{"id":404746,"date":"2025-11-26T00:20:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T00:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/404746\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T00:20:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T00:20:13","slug":"federal-bureau-of-prisons-says-falling-concrete-is-forcing-it-to-close-a-prison-near-los-angeles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/404746\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal Bureau of Prisons says falling concrete is forcing it to close a prison near Los Angeles"},"content":{"rendered":"

The federal Bureau of Prisons is closing a California<\/a> lockup that was once home to Al Capone and Charles Manson over concerns about crumbling infrastructure, including falling concrete that threatens to knock out the facility\u2019s heating system, according to an internal memo obtained by the Associated Press.<\/p>\n

Director William K. Marshall III told staff on Tuesday that the agency is suspending operations at the Federal Correctional Institution, Terminal Island, a low-security prison south of Los Angeles<\/a>. It currently houses nearly 1,000 inmates, including cryptocurrency fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried and disgraced celebrity lawyer Michael Avenatti.<\/p>\n

The decision to close the facility, at least temporarily, \u201cis not easy, but is absolutely necessary,\u201d Marshall wrote, calling it a matter of \u201csafety, common sense, and doing what is right for the people who work and live inside that institution.\u201d<\/p>\n

FCI Terminal Island, opened in 1938, is the latest Bureau of Prisons facility to be targeted for closure as the beleaguered agency<\/a> struggles with mounting staff vacancies, a $3 billion repair backlog<\/a> and an expanded mission to support President Donald Trump\u2019s immigration crackdown by taking in thousands of detainees.<\/p>\n

Marshall cited problems with underground tunnels containing the facility\u2019s steam heating system. Ceilings in the tunnels have begun to deteriorate, causing chunks of concrete to fall and putting employees and the heating system at risk, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not going to wait for a crisis,\u201d Marshall told employees. \u201cWe are not going to gamble with lives. And we are not going to expect people to work or live in conditions that we would never accept for ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bureau of Prisons spokesperson Randilee Giamusso, responding to the AP\u2019s questions about FCI Terminal Island, confirmed that the agency is taking \u201cimmediate action\u201d to \u201csafeguard staff and inmates.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inmates at the facility will be moved to other federal prisons \u201cwith a priority on keeping individuals as close as possible to their anticipated release locations,\u201d Giamusso said. In his memo to staff, Marshall indicated that the process could take several weeks.<\/p>\n

The facility\u2019s future will be decided once the Bureau of Prisons has \u201cassessed the situation further and ensured the safety of all those involved,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The Bureau of Prisons has long been bedeviled by FCI Terminal Island\u2019s aging infrastructure, Giamusso said. In April 2024, an architectural and engineering firm contracted by the agency identified more than $110 million in critical repairs needed over the next 20 years.<\/p>\n

The closure echoes that of the agency\u2019s federal jail in Manhattan<\/a> in 2021.<\/p>\n

The Bureau of Prisons, the Justice Department’s largest employer, has more than 30,000 workers, 122 facilities, about 155,000 inmates and an annual budget that exceeds $8.5 billion. But the agency\u2019s footprint has shrunk over the last year as it wrestles with financial constraints, chronic understaffing and changing priorities.<\/p>\n

An Associated Press investigation<\/a> has uncovered deep, previously unreported flaws within the Bureau of Prisons, including rampant sexual abuse<\/a>, widespread criminal activity by employees<\/a>, dozens of escapes<\/a> and the free flow of guns, drugs and other contraband.<\/p>\n

In December 2024, in a cost-cutting move, the agency announced it was idling six prison camps<\/a> and permanently closing a women\u2019s prison in Dublin, California, that was known as the \u201crape club\u201d because of rampant sexual abuse by the warden and other employees.<\/p>\n

In February, an agency official told Congress that 4,000 beds meant for inmates at various facilities were unusable because of dangerous conditions like leaking or failing roofs, mold, asbestos or lead.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the agency is building a new prison in Kentucky and, at Trump\u2019s direction, exploring the possibility of reopening Alcatraz, the notorious penitentiary<\/a> in San Francisco Bay that last held inmates more than 60 years ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Marshall, his top deputy and Attorney General Pam Bondi visited in July, but four months later, Alcatraz remains a tourist attraction and a relic of a bygone era in corrections.<\/p>\n

In addition to failing facilities, the Bureau of Prisons has been plagued for years by severe staffing shortages that have led to long overtime shifts and the use of prison nurses, teachers, cooks and other workers to guard inmates.<\/p>\n

That problem has only worsened in recent months, in part because of a hiring freeze and recruiting by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has lured correctional officers away with promises of signing bonuses of up to $50,000.<\/p>\n

In September, Marshall said the Bureau of Prisons was canceling its collective bargaining agreement with workers. He said their union had become \u201can obstacle to progress instead of a partner in it.\u201d The union, the Council of Prison Locals, is suing to block the move, calling it \u201carbitrary and capricious.\u201d<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The federal Bureau of Prisons is closing a California lockup that was once home to Al Capone and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":404747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,69,2961,224,5337,11335,61,93,135296],"class_list":{"0":"post-404746","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-la","12":"tag-los-angeles","13":"tag-losangeles","14":"tag-pam-bondi","15":"tag-u-s-news","16":"tag-washington-news","17":"tag-william-k-marshall-iii"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115613140705567742","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}