***Please note, THIS post was from the OLD USP, currently FCI Terre Haute***

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http://www.prisontalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=206750

USP Terra Haute Level 5


Inmate Mailing Address
PO Box 33
Terre Haute, IN 47808

Educational Programs
GED program: Mandatory to attend if you don’t have one. 480 hours of school.
ACE program: Adult Continuing Education: If you have a GED or High School Diploma you can attend these classes; Accounting, Keyboarding, Computers, Home Improvement, Black History.
Your Unit Team wants you to have a GED and a ACE program before they will transfer you.

Work Details
CMS: Compound Maintenance System: Plumbing, Painting, Construction, Masonry, Carpentry, and Electric. You set in a building all day for 10 hours, 4 days a week-usual pay $5.25 a month.
Food Service: Cooking and cleaning kitchen and Dining Hall-usual pay $5.25 a month.
Rec: Clean Rec yard, center and gym-usual pay is $5.25 a month.
UNICOR: Prison Industries: 40 hours a week. The only job that pays enough to support you. Unit team tries to force you here by making all other jobs worthless. The more inmates working UNICOR the more money the BOP makes.

Recreational Activities
Group sports: softball, basketball, football and soccer. Weight pile, half mile track and pool tables.

Medical
Very poor: It takes two to three weeks to see the P.A. over a emergency sick call. The flu that was causing so much trouble out there has ran rampant in here. Inmates that go to sick call in the morning to complain of Flu symptoms are told to watch the call-out to see a doctor: wait 2 to 3 weeks.

Visitation
Never had a visit at this location.

Food Services
Poor: Food is undercooked. We are given prepackaged items that are expired months or years prior. Insects have been found in both cooked and uncooked found. Mouse droppings are found in raw vegetables. It is not uncommon for half the compound to be sick from food poisoning.

Commissary
Commissary sells a wide variety of things. We are allowed to shop once per week
A commissary list was included with this so as soon as I am able to scan and post it will be attached.

Library
The legal and leisure library is actually well stocked. Inmates have sued the BOP enough times over the years to keep them this way.

RDAP
It is a mystery to me.

Living Conditions
A housing unit holds 90-100 cells. Each cell holds 2 inmates. The cell holds a bunk bed, 2 lockers, a toilet and a sink. The cells are to small for both you and your celly to hang out in at once. Inmates usually spend their time on the range instead of in the cramped cells.

Racial/Age make up
1300 inmates: 70% black, 15% white, 10% Spanish, 5% other.
Average age between 20-40

Typewriters
There are about 15-20 typewriters. You buy your own ribbon from commissary. I never hear any complaints over typewriters.

Telephones
One phone per 40 inmates. Calls are limited to 15 minutes.

Furloughs
Never heard of a furlough in a USP.

Items issued by BOP
A bedroll; blanket, 2 sheets, pillow case and towel.
3 button shirts, 3 pants, 4 undershirts, shorts, socks and 1 pair steel toe boots.

Items that can be sent in
Letters, pictures and money orders. No other items can be sent in from family or friends. All books and magazines must come from publisher or book store.

Parole Hearings
Yes, parole hearings are given at this location.

Religious Groups
If the federal government acknowledges your religion you can practice it.

Parenting Programs
No

Marriage Workshops
No



Note
There are a lot of regulations the BOP is suppose to follow. How they work around this is to make up an institutional memo saying we can’t do this or that because of security reasons. This is the best excuse because it all comes down to security, and security is the BOP’s first priority.

Is this post from a prisoner who is inside USP Terre Haute?

I ask that because even though I agree with a lot of what is written, In the five years we were there, we never knew anyone inside who got food posioning.

The statements about the medical care are accurate, as are the statements about the bugs. My husband said he stepped on roaches every time he had to use the loo in the middle of the night.

On occasion I would kill cockroaches in the visiting room, and once on my way into the visiting room, I came across one so big it startled me and I let out a little scream / yelp and yelled to the officer working to "Kill it, Kill it!" The officer came down and killed it for me. Sorry folks, but it was just too big for me to step on. Had to have been three inches long! Even the c/o said "yuck" when it snapped under his boot. He wasn't even mad that I had screamed/yelped over it, he is a good man.

As far as visitation goes, it really wasn't bad. We could sit next to each other and though they assigned the seats to us, after a while they just put us in the back and left us alone. Of course it took a couple of years of showing them that we weren't going to break the rules to attain this. I too have become institutionalized and they know it!

The visiting room has a capacity of 144 persons. Father's Day was always the busiest visiting day, Fridays the slowest.

We were there when they brought Timothy McVeigh and the other death row prisoners in. Security tightened up and things got a little weirder after that and the outside time for the men got shorter and shorter. Some of it is understandable, some of it did not make any sense.

They kept the vending machines pretty well stocked, and the coffee machine always worked:) With the exception of three officers and one Lt., in five years, the staff was always professional and courteous.

Visits started on time unless there was a fog count, and folks, there is some major fog in Terre Haute sometimes!

Visitors had to be scanned by the Ion Track before they could visit, and that was never routine because it was never calibrated correctly. Otherwise, for a level 5 facility, visitation was not bad at all.

Yes, this is from a current prisoner at this location. One that we know from the streets. He has less then a year left to go.

Great information you shared on visitation....please feel free to add anything you can.

Diane

I'm afraid that everything I have is out of date. I know they built the new USP, we were at the old one, but I don't have any way of knowing anything new from up there. Sorry:(

I would like to know if there is a Prison Support Group in Terre Haute. I'm talking a group that will help with finding a hotel room and maybe providing transportation to and from the prison. If not can anyone help me in finding my own place near the prison and about much the cab fair would be to get to the USP Prison.

My honey is across the street at the Camp, so I can't give you a whole lot of info at the actual prison. I don't get there to visit as often as I would like because he's about 350 miles from here, but I *do* go when I can. I would say the cab fair wouldn't be bad as the prison isn't far from town at all. Give me a PM and I can discuss hotels and stuff with you. Hopefully I'll be heading down again before long!
Lorri

Thanks for the posts and responses. These (and others like them) are really informative.
My interest is just to educate myself but for those who have a loved one incarcarated there they must be extremely helpful!