversight of the $5 billion appropriated for Bureau facilities and staffing — names an institution. The Corrections Information Council’s November 2024 visit was to the penitentiary, and its April 2025 report surveyed 34 of the 45 District of Columbia residents held there: a small, self-selected sample at a different prison, not to be read across to this one.

FCI Beaumont Medium in the news

Recent news about FCI Beaumont Medium centers on the 2026 contraband case and the announced closure of the Low next door; older items concern a 2024 death at the Medium, the penitentiary on the same campus and the 2005 hurricane evacuation. Newest first:

• July 2026 — contraband charges naming this institution. Eight men held at FCC Beaumont were charged on July 27, 2026, in the Eastern District of Texas, Beaumont Division, each with one count of possession of contraband in prison. The Inspector General’s announcement records that the contraband was found “within the FCC Beaumont Medium and Camp facilities during the week of March 2, 2026,” and that all eight “were found and subsequently admitted to possessing cell phones.” Those named were Terral Blackwell, Toan Tran, Roderick Stills, Rudolph Tatum, Gene Rudolph, Andre Powers, Elijah Pennington and Dawnta Mitchell. All eight pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge Zack Hawthorn on August 13, 2026; the U.S. Attorney’s release of August 14, 2026, says each admitted obtaining his phone while serving his sentence at the “FCC-Beaumont Camp,” the satellite camp of FCI Beaumont Low, and that sentencing will follow a presentence investigation.
• July 1, 2026 — the Bureau announced it will close FCI Beaumont Low, one of six institutions named, citing deferred maintenance and staffing, with staff to be moved “to other units onsite or nearby.” No closure date has been published, and as of September 2026 the Low still held 1,317 people with 517 more at its camp.
• November 2024 — District of Columbia inspectors visited the penitentiary on this campus, reporting in April 2025; the concerns raised first were frequent lockdowns and the inaccessibility of its GED, RDAP and Challenge programs. USP Beaumont, not this institution.
• October 2024 — a death here. KFDM, the Beaumont television station, reported that “48-year-old Levi Dorrelle Walker was found unresponsive at 7:40 a.m. Friday at the Federal Correctional Institution Beaumont Medium,” that staff attempted life-saving measures, that he died at the facility and that the FBI was notified. No Bureau news release reports it.
• January 2022 — two men were killed at USP Beaumont in an incident the Inspector General’s 2024 gang-unit audit describes as involving seven prisoners affiliated with MS-13.
• September 2005 — Hurricane Rita destroyed the roofing across the complex. All 1,761 people then held here were moved to other Bureau prisons and staff from elsewhere were housed in the empty buildings; by March 2006 the population here was 305.

Frequently asked questions about FCI Beaumont Medium

Problems at FCI Beaumont Medium: where we can help

Most problems at FCI Beaumont Medium trace to one gap: almost nothing the Bureau publishes is specific to the Medium. Families act on a complex document and get the wrong day, the wrong box or the wrong prison.

• Care that is refused as not medically necessary. The contract governing health care on this campus is described in the Bureau’s own handbook as covering only what is medically necessary, urgent or emergency, and as excluding what is “medically acceptable, but not medically necessary.” A refusal on that ground is answered through a written request to staff and then the administrative remedy process, which runs on deadlines at every rung.
• Designation, transfer and the closure of the Low. If the institution next door closes, everyone in it is redesignated, and where someone lands turns on points, Public Safety Factors and a Management Variable. That argument is made in writing to the unit team and the Designation and Sentence Computation Center, with a documented release address.
• Getting to a program that does not run here. Where a person qualifies for RDAP and the Bureau’s own guide does not list it at this institution, the route to the § 3621(e) reduction is a transfer, and a transfer request takes a year or more to be worth making at the right time.
• First Step Act earned time credits — whether they are being earned, calculated and applied, and whether a program marked for this institution is being delivered — and halfway house and home confinement placement under the Bureau’s placement rules, where refusing the Release Preparation Program ordinarily costs a halfway house place but should not rule one out automatically.
• Disciplinary proceedings that threaten good conduct time, and placements in the Special Housing Unit that outlast their justification — which at this institution also means losing contact visiting entirely in favor of an hour of video on a Monday or a Friday.
• Contraband and cell phone prosecutions arising here, which the Inspector General’s Houston office charged as recently as July 2026; compassionate release, under the Bureau’s reduction-in-sentence policy; sentence computation errors under the Bureau’s computation manual; and Federal Tort Claims Act claims where a failure of care caused injury. Our early release page covers the routes out.
• 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 Beaumont Medium, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. The Bureau’s page for the institution, with its addresses, phone numbers and posted documents.
• Admission and Orientation Inmate Handbook, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Federal Correctional Complex Beaumont, 2013. Covers the whole complex.
• Complex Supplement BMX 5267.08A, Visiting Regulations, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Federal Correctional Complex Beaumont, 2008. Replaced Institution Supplements BMM 5267.08A, BML 5267.08B and BMP 5267.08A (2006).
• Commissary List, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Federal Correctional Complex Beaumont. Undated.
• Trust Fund/Deposit Fund Manual, Program Statement 4500.13, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026.
• Inmate Telephone Regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Replaced Program Statement 5264.08 (2008).
• Release Preparation Program, Program Statement 5325.09, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026.
• Federal Bureau of Prisons Announces Facility Closures and Operational Changes, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026.
• First Step Act Approved Programs Guide (August 2026), Federal Bureau of Prisons, Reentry Services Division, 2026. Includes the RDAP locations list and the programs-by-institution tables.
• Community Ties: Sending Money, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Deposit routes and wire posting times.

Audits and inspections

• USP Beaumont Report, District of Columbia Corrections Information Council, 2025. Covers the penitentiary, inspected November 20–21, 2024.
• Audit of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Management of the National Gang Unit (Report 24-115), U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2024.
• PREA Facility Audit Report: FCC Beaumont, PREA Auditors of America, 2024. Covers the whole complex.
• 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. Published with interactive per-institution results.
• Management Advisory Memorandum: Notification of Security Concerns at the Federal Bureau of Prisons Camp Locations (Report 21-080), U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2021.
• Summary of Investigative Findings Concerning the Manufacture and Sale of Combat Helmets by the Federal Prison Industries, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2016.
• Federal Bureau of Prisons Medical Services Contract with the University of Texas Medical Branch (Audit Report GR-60-12-001), U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2011.
• Oversight of Department of Justice Expenditures Related to Hurricane Rita, Roof Repair at the Federal Correctional Complex, Beaumont, Texas (Audit Report 06-34), U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2006.

Court records

• Eight inmates guilty of possessing cellular phones while incarcerated in Beaumont’s Federal Correctional Complex, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Texas, 2026. The guilty pleas of the eight men charged in July 2026.
• BOP Inmates Charged with Possession of Contraband in Prison, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2026. The charges against the eight men.
• Former BOP Correctional Officer Pleaded Guilty and Sentenced for Possession with Intent to Distribute Methamphetamine, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2026.
• Retired Bureau of Prisons Safety and Occupational Health Specialist Arrested, Charged, and Pleaded Guilty to Theft of Government Property, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2026. Rebecca Kays’s case.
• Former BOP Correctional Officer Sentenced for Wire Fraud, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2025. Jere Bolden’s sentence.
• BOP Correctional Officer Charged with One Count of Wire Fraud, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2025. Jere Bolden’s charge.
• BOP Correctional Officer Indicted for Felony Sexual Assault, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2023. James Pitre’s indictment.
• Former Texas Correctional Officer Sentenced to 18 Months in Federal Prison for Violating Civil Rights of Inmate, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2020. Tavoris Bottley’s sentence.
• Former Supervisory Correctional Officer Sentenced to 24 Months in Federal Prison for Civil Rights Violation, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2020. Khristal Ford’s sentence.
• United States v. Ebron, 683 F.3d 105 (Nos. 09-40544, 10-40108), U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, 2012. The killing of Keith Barnes at USP Beaumont; conviction and sentence affirmed.

News and other sources

• Case Summaries for Modern Federal Death Sentences, Death Penalty Information Center, 2026. Joseph Ebron’s sentence and its commutation.
• FBI investigating inmate death at Beaumont Federal Prison, KFDM, 2024.
• UNICOR Factory Locations, UNICOR (Federal Prison Industries), 2016.
• 18 U.S.C. § 3621(b), (e), Imprisonment of a convicted person, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).

Sources reviewed September 2026.

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