A look inside America’s toughest prison, the ADX supermax (2024)

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

FLORENCE, Colorado is a beautiful place. Gorges run for miles through arid desert in the warmer months and give way to the beauty of snow-capped peaks in winter. Farmers markets spring up in June and July.

But Florence has a darker side, one hidden away but subtly hinted at on the city’s own tourism website where visitors will find the slogan “unlock its treasures”.

Nearby but not close enough to disturb the population is America’s most notorious prison, the Administrative Maximum Facility, or ADX supermax.

Dubbed the ‘Alcatraz of the Rockies’ and an ‘American gulag’, the federal facility is home to almost 500 prisoners. They are considered the worst of the worst and include 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, Oklahoma City bomber Terry Nichols and Joseph Swango — AKA “Dr Death” — a serial killer who poisoned 60 of his patients.

The prison has operated in near-secrecy for more than 20 years but a federal lawsuit alleging prisoners have been mistreated is, for the first time, shining a light on what goes on behind the prison walls. What it reveals is disturbing.

This is America’s toughest prison, a place Amnesty International this week declared could be in violation of the US Constitution, telling news.com.au that ADX was so harsh, it pushed the boundaries of acceptable punishment to their absolute limit.

PRISONERS ‘SHACKLED TO THEIR BEDS FOR WEEKS’

It’s tough inside the supermax.

Prisoners are locked away in cells no bigger than a standard-sized bathroom with a tiny viewing hole to the outside world. They cannot see the mountains, just the sky and a few of the facility’s buildings, if they’re lucky.

Unlike other prisons, they have little human contact.

A report by Amnesty International has revealed prisoners are shackled to their beds for days or weeks at a time, kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day. The New York Times has reported the result is an all-too common spiral into insanity. In Inside America’s Toughest Federal Prison, the New York Times’ Mark Binelli says the aim of the supermax is not to rehabilitate, but to simply contain.

Binelli has revealed conversations between inmates and Ed Aro, a partner at law firm Arnold & Porter who is pursuing a lawsuit on the behalf of mentally ill prisoners who have suffered as a result of their treatment at ADX.

Aro says a prisoner named Jack Powers — a man who robbed 30 banks armed with only a letter (which he would pass to the bank teller, detailing his demands) and a bit of persuasion — was so adversely affected by his treatment that he swallowed razor blades and toothbrushes, cut off his earlobes and tattooed himself with deep wounds, “Avatar” style. In separate incidents he later sliced open his own scrotum and removed a testicl* and slashed his wrists. Doctors, though, said they could find no signs of mental illness.

The Times reported that he was sent to a medical centre for treatment but determined “not in need of inpatient psychiatric treatment or psychopathic medication”.

Powers’ treatment formed part of the lawsuit against the Federal Bureau of Prisons which allowed investigators inside to look around and led to a settlement offer and several changes to prison protocol.

But Amnesty International USA, which was denied access to the facility in 2011 and 2012, told news.com.au that it was deeply concerned by reports of inmate treatment and unconvinced that significant changes have been made.

The organisation said it was particularly concerned about the impact of long-term solitary confinement and inmates being denied medication.

“Even though the Federal Bureau of Prisons has a policy of not placing individuals with serious psychiatric illnesses in ADX, they continue to place people in near complete isolation at that facility who suffer from mental health issues such as bipolar affective disorder, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and schizophrenia,” researcher Justin Mazzola said.

He said they do so “despite studies showing that isolation has been found to be particularly harmful for those who already suffer from mental illness”.

Mr Mazzola said ADX is pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable punishment both in America and elsewhere.

“As Amnesty International has previously documented, the isolation of individuals with mental illness at ADX Florence, as well as practices such as withholding medication and strapping prisoners to beds, may not only violate international standards on the treatment of prisoners, but may also constitute ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ in contravention to the 8th Amendment of the US Constitution.”

HOME TO THE WORST OF THE WORST

Locked away inside ADX Florence are prisoners serving multiple life sentences. Robert Hood, a warden at the prison between 2002 and 2005 told the Times there is very little consideration given to reforming their behaviour.

“Let’s be candid here. It’s not designed for rehabilitation,” he said.

Among the prisoners in the 3.6m by 2.1m cells are men considered to be a genuine threat to the United States of America.

“Dr Death” is one of them. His real name is Michael Swango and he is believed to have used his position as a doctor both during his time in residency at Ohio State University and later when practising to poison as many as 60 people.

Now 60, Swango was found after the death of one of his patients in the corridor “with a goofy look on his face”.

The murders began in 1983 and spanned 15 years and his victims were believed to have been chosen at random.

Down the hall is Ted Kaczynski, also known as “The Unabomber”, a genius who was accepted into Harvard University at the age of 16.

Kaczynski, now 72, used his intelligence for evil when, over a period of 17 years, he mail bombed targets including American universities and airlines and left three people dead.

Zacarias Moussaoui, 46, is also locked up in Florence for his role in conspiring to murder innocent people on September 11, 2001.

The French citizen was arrested in August of that year, a month before the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre and was believed to have been planning to hijack a plane that day.

Another of America’s enemies, Terry Nichols, resides at ADX.

Nichols, 59, helped build the bomb responsible for the deaths of 168 people and drove the getaway car for Timothy McVeigh, who was also held at the supermax in Colorado before being executed in 2001.

Nichols is serving 161 consecutive life sentences.

‘THIS PLACE IS TOO FAR FROM ANYONE’S FAMILY’

Nichols and 500 other inmates won’t be unlocked any time soon. Nor should they expect visitors.

In a letter to Solitary Watch, a website advocating on behalf of prisoners in solitary confinement, an inmate summed up the despair not only about conditions inside the prison, but about its isolated location.

“We’re poor folk,” he wrote

“Coming to visit is too expensive. This place is too far from anyone’s family.”