ADX Florence
 |
|
 Location in Colorado
|
|
| Location | Fremont County, near Florence, Colorado |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | Coordinates: 38°21′23″N 105°05′41″W / 38.35630°N 105.09482°W |
| Status | Operational |
| Security class | Supermax with adjacent minimum security camp |
| Population | 927 (408 supermax, 519 camp) |
| Opened | November 1994 |
| Managed by | Federal Bureau of Prisons |
| Warden | David Berkebile |
The United States Penitentiary, Administrative Maximum Facility (ADX) is an American federal supermax prison for male inmates located in Fremont County, Colorado. It is unofficially known as ADX Florence, Florence ADMAX, Supermax, or the Alcatraz of the Rockies. Part of the Florence Federal Correctional Complex, which is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), a division of the United States Department of Justice, it houses the male inmates in the federal prison system who are deemed the most dangerous and in need of the tightest control. ADX also includes an adjacent minimum-security camp that, as of March 2014[update], houses more prisoners than the supermax unit.
The BOP does not have a designated "supermax" facility for women. Women in the BOP system who are classified as "special management concerns" due to violence or escape attempts are confined in the administrative unit of Federal Medical Center, Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas.
The facility's current warden is David Berkebile.
ADX Florence was constructed as a response to several serious security breaches at federal prisons, including those that occurred at the United States Penitentiary, Marion, a high-security facility in Marion, Illinois, on October 22, 1983, in which Correction Officers Merle Clutts and Robert Hoffman were stabbed to death in two separate incidents. Relatively relaxed security procedures allowed an inmate, while walking down a hall, to turn to the side and approach another cell so an accomplice could unlock his handcuffs with a stolen key and provide him with a knife. Both officers were killed using this tactic. Clutts's killer, Thomas Silverstein, is serving three life sentences at ADX. Hoffman's killer, Clayton Fountain, died in prison of natural causes in 2004.
...
Wikipedia