United States Penitentiary, Lewisburg
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| Location |
Kelly Township, Union County, near Lewisburg, Pennsylvania |
|---|---|
| Status | Operational |
| Security class | High-security (with minimum-security prison camp) |
| Population | 1,400 (580 in prison camp) |
| Opened | 1932 |
| Managed by | Federal Bureau of Prisons |
| Warden | as of late summer 2014: current acting warden is Mr. Wilson, new warden is Mr. Jeffrey Butler |
The United States Penitentiary, Lewisburg (USP Lewisburg) is a high-security United States federal prison for male inmates in Pennsylvania. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice. An adjacent satellite prison camp houses minimum-security male offenders.
USP Lewisburg is located in Kelly Township, Pennsylvania, near Lewisburg. It is in the central Pennsylvania region, 170 miles (270 km) west of Philadelphia and 200 miles (320 km) north of Washington, DC.
Initially named North Eastern Penitentiary, USP Lewisburg was one of four federal prisons to open in 1932.
USP Lewisburg had a prison riot in November 1995. Although started by only 10 prisoners, more than 20 visited the hospital that November 1, with one prisoner recording multiple broken bones and missing teeth. Many were sentenced to the "hole" and over 400 were transferred. This incident thrust the Penitentiary into the national spotlight, where it gained much of its current notoriety.
A local non-profit group, the Lewisburg Prison Project, assists prisoners here and in the surrounding area with issues of conditions of confinement.
USP Lewisburg was the focus of the 1991 Academy Award nominated documentary Doing Time: Life Inside the Big House by filmmakers Alan and Susan Raymond. The one hour long film described conditions inside the prison and focused specifically on the abolition of parole within the federal system and the fears held by many prisoners about re-integrating into society upon their eventual release from prison.
As of 2009, USP Lewisburg was designated as a Special Management Unit intended to house the most violent and disruptive inmates in the Bureau of Prisons. Although most USP Lewisburg inmates are housed in the SMU, there remains a work cadre of approximately 200 inmates in the USP's general population.
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