FCI Marion (medium-security)

FCI Marion is a medium-security federal correctional institution for men in Marion, Illinois, operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. It held about 999 people as of November 2025. It does not offer the Residential Drug Abuse Program. The institution's main number is 618-964-1441.

MALE

Gender

MEDIUM

Security Level

999

Population (Nov. 2025)

No RDAP

Location

Physical location: MARION, IL 62959

Mailing address: 4500 PRISON ROAD, MARION, IL 62959

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

The Federal Correctional Institution, Marion (FCI Marion) is a medium-security U.S. federal prison for men in unincorporated Williamson County in southern Illinois, near the city of Marion, operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons within the Department of Justice. The complex holds roughly 1,100 to 1,200 men in the main institution, with an adjacent minimum-security satellite camp housing an additional 180 or so male offenders (BOP figures over 2023 to 2024 show about 985 to 1,117 in the main facility and roughly 181 to 194 in the camp). Its defining feature is that it houses one of only two Communications Management Units (CMUs) in the entire federal system, a self-contained unit that tightly restricts and monitors inmate communication. The camp population provides much of the labor that supports the main compound and grounds.

FCI Marion carries an outsized place in federal prison history. The Bureau of Prisons opened it as USP Marion in 1963, a new maximum-security penitentiary built to absorb prisoners transferred out of Alcatraz when that island prison closed. The first internal control units appeared in 1973, and in 1979 Marion was designated the system's only Level 6 (highest) institution. On October 22, 1983, two correctional officers, Merle Clutts and Robert Hoffmann, were killed in separate incidents hours apart by members of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang (Thomas Silverstein and Clayton Fountain). Marion went into a prolonged lockdown and became the prototype control-unit or supermax prison, a model that directly informed the later ADX Florence. In 2006 the institution was downgraded to medium security and heavily renovated, which raised the population from roughly 383 to about 901; the facility long continued to be called USP Marion (Wikipedia dates the formal renaming to FCI Marion to 2024) even as it operated at medium security.

The Communications Management Unit at Marion, which opened in the late 2000s alongside a sister CMU at USP Terre Haute, is what most distinguishes the site today. The Bureau created the CMUs to concentrate and closely monitor inmates whose outside communication it wanted to control, a population that has skewed heavily toward people convicted of terrorism-related offenses. CMU prisoners face sharply limited and fully recorded phone calls, mail, and visitation, with live monitoring of contacts. The unit has drawn sustained civil-liberties criticism, including litigation by the Center for Constitutional Rights (Aref v. Holder) arguing that placements lacked due process. Andrew Stepanian, an animal-rights activist, became the first CMU prisoner released, in 2009, and later spoke publicly about conditions inside the unit.

Daily life within the main medium-security institution adheres to a standard federal regimen comprised of standing counts, structured meals, recreation periods, and mandatory labor for all medically able inmates who are not engaged in full-time education or vocational programming. Work assignments include jobs with Federal Prison Industries (UNICOR) paying roughly $0.23 to $1.15 per hour, which constitutes wages above ordinary institutional pay. The facility offers several programming options, such as GED preparation, adult continuing education, and inmate-led ACE classes. Inmates can also participate in the Residential Drug Abuse Program (RDAP), an intensive 9-month, 500-hour treatment track that can yield up to a 12-month sentence reduction for eligible completers. Recreation covers basketball and softball, weight machines, and leisure libraries. Communication for general-population inmates runs through TRULINCS email alongside monitored phone access, which is subject to 15-minute call limits and an allowance of about 300 minutes per month. Furthermore, monthly commissary spending is capped in the range of $360. By comparison, conditions in the CMU are considerably more restrictive than in the general population.

First-hand accounts

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

• USP Marion: A Few Prisoners Summon the Courage to Speak - Laws (peer-reviewed academic journal, MDPI). Scholarly article that reproduces and analyzes first-person accounts and letters from prisoners held in the Marion control unit. NOTE ON ERA: these voices describe the high-security control-unit / supermax period (pre-2006 downgrade), not the current medium-security general population, so it is a first-hand source about the facility's earlier incarnation.

Notable inmates

Name	Sentence	Offense	Dates
Viktor Bout	25 years	Arms trafficking; conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals and officials, and to deliver anti-aircraft missiles and aid a terrorist organization	Held in the Marion CMU from June 2012 until his December 2022 release in a prisoner exchange for Brittney Griner
Cesar Altieri Sayoc	20 years	Mailed 16 improvised explosive devices to critics of President Trump, including former presidents and officials, in 2018	Held at FCI Marion after 2019 sentencing; later transferred
Mohammed A. Salameh	Life (roughly 86 to 116 years)	Perpetrator of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing	Held in the FCI Marion Communications Management Unit
Iyman Faris	20 years	Al-Qaeda operative who cased the Brooklyn Bridge as a potential target; material support to terrorism	Held in the Marion CMU; released and deported in August 2020
Zachary Adam Chesser	25 years	Attempting to provide material support to Al-Shabaab and threatening the creators of South Park	Held in the Marion CMU; later transferred (ADX Florence, then USP Hazelton)
Michael Finton	28 years	Attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction in a 2009 plot to truck-bomb a federal building in Springfield, Illinois	Held in the Marion CMU; later transferred to FCI Bennettsville
Andrew Stepanian	About 3 years	Animal-rights activism prosecuted under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (SHAC campaign)	First prisoner released from the Marion CMU, in 2009