FCI Mendota (minimum-security camp)

FCI Mendota. Public domain photograph, via Wikimedia Commons.

FCI Mendota is a minimum-security satellite camp for men in Mendota, California, operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. It held about 102 people as of November 2025. It does not offer the Residential Drug Abuse Program. The institution's main number is 559-274-4000.

MALE

Gender

MINIMUM

Security Level

102

Population (Nov. 2025)

No RDAP

Location

Physical location: MENDOTA, CA 93640

Mailing address: 33500 WEST CALIFORNIA AVENUE, MENDOTA, CA 93640

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.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Does FCI Mendota allow conjugal visits?

No. FCI Mendota does not allow conjugal visits. The Federal Bureau of Prisons does not permit conjugal visits at any facility regardless of security level. This includes all minimum-security federal prison camps, low-security FCIs, medium-security facilities, and high-security USPs. Only four state prison systems (California, Connecticut, New York, and Washington) allow conjugal visits for state prisoners. Federal inmates have no access to conjugal or extended family visits anywhere in the BOP system.

Q: What types of visitation are allowed at FCI Mendota?

FCI Mendota allows contact visits during designated visiting hours, typically on weekends and holidays. Contact visits permit brief embraces at the start and end of visits, but prolonged physical contact is not allowed. All visits occur in supervised visiting rooms. Visitors must be pre-approved through a background check process and must follow dress code requirements. For full details, see the Visiting Policies and Procedures page.

Daily life and programs

Located roughly 36 miles west of the city of Fresno in rural Fresno County, California, the FCI Mendota satellite prison camp is a minimum-security, male-only annex attached to the medium-security Federal Correctional Institution at Mendota. Both the camp and the main institution opened in January 2012 as part of a single complex that spans roughly 960 acres and was built at a construction cost of about 235 million dollars. The camp is relatively small in scale. According to public Bureau of Prisons figures, the annex possesses a rated capacity of about 128 and a working population near 103, representing just a fraction of the 1,300-plus individuals held at the adjacent medium-security facility. Operating strictly as a camp, the site houses low-risk, low-custody men. This population commonly includes those serving shorter sentences or those who have stepped down from higher-security custody and are approaching release.

Following the standard federal camp model, facilities utilize dormitory-style housing rather than conventional cellblocks. Inmates reside in open barracks or cubicle bunks instead of the seven-by-twelve-foot cells found within the medium-security institution. These camps operate without the razor-wire perimeter fencing that surrounds the main compound. Security is maintained instead through internal movement controls, work accountability, and the multiple daily counts used throughout BOP institutions. In practice, minimum-security camp populations supply much of the labor that keeps the larger complex running. Paid work details are concentrated in food service, laundry, sanitation, grounds and landscape maintenance, warehouse operations, and clerical support. The higher-paying institution assignments are generally granted to men who already possess a high school diploma or GED.

Programming available across the Mendota complex includes adult continuing education, complete with GED preparation and English-as-a-Second-Language instruction, alongside vocational training reported in building trades, automotive, warehouse, recycling, and computer literacy. In terms of substance-abuse programming, FCI Mendota is documented as NOT operating the residential RDAP. The facility instead offers a Drug Education course, the Non-Residential Drug Abuse Program, and Alcoholics Anonymous. Furthermore, the complex also does NOT house a UNICOR (Federal Prison Industries) factory. Consequently, the prison-industry jobs found at some federal sites are not part of the work picture here. These program details are documented at the institution-complex level. Publicly available sources give little camp-specific breakdown, and no first-hand resident journals for the camp were located.

Within the record of notable incarcerations, care is required to separate the minimum-security camp from the medium-security main institution. The individuals most often cited in connection with FCI Mendota include hate-crime defendant Frankie Maybee, white-supremacist Order member Richard Scutari, anti-abortion murderer James Kopp, cocaine-trafficker Luis Hernando Gomez, and model Jeremy Meeks. These individuals were all serving long or serious terms consistent with medium-security placement, not a minimum-security camp. Furthermore, 2024 reporting on FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried likewise pointed to the medium-security prison given his 25-year sentence. Because no public source places any notable individual specifically at the Mendota minimum-security camp, the notable-inmate list for this facility is left empty rather than populated with people who belong to the main institution.