United States Penitentiary, Lewisburg : PA

The United States Penitentiary, Lewisburg (USP Lewisburg) is a high-security United States federal prison for male inmates in Pennsylvania. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice. An adjacent satellite prison camp houses minimum-security male offenders.
USP Lewisburg is located in central Pennsylvania, 200 miles north of Washington, DC and 170 miles west of Philadelphia. The prison is located in the same town as Bucknell University.^[2]

Initially named North Eastern Penitentiary, USP Lewisburg was one of four federal prisons to open in 1932.^[3][4]
USP Lewisburg had a prison riot in November 1995. Although started by only 10 prisoners, more than 20 visited the hospital that November 1, with one prisoner recording multiple broken bones and missing teeth. Many were sentenced to the "hole" and over 400 were transferred.^[5] This incident thrust the Penitentiary into the national spotlight, where it gained much of its current notoriety.
A local non-profit group, the Lewisburg Prison Project, assists prisoners here and in the surrounding area with issues of conditions of confinement.^[6]
USP Lewisburg was the focus of a 1991 Academy Award-nominated documentary titled, Doing Time: Life Inside the Big House, by filmmakers Alan and Susan Raymond. The one hour long film described conditions inside the prison and focused specifically on the abolition of parole within the federal system and the fears held by many prisoners about re-integrating into society upon their eventual release from prison.^[7]
As of 2009, USP Lewisburg was designated as a Special Management Unit intended to house the most violent and disruptive inmates in the Bureau of Prisons. Although most USP Lewisburg inmates are housed in the SMU, there remains a work cadre of approximately 200 inmates in the USP's general population.

Funding Issues

In July 2008, correction officers at USP Lewisburg expressed concerns about underfunding. Over the past four years, union leaders and other officials had been lobbying in an attempt to quell staff reductions and cutting costs. The Federal Bureau of Prisons had proposed $143 million in possible spending cuts, including not replacing vehicles and equipment, eliminating overtime, reducing corrections officer training, and a possible cut in officer staff positions.^[8] Under such conditions, many of the Correctional Officers expressed concerns about their own safety.

Recent events

In 2012, Jeff Thomas replaced Bryan E. Bledsoe as Warden of USP Lewisburg.^[9] USP Lewisburg is currently facing a civil trial for allegedly keeping prisoners shackled for days at a time. ^[10]