Marion Penitentiary

USP Marion

Famous Prisoners

While staying at Marion in July 1996, John Gotti enlisted the help of Aryan Brotherhood members after he was attacked by an inmate. The Aryan members notified their "Federal Commission" of the hit and sent a memo out of the prison, which eventually reached the west coast in September of 1997.

Security Levels

USP Marion has several different sections allowing varying degrees of access to privaleges. Units B, C, D, E, and F are "general population," while G, H, I, J, and K are for tightened security and administrative segregation purposes. Mostly, these two groupings of units are located on opposite ends of the prison.

"C" Unit: This unit is designed for inmates who have demonstrated 3 full years of good behaviour, allowing inmates to eat in a dining area on the range, and providing 8 hours of extra recreation time per week.

"B" Unit: After an additional 1 year of demonstrated good behaviour in "C" Unit, inmates are transferred to "B" Unit, where conditions are considered to be equivalent to a "standard" maximum-security prison. Ronald Del Raine is one such inmate housed in B unit. Del Raine killed two police officers during a bank robbery in 1967, attempted to escape from his 199 year life sentence several times, and apparently shared a cell with Charles Manson in the 1960s before Manson was convicted. Inmates in B Unit dress in khakis. In one week they can only spend a maximum of $40 at the "commissory" every week, buy no more than two cartons of cigarettes or two tubs of ice cream, and are limited to 10 candy bars. A $17 per week restriction is also imposed on postage stamps. Their only eating utensil during dinner meals is a plastic spoon that has to be turned in after the meal (The Evansville Courier, 17 Jan 1994).

"D", "E", and "F" Units:

• Free time out of cell: 1 and 1/2 hours/day, usually spent outside their cells in a small hallway.
• Recreation: 1hour/week in winter, and two hours during the summer
• cell size: 6x8 feet.
• meals: taken through the bars, eaten inside the cell
• education: one course at a time, fed through close-circuit tv in cell
• letters: censored and tampered with often
• visitation: no contact visits; coversations through plexiglas, phones monitored; 20 minutes of phone calls a month; strip-search at every visit

"I" Unit: considered a "jail within a jail" (The Sunday Times, May 23, 1993), this unit is home to inmates who are waiting to be placed in the "North" Quarter, a placement designed for those who have recently received an incident report. Resembling the super-max protective custody units of facilities such as Corcoran or Folsom State Prison, inmates in the "I" Unit are kept in isolation for 23 hours a day, five days a week. After serving his time in this unit, the inmate is then placed back into the "general population" where he will begin afresh, and try to serve another 3 years without misconduct.

"H" Unit: The Control Unit: also known as "the Hole", the Control Unit at Marion is similar to other control units across all United State Penitentiaries and many state prisons. Inmates confined to the CU are kept in chains at all times when outside of their cell (like Hannibal Lecter, but without the face mask), and are required to be placed in handcuff restraints while being fed through the tray-slot in their door. They are strip-searched after leaving and before entering their cell, and they are escorted by a minimum of three officers, with one poised with a metal-tipped club known as a "ribspreader" and the other holding the shackles. 23 hours a day are spent in a small cell, with the remaining hour used as the minimum requirement to preserve basic life processes and to prevent atrophy. It was perhaps in part because of this control unit that, in 1993, USP Marion was the only penitentiary in the United States to be criticized by Amnesty International. John Gotti is apparently serving time in H Unit.

"K" Unit: also called the "Directo's Unit," because it holds prisoners directly on the command of the Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. This unit is a cluster of seven cells located under the hospital, and is completely isolated from the rest of the prison. No visitors, including journalists, are permitted to directly observe K Unit. According to journalist Russell Miller's investigation of USP Marion in 1993, on which many of this information is based, K Unit is considered reserved for those elite category of prisoners who have "breached positions of trust" within the government. Of these is Edwin Wilson, former CIA official who sold intelligence to Libyan terrorists, Oscar Lopez Rivera, a political prisoner convicted of seditious conspiracy and accused of toppling the Puerto Rican government, Jonathan Pollard, a former intelligence analyst convicted of spying for Israel, and John Walker, a former Navy Department official who sold military secrets to the Soviets.

K Unit prisoners are even more isolated than Control Unit prisoners. Because of this they have larger rooms, showers, and more free time out of their cells, including time spent outside in a small yard adjacent to their living quarters. Like those housed in protective custody units, such as high-profile serial killers and child molesters, these inmates are housed here for their own protection because of their unremitting notoriety.

K Unit prisoners never leave and ineligible for the exit-programme out of Marion. Because of their complete isolation, cells are larger and washrooms have showers. They are permitted to leave their cells one hour a day, with one hour once a week outdoors in a small yard next to the unit.

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