Because we already have the Alcatraz of the Rockies, ADX Florence.
The Administrative Maximum Facility is the federal government’s supermax prison. Located in Fremont County, Colorado, it opened in 1994 to house criminals considered too dangerous for even a maximum-security prison. Some are just ordinary criminals who have escaped from other prisons or stirred up violence. Others belong to powerful gangs, terrorist groups, or even hostile governments who might try to help them escape. Notable inmates and former inmates include:
- Barry Mills and Tyler Bingham, Aryan Brotherhood
- Zacarias Moussaoui, September 11th co-conspirator, and Ramzi Yousef, architect of the 1992 World Trade Center bombing
- Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Boston Marathon bomber
- Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber
- Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, Oklahoma City bombing
- Robert Hanssen, Russian agent inside the FBI counter-intelligence division
- Vincent Basciano, boss of the Bonanno crime family
- Richard McNair, three-time escapee who once mailed himself out of a federal prison
Cells at ADX Florence are solid concrete with a concrete bed, desk, and stool, a flood-proof toilet and shower, and a mirror of solid, polished metal. Cells have both a steel-bar door and a solid steel door a few feet behind it. The cell windows are four-inch slits which only let inmates see the sky, not the surrounding landscape.
Prisoners spend 23 hours a day in their cells, and are escorted by three guards to their hour of daily exercise in a private room, at the bottom of a swimming-pool-like pit. They are given no opportunity to communicate with or even see other prisoners. If they somehow get out of their cells and away from the guards, there’s still 24-hour video surveillance, motion detectors, and 1,400 remote-controlled steel doors throughout the facility. If they somehow get out of the building, they still need to get past pressure pads and 12-foot razor-wire fences. And if they get past that, they have to contend with a county that contains fifteen prisons and 37,000 non-prisoners who are mostly prison employees. It’s not an easy place to blend in. (Thanks to Keith Shannon for pointing this out in the comments.)
ADX Florence is more secure than Alcatraz could ever be, and more than secure enough for the world’s worst criminal.