Oct. 14, 2007
Producer's Notebook: My Trip To Supermax
60 Minutes Producer Henry Schuster Shares Some Impressions From Supermax
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It looks like my old high school. That was my first thought when I drove through the Federal Correctional Complex in Florence, Colo. and pulled up to Supermax.
They don't call it Supermax, of course, at least not on the signs. It is the United States Penitentiary - Administrative Maximum. But everyone uses the nicknames. ADX. Supermax. The Alcatraz of the Rockies. That last phrase is the one you find on the hoodies and T-shirts for sale in a case just past the visitor's entrance - all proceeds going to an employees organization.
There is a certain sort of architecture you see in the suburbs and exurbs of America, modernist brutalism, lots of brick on the outside, poured concrete on the inside and no windows that began in the 70's and reached its perfection in the 1990's. Prisons and public schools seemed to share an affinity for the style, which is heavy on the sensory deprivation.
I remembered how much I hated walking into school and the hours of windowless fluorescent lighting as I walked into Supermax. It had taken months to get here and as claustrophobic as the experience was going to be, that was in a sense precisely the point.
We had spent months researching our story about life behind these walls. The Bureau of Prisons is famously tight-fisted with information, hence the 30-plus Freedom on Information Act requests for Supermax records. They did not want us here and a spokeswoman had even tried to dissuade us early on from doing the story by telling us that it was perhaps the least interesting of federal prisons because, in her words, nothing much happened there.
Right. A prison that houses the Unabomber; the shoe-bomber; one of the Oklahoma City bombers; some of the al Qaeda embassy bombers; most of the first World Trade Center bombers; the Olympic Park bomber, the man who wanted to be one of the 9/11 hijackers; an FBI agent turned Soviet spy; the so-called American Taliban; and the leaders of the notorious Aryan Brotherhood prison gang is somehow boring?
If they ever let us in with cameras, we could shoot enough interviews to fill an entire season of 60 Minutes.
So here we were. We'd done our shooting outside the prison, hiking up to the fence line and seeing the mirrored glass of the gun towers. We'd even heard what sounded like a rock band playing from at the neighboring U.S. Penitentiary (which is a high-security facility itself).
The BOP decided to let us in, but only with other invited journalists, and there was no way we were going to be allowed to bring cameras. That was after pointing out to them they already allowed VIP tours and even visits by graduate students.
They chose 9/11 for our visit, which somehow seemed appropriate. Not just because of the al Qaeda members who were here. Not just because we had already interviewed officers at the prison who told us how the inmates cheered when they got news of the attacks. But also because the leader of the first World Trade Center bombing, Ramzi Yousef, is the nephew of the man who masterminded 9/11 and finished the attack that Yousef started back in 1993.
There was coffee and Danish and fresh fruit accompanied by a lecture from the current warden, Ron Wiley, in a surprisingly nice, paneled conference room with plasma televisions on the wall.
During Wiley's remarks before and after the tour, we didn't get any information that we had not already dug up on our own -- in fact, there was much less. There were a few pages of handouts that were short on statistics and a typed agenda which made it clear that we were going nowhere near the most interesting parts of the prison.
Written By 60 Minutes Producer Henry Schuster
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See all 28 CommentsSecurity, security, security.
A U.S. Penitentiary is a maximum custody facility. In Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, a max custody inmate communicated with friends that he was about to be transported to a local hospital. A young correctional officer who was unarmed was killed by gunfire exiting the hospital. Another officer was wounded in the arm.
It is a dangerous job. But they do it every day. To tell a relative that a max custody inmate is at a downtown hospital is a great security risk.
I wouldn''t have told you until he was back in the prison, either. Security.
It is similar. To understand Ramzi Yousef, you must understand his world view. He sincerely believes that he is an agent of God, a soldier in a divine war. To him, it is Good vs. Evil. Any pretense he makes to have security restrictions lifted is just that, pretense. He will strike out at the kufir (unbelievers) at the first opportunity he is given.
This is a world view unlike any other we have come to know. To expect a man who sincerely believes he is a prisoner-of war in a universal struggle to convert to the religion of his mortal enemy is just unrealistic.
Look at Yousef''s history. He was the same man who plotted the assassination of the Pope and only gave up on it because his bomb lab was discovered. He was on the run from plot to plot from the World Trade Center bombing of 1993 onward. He envisioned himself as the 007 of the radical Islamic terrorist movement, and, indeed, he was. He killed without remorse and will yet kill again if he can. The Bojinka plot he helped to craft was the precursor to 9/11.
Yousef and others like him belong at the ADX. It is a necessary evil because there is pure evil---like Ramzi Yousef---that needs to be contained there.
Eric
posted by yendys33
Sorry...but I disagree with you. (You can be a resident at a nursing home and have to listen to people scream non stop.) Maybe it is good for the murderers imprisoned to hear screams to remind them of their victims final screams. I might sound harsh but prisoners are there to be punished...not coddled.
As far as your brother...you obviously love him, therefore in your eyes you see him as the shining example of a perfect prisoner. The prison system, however, sees him as the most dangerous of criminals. I would believe they are correct in their judgement of your brother because you are biased by being his sister. Good luck to you and your family...it must be a hard thing to deal with.
Howard O. Kieffer
Publisher/Moderator BOPWatch
www.bopwatch.org
This is where the worst of the worst of the Federal Bureau of Prisons is kept. And terrorism is a whole new ballgame for us in the U.S. We are starting to realize that these people will be incarcerated long after the crisis with al Qaida is over.
These AQ and AQ-like terrorists feel that they are soldiers in a divine war. The worst of them do NOT self-deradicalize. There is no proof the worst will de-radicalize at all. Watch Yousef: he is trying to gain privileges to enable him to continue his struggle against the kufir.
The worst of the worst are at ADX. But did you know where the worst of the worst of the worst go to? Do your homework and follow the psychiatrics.
The problem with the "warden" is that he and others in the highest levels of FBOP have not come to the realization that AQ and AQ-like terrorists are not just max custody criminals. They have a world view unlike anything we have experienced before. And if we do not isolate the worst ones, they will radicalize and organize like they have in prisons in the UK, France, North Africa and South Asia.
"Warden", I have worked with administrators who do not know what they are doing and who have placed prison staff in danger through their own ignorance. Wardens, do your homework on Islamic radical terrorists: it may save some of your staff one day.
Again I say...SHAME ON YOU.
Since most of these men will get out, I think it''s important to treat them as you want yours to be treated. Allow them to learn, to see their kids and wives. The more "human" an inmate feels, the safer an officer is. Remember folks, we only know of others what we know of ourselves: not everyone at ADX is what you think. Judge not until you''ve been there.
Since most of these men will get out, I think it''s important to treat them as you want yours to be treated. Allow them to learn, to see their kids and wives. The more "human" an inmate feels, the safer an officer is. Remember folks, we only know of others what we know of ourselves: not everyone at ADX is what you think. Judge not until you''ve been there.
Since most of these men will get out, I think it''s important to treat them as you want yours to be treated. Allow them to learn. To see their children and wives. The more "human" an inmate feels, the safer an officer is. I work for the government and no inmate in American has it better than anyone in Iraq. Actually, if they wanted to win this war, there are some people at ADX, outside the 30 terrorists housed there (out of more than 700) that would end this war and find bin Laden. Remember folks, we only know of others what we know of ourselves: not everyone at ADX is what you think. Judge not until you''ve been there.
Since most of these men will get out, I think it''s important to treat them as you want yours to be treated. Allow them to learn. To see their children and wives. The more "human" an inmate feels, the safer an officer is. I work for the government and no inmate in American has it better than anyone in Iraq. Actually, if they wanted to win this war, there are some people at ADX, outside the 30 terrorists housed there (out of more than 700) that would end this war and find bin Laden. Remember folks, we only know of others what we know of ourselves: not everyone at ADX is what you think. Judge not until you''ve been there.
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