FCI Aliceville (low-security)

FCI Aliceville. Public domain photograph, via Wikimedia Commons.

FCI Aliceville is a low-security federal correctional institution for women in Aliceville, Alabama, operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. It held about 901 people as of November 2025. It does not offer the Residential Drug Abuse Program. The institution's main number is 205-373-5000.

Status update (2026): Under the Bureau's 2026 mission changes, FCI Aliceville is converting from a women's low-security institution to a men's institution; its women were being relocated to FCI Estill (low-security) by approximately June 2026. Confirm the current designation with the BOP before relying on it.

FEMALE

Gender

LOW

Security Level

901

Population (July 9, 2026)

No RDAP

Location

Physical location: ALICEVILLE, AL 35442

Mailing address: 11070 HIGHWAY 14, ALICEVILLE, AL 35442

Visitation

There are many specific rules and procedures to be aware of when you're considering visiting the institution. Read more on our Visitation Guide.

For full, current visiting rules and scheduling, always check the institution's official page on the Bureau of Prisons website: Official BOP Page.

Daily life and programs

Located in unincorporated Pickens County, Alabama, FCI Aliceville operates as a low-security U.S. federal correctional institution for women. The facility is situated roughly 2.5 miles north of the town of Aliceville and about 55 miles west of Tuscaloosa. Construction on the 650-acre site began in 2008 and cost about $185 million. When the prison became operational in 2013, it stood as the first federal women's prison established in Alabama. The complex comprises a main low-security institution and an adjacent minimum-security satellite prison camp, and it has housed roughly 1,500 women. Its opening reshaped the local economy. Although Pickens County had previously been losing population, it became the fastest-growing county in Alabama in 2014 on the strength of prison-related employment.

Programming at Aliceville centers on education and reentry rather than residential drug treatment. To support GED completion, the institution operates a literacy program designed to build reading, math, and written-expression skills. Other educational offerings include mandatory ESL classes for inmates with limited English proficiency, adult continuing education, college correspondence courses, and parenting classes. Additionally, a Release Preparation Program taught in part by inmate tutors covers job searching, resume writing, budgeting, and home buying. Notably, Aliceville has not offered the Residential Drug Abuse Program (RDAP), which is the intensive program that can earn eligible inmates up to a year off their sentence. Consequently, women needing RDAP have had to transfer to another facility. However, drug education and non-residential drug programming are available on site.

Aliceville has drawn sustained scrutiny over medical care and staff misconduct. A 2020 Reason investigation tied at least three inmate deaths since 2018 to alleged medical neglect. These deaths involved Rosemary Ofume, age 59, in March 2018; Hazel McGary, age 49, in March 2019; and Doris Nelson, age 60, in June 2019. The investigation documented monthslong waits for appointments and procedures alongside a pattern of dismissed complaints, although the Bureau of Prisons classified the deaths as natural causes. That reporting carried named first-hand accounts from women held there, including Holly Frantzen, who survived a June 2019 cardiac arrest, and Kerstin Jones, left in a wheelchair after delayed care. Separately, at least three Aliceville corrections officers have been convicted of sexual abuse of inmates since 2020, part of the wider BOP sexual-misconduct crisis. The facility has operated under a designation moratorium limiting which women could be placed there, driven largely by Health Services staffing shortages.

In 2026, the Bureau of Prisons announced it would change Aliceville's mission from a women's facility to a male Care Level 1 (low-security) institution. The women were expected to be moved out by roughly June 2026 to make room for male inmates. The BOP framed the switch as a way to ease the medical-care demands that had constrained the women's mission and to expand scarce low-security bed space for men. Female low- and minimum-security beds were to be consolidated at FCI Estill in South Carolina to streamline medical delivery and reduce transport-related costs and risks. The change was part of a broader slate of BOP facility mission changes and closures announced in 2026 citing budget pressures. As of the Bureau's population report dated July 9, 2026, Aliceville held 828 women in the main institution and 73 in the satellite camp (901 total), down from 1,169 in November 2025, consistent with the ongoing transfer of women to FCI Estill.

First-hand accounts

First-person accounts and reporting about life at this facility. Experiences are individual and may not reflect current conditions.

• These Women Received a Death Sentence for Being Sick in Prison — Reason (investigative feature built on named first-hand inmate accounts). In-depth 2020 investigation into medical care at FCI Aliceville, carrying extensive first-person testimony from named women held there, including survivor Holly Frantzen (cardiac arrest after a medication error) and Kerstin Jones (wheelchair-bound after delayed care), plus three deaths (Ofume, McGary, Nelson) attributed to alleged neglect. Primary, fetchable, and specific to this facility.
• Please help: federal inmate healthcare advocacy — Reddit community thread. A family member's advocacy post seeking help on healthcare access for a loved one held at FCI Aliceville.
• Former Mayor Catherine Pugh to report to prison — Reddit community thread. Local Baltimore discussion of former mayor Catherine Pugh's sentence to FCI Aliceville.

Please remember that experiences are unique and may not reflect today's experience.

Notable inmates

Name	Sentence	Offense	Dates
Alice Marie Johnson	Life (commuted by President Trump June 2018; later granted full pardon)	Nonviolent cocaine-distribution conspiracy	Released June 2018
Catherine Pugh	3 years	Fraud/tax conspiracy tied to her self-dealing "Healthy Holly" children's-book scheme as Baltimore mayor	Released April 2021
Reta Mays	Seven consecutive life sentences (convicted 2020)	Murder of seven veteran patients with lethal insulin injections as a VA hospital nursing assistant
Jordan Linn Graham	30 years	Second-degree murder, pushed her newlywed husband off a cliff in Glacier National Park (July 2013)	Projected release ~2040
Shannon Conley	4 years	Conspiracy to provide material support to ISIS	Released September 2017
Elaine Brown	35 years	Sovereign-citizen weapons stockpiling during an armed tax-evasion standoff	Released February 2020 (per Wikipedia)
Ann (Annugetta) Pettway	12 years	Kidnapping, abducted infant Carlina White in 1987	Released April 2021
Angela Johnson	Life without parole (re-sentenced 2014)	Federal murder (drug-related killings); first woman sentenced to death by a federal jury since the 1950s, later re-sentenced

See also

• FCI Aliceville: a practical guide for women, including the conversion timeline (womensfederalprison.com)