FPC Lompoc (minimum-security camp)

Male

Gender

Minimum

Security Level

Several hundred

Population

Federal Prison Camp, Lompoc
3901 Klein Blvd, Lompoc, CA 93436
RDAP: Yes

Federal Prison Camp, Lompoc (FPC Lompoc) is a minimum-security federal prison camp for male inmates in Lompoc, California. It sits in Santa Barbara County, about 175 miles northwest of Los Angeles. The camp is part of the Lompoc Federal Correctional Complex, a cluster of federal prisons next to Vandenberg Space Force Base. The Federal Bureau of Prisons runs it.

The camp holds low-risk inmates. Many are serving time for nonviolent offenses, including white-collar crimes. Fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli was held at the Lompoc camp in 2021 after his conviction in the college admissions scandal known as Operation Varsity Blues.

Overview

A federal prison camp is the lowest security level in the Bureau of Prisons system. There are no fences at most camps. Inmates live in open dormitories rather than cells. Movement inside the camp is relatively unrestricted. The Bureau places inmates here when their criminal history, sentence length, and risk score qualify them for minimum custody.

FPC Lompoc operates as a satellite camp. It is attached to the larger institution at the complex and shares some support functions with it. Camp inmates often work jobs that keep the wider complex and nearby federal installations running. Reported headcounts for the camp have ranged from roughly 190 to about 324 in recent years.

The camp runs the Residential Drug Abuse Program. Inmates who finish RDAP may qualify for a sentence reduction of up to one year. The camp also offers literacy classes, GED preparation, and adult continuing education courses.

The site has a long military history. The land was part of Camp Cooke, an Army training base opened in 1941. The Army ran a disciplinary barracks there. The Bureau of Prisons took over the property in the 1950s and built out the federal complex that stands today.

The Lompoc Complex

FPC Lompoc does not stand alone. It is one piece of the Lompoc Federal Correctional Complex, which has multiple institutions on a single large property.

The complex has gone through a major change in recent years. The site once held the United States Penitentiary, Lompoc, a medium-security prison that opened in 1959 and housed medium-custody inmates for about two decades. The Bureau converted that institution to lower security. It now operates as FCI Lompoc II, a low-security facility. A second low-security institution, FCI Lompoc I, also operates at the complex.

The minimum-security camp is the lowest custody level on the property. It sits adjacent to FCI Lompoc II. Camp inmates are kept separate from the low-security population and are not housed inside the main institution.

Notable Inmates

The Lompoc complex has held several well-known federal inmates over the decades. Some served at the minimum-security camp. Others were held at the penitentiary or low-security institutions on the same property.

• Mossimo Giannulli is a fashion designer and the husband of actress Lori Loughlin. He pleaded guilty in the Operation Varsity Blues college admissions case and received a five-month sentence. He reported to Lompoc in November 2020. After an extended COVID-19 quarantine at the penitentiary, he was moved to the minimum-security camp on January 13, 2021, and finished his term there.

• H.R. Haldeman was White House Chief of Staff under President Richard Nixon. He served roughly 18 months at Lompoc for his role in the Watergate conspiracy.

• Reed Slatkin co-founded the internet provider EarthLink. He was convicted of running a large Ponzi scheme and pleaded guilty to mail fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. He served time at Lompoc.

• Ivan Boesky was a Wall Street arbitrageur convicted in the 1980s insider trading scandal. Reporting on the Lompoc complex lists him among its former inmates.

Name	Sentence	Offense	Dates
Dwight Chapin	Served roughly 8 months	Making false statements to a grand jury (Watergate); former Nixon appointments secretary / Deputy Assistant to the President	August 1975 to April 1976

Notes from Alumni

The following people have spoken about their time at FPC Lompoc (minimum-security camp) on the Nightmare Success podcast, hosted by Brent Cassity (himself formerly incarcerated in the federal system):

• The Journey of JC Almanza: From Darkness to Light (Nightmare Success podcast)

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

Location and Visitation

FPC Lompoc is at 3901 Klein Blvd, Lompoc, CA 93436. The camp is in Santa Barbara County on California's central coast. Vandenberg Space Force Base is next door. The drive from Los Angeles is about 175 miles.

The Bureau of Prisons publishes current visiting days, hours, and rules on the institution's official page. Visitors must be on an inmate's approved list before they can visit. Dress codes, identification rules, and item restrictions apply. Schedules change, so visitors should confirm the current policy before traveling.

For full and current visiting information, check the institution's official BOP page: Official BOP Page.

Daily life and programs

Federal Prison Camp (FPC) Lompoc operates as the minimum-security satellite camp within the Federal Correctional Complex (FCC) Lompoc. Situated near the Pacific Ocean in Santa Barbara County on California's central coast, the complex is located roughly 150 miles northwest of Los Angeles. It functions as a cluster of separate facilities that also includes FCI Lompoc I and FCI Lompoc II. The minimum-security camp occupies a distinct building and maintains an inmate population held apart from the low- and medium-security institutions. It confines adult male offenders who are eligible for the least restrictive federal custody, typically those with short sentences, low points, and non-violent convictions, often for white-collar or drug offenses. In May 2024, the Bureau of Prisons carried out a significant reorganization of the complex by redesignating the former U.S. Penitentiary Lompoc as a Federal Correctional Institution. The minimum-security camp component remained part of the complex following this transition, with reported camp populations in the range of a few hundred men; one figure cited is 324.

Functioning as a camp, FPC Lompoc has no perimeter fence and does not lock residents in cells. Inmates reside in open dormitory housing and adhere to a fixed daily schedule built around census counts, meals, work call, and recreation periods, with unstructured time available in between. First-hand style accounts of the camp observe that much of the facility, including the commissary, chow hall, theater, and housing units, sits under one roof; therefore, a resident need not go outside if he chooses not to. Opportunities for recreation, including yard time, library, and exercise, are described as plentiful. Furthermore, the dorms are noted to be mostly quiet, and the food is characterized as generally decent. As at all BOP camps, unwritten social norms and racial dynamics still operate despite the relaxed physical environment.

Work remains central to camp life, with all jobs performed entirely within the facility perimeter. Standard institutional job assignments at Lompoc utilize pay grades tied to position and performance, compensating inmates in the range of roughly $0.12 to $0.40 per hour. Unlike some institutions, the Lompoc complex does not run a UNICOR (Federal Prison Industries) factory tied to the camp, so the highest-paying prison-industry jobs are generally unavailable there. In addition to work, programming completed inside, including education, vocational training, and pre-release preparation, factors directly into halfway-house and home-confinement placement decisions. Drug programming also varies by facility across the complex. FCI Lompoc I is documented as offering the intensive nine-month Residential Drug Abuse Program (RDAP), while FCI Lompoc II is not. Facilities without RDAP typically offer the non-residential drug program (NR-DAP) and the Drug Abuse Education course; however, camp-specific RDAP availability is not clearly documented in public sources.

During the 1970s and 1980s, the Lompoc camp achieved national recognition as a destination for Watergate-era political figures and prominent white-collar offenders. This reputation earned the facility the informal nickname 'Camp Cupcake' throughout that era. It remains important to distinguish the minimum-security camp from the higher-security institutions located within the same complex. Several of the most famous recent Lompoc inmates, including Sam Bankman-Fried and Mossimo Giannulli, were imprisoned at the low-security FCI rather than the minimum-security camp. Similarly, older figures such as the spy Christopher Boyce and the financier Reed Slatkin were confined at the FCI/penitentiary instead of the camp. Accordingly, only inmates specifically and citably placed at the minimum-security camp are listed below as notable camp residents.

First-hand accounts

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

• Lompoc Federal Prison Camp: What to Expect - White Collar Advice (authored under Mathew 'Matt' Bowyer, the bookmaker in the Ohtani/Mizuhara illegal-gambling case; reported to custody Oct 2025, released March 2026). First-hand-style preparation narrative explicitly framed around the Lompoc minimum-security camp, describing open-dorm housing, the fixed count/meal/work schedule, the 'everything under one roof' layout, work-assignment advice, and social/racial dynamics. CAVEAT: contemporaneous news reporting described Bowyer as reporting to the low-security FCI Lompoc rather than the camp, so his exact placement (camp vs. adjacent low-security institution) is not fully resolved; treat as camp-adjacent testimony.