Federal Prison Camp, Alderson

Federal Prison Camp, Alderson

Location	Monroe and Summers Counties, West Virginia
Status	Operational
Security class	Minimum-security
Population	1,145
Opened	1928
Managed by	Federal Bureau of Prisons
Warden	B. Rickard

FPC Alderson

Inmate dormitory at FPC Alderson

The Federal Prison Camp, Alderson (FPC Alderson) is a minimum-security United States federal prison for female inmates in West Virginia. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice.

FPC Alderson is located in two West Virginia counties, near the town of Alderson. A portion of the prison is located in unincorporated Monroe County, while the other portion of the prison, including the dormitories, lies in unincorporated Summers County. Four other area towns, Hinton, Lewisburg, Ronceverte, and White Sulphur Springs, are within commuting distance of FPC Alderson.

History

Topographic map of FPC Alderson, U.S. Geological Survey, July 1, 1983

In the 1920s, there was a shortage of federal prison space for female inmates. Women offenders either were given alternative punishments or were housed alone within all-male institutions. Prison staff and fellow inmates sexually exploited girls and women who were incarcerated in these facilities.

Mabel Walker Willebrandt, the Assistant U.S. Attorney General, first encouraged establishment of a facility for women. FPC Alderson, which opened in 1927, was the first federal women's prison in the United States. It was opened during a reform movement in the 1920s to help reform female offenders.

The first warden, Mary B. Harris, was chosen by Mabel Willebrandt. Despite later bureau mythology that Alderson opened its doors with moonshining women from the hills of West Virginia, 174 women had been sent to the facility in the first year of operation before its formal November 14, 1928, opening.

Serving as a model for prison reform at the time, it was styled after a boarding school offering education with no armed guards. The facility followed a reformatory model with no fenced grounds. The prison consisted of primarily work-oriented facilities designed for minor federal offenders. It originally consisted of fourteen cottages built in a horseshoe pattern on two-tiered slopes. The offenders segregated by race in the cottages and each building contained a kitchen and rooms for about thirty women. The vast majority of the women were imprisoned for drug and alcohol charges imposed during the Prohibition era.

Facility

Aerial view of FPC Alderson, USGS, October 27, 1990

FPC Alderson is a 159-acre (64 ha) facility and is the largest employer in the Alderson, West Virginia area.

While there is no barbed wire on the fence surrounding the camp, the prisoners have schedules and each one must work. Inmates get holidays off except those who work in the powerhouse and kitchen. From its beginning, Alderson's staff members have maintained a focus on vocational training and personal growth experiences, with craft-shop activities an integral part of vocational training. Free time is spent walking around the sidewalk that is set between the two dorms as this is within bounds for the inmates. Since 2004 inmates are no longer free to roam the entire campus and are restricted in areas of the prison. They also play recreational activities such as volleyball.

Most of the inmates at FPC Alderson have been convicted of non-violent or white-collar crime. Many are in the drug program and have come from other prisons to attend the program at Alderson. They sleep in bunk beds in two large dormitories. The dormitories hold 500 plus inmates a piece. Each inmate sleeps in a 5-by-9-foot (1.5 m × 2.7 m) cinderblock cube inside of this open dormitory.

The prison was nicknamed "Camp Cupcake" by members of the news media when Martha Stewart was sentenced to a five-month term there. Local residents have also referred to it as "the college campus." It was called "Yale" by one-time attendee Martha Stewart. By 2004, according to Alexandra Marks of The Independent, the operating model for Alderson followed "a punitive rather than a rehabilitative model".

John Benish, the former co-manager of the Alderson Hospitality House, a hospitality establishment where families of Alderson inmates stay, said that FPC Alderson is "built like a college campus. There is lot of property, a lot of greenery and there is no barbed wire around." The Alderson facility includes two dormitories with 500 inmates each. Inmates live in two person cubicles instead of traditional barred prison cells.

As of 2004, most prisoners at Alderson were convicted of recreational drug-related offenses. Esther Heffernan, a sociology professor at Edgewood College, said that throughout history the inmates included "relatives of famous mobsters and grandmotherly women who embezzled money from banks. You've had a real mixture." Hefferman added that in Alderson, which was a "not undesirable" place to be confined, the isolation from urban life could be stressful for inmates. She said that the inmates, "Coming from the streets of New York and D.C.," were awakened at night by crickets and frogs. Prisoners are not permitted to patronize Alderson, West Virginia area businesses.

The facility allows weekend visits, but special hours are available for holidays. In prior years the families of inmates were allowed past visiting rooms only on Thanksgiving Day when they could also share in a holiday feast for $1.75.

FPC Alderson is one of six Federal and State Prisons participating in the paws4people TM paws4prisons TM Service Dog Training program. This program allows for college level classes and instruction in the raising and training of dogs to be placed with Veterans and Active Duty Military with PTSD, TBI and MST, as well as Adolescents with physiological, physical and other challenges. This program works as a re-entry program for Alderson inmates who are in demand as dog trainers upon release.

Notable inmates (current and former)

• Inmates released from custody prior to 1982 are not listed on the Federal Bureau of Prisons website.

Violent criminals

Inmate name	Register number	Status	Details
Lolita Lebrón	22167-069	Sentenced commuted by President Jimmy Carter in 1979; served 25 years.	Member of a group of Puerto Rican nationalists who opened fire inside the US House of Representatives in 1954, wounding five Congressmen; served additional prison time in 2001 for trespassing on military property for protesting the US Navy presence on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques.
Margaret Waley	Unlisted*	Released from custody in 1948 after serving 14 years.	Convicted in 1935 of kidnapping and conspiracy for her role as an accomplice in the kidnapping of George Weyerhaeuser.
Kathryn Kelly	Unlisted*	Released from custody in 1958 after serving 25 years.	Wife of notorious bank robber and murderer George Celino Barnes, better known as "Machine Gun Kelly;" convicted in 1933 of being her husband's accomplice in the kidnapping of businessman and oil tycoon Charles F. Urschel.
Martha Woods	19180-170	Sentenced to life at FPC Alderson in 1972; died in prison in 2002.	An Army wife convicted of killing her infant adopted son Paul to gain attention and sympathy (Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy). In her trial, she was linked to six other mysterious child deaths, including three of her own natural-born children, a niece, a nephew, and a neighbor boy.
Lynette Fromme	06075-180	Spent the majority of her sentence at FPC Alderson; released in 2009 after serving 34 years.	Follower of cult leader and serial killer Charles Manson; attempted to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford on September 5, 1975; known by the nickname "Squeaky."
Sara Jane Moore	04851-180	imprisoned 1975-78, in 1979 she escaped and was recaptured hours later	Attempted to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford on September 22, 1975.

Espionage, Smith Act and "Supporting the Enemy in Wartime" prisoners

Inmate name	Register number	Status	Details
Velvalee Dickinson	Unlisted*	imprisoned 1944–1951	American convicted of espionage against the United States on behalf of Japan.
Iva Toguri D'Aquino	Unlisted*	Was Held in FPC, Alderson	American citizen who participated in English-language propaganda broadcast transmitted by Radio Tokyo to Allied soldiers in the South Pacific during World War II; known as "Tokyo Rose."
Mildred Gillars	Unlisted*	imprisoned 1950–56	American who supplied propaganda broadcasts for Nazi Germany; known as "Axis Sally."
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn	Unlisted*	imprisoned 1955–57	American leftist leader and co-founder of American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a Smith Act prisoner
Claudia Jones	Unlisted*	imprisoned 1955–57	Trinidadian-born child-immigrant journalist and National Executive member of the Communist Party of the United States, a Smith Act prisoner. After release, deported to the United Kingdom, founded the Notting Hill Carnival

Corrupt public officials

Inmate name	Register number	Status	Details
Monica Conyers	43693-039	Released from custody on May 16, 2013 after serving 3 years.	Detroit City Council member from 2005 to 2009 and wife of Congressman John Conyers; pleaded guilty to bribery in 2009 for accepting $60,000 from a waste management company in return for her helping the company win a $1.2 billion contract with the city.
Meg Scott Phipps	23786-056	Released from custody in 2007 after serving 3 years.	North Carolina Agriculture Commissioner from 2001 to 2003; pleaded guilty in 2003 to extortion, mail fraud, and conspiracy for accepting thousands of dollars in illegal cash payments, falsifying campaign finance reports, and extorting money from carnival operators with the promise of state contracts.

Financial fraudsters

Inmate name	Register number	Status	Details
Martha Stewart	55170-054	Released from custody in 2005 after serving 5 months.	American business magnate, television host, author, and magazine publisher; convicted in 2004 of obstruction of justice and lying to federal prosecutors investigating insider trading.
Esther Reed	40024-424	Released from custody in 2011 after serving 3 years.	Former US Secret Service Most-Wanted Fugitive; pleaded guilty to fraud and identity theft for falsely assuming several identities, including that of missing person Brooke Henson, in order to steal money and gain entrance to Ivy League universities; Reed was featured on the television program America's Most Wanted.
Diane Hathaway	48069-039	Released from custody in 2014 after serving 366 days.	Former Michigan Supreme Court Justice convicted of mortgage fraud.

Others

Inmate name	Register number	Status	Details
Billie Holiday	Unlisted*	imprisoned 1947-48	American jazz singer and songwriter arrested for possession of narcotics on May 19, 1947 and sentenced to serve a year and a day, but released for good behavior on March 16, 1948.

See also

• List of U.S. federal prisons
• Federal Bureau of Prisons
• Incarceration in the United States

External links

• Media related to Federal Prison Camp, Alderson at Wikimedia Commons
• FPC Alderson - Federal Bureau of Prisons
• (Archive)
• Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) No. WV-113, "Federal Reformatory for Women, State Route 3, South of Greenbriar River, Alderson vicinity, Summers, WV"
• HABS No. WV-113-A, "Federal Reformatory for Women, Administration Building"
• HABS No. WV-113-B, "Federal Reformatory for Women, School & Chapel"
• HABS No. WV-113-C, "Federal Reformatory for Women, Cottages"
• HABS No. WV-113-D, "Federal Reformatory for Women, Warden's House"