Satellite camp at Oxford prison on list of federal facilities marked for closure

A satellite camp near the Oxford prison in south central Wisconsin is on a list of federal corrections facilities slated for closure.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons announced last week that it would permanently close a federal prison in Dublin, California and “deactivate” six prison camps.

A bureau news release cited a “critical staffing shortage, crumbling infrastructure, and limited budgetary resources.”

Among the facilities listed for deactivation is Wisconsin’s minimum security Oxford prison camp, which is located near a low-security prison know as the Oxford Federal Correctional Institution.

More than 1,000 men are incarcerated at the FCI Oxford prison and, unlike its satellite camp, the prison itself is not marked for shutdown.

The federal prison system has four security levels — minimum, low, medium and high. Minimum security institutions, often referred to as federal prison camps, are the least strict with “dormitory housing, a relatively low staff-to-inmate ratio, and limited or no perimeter fencing,” according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons

The people incarcerated at those camps often supply labor to a nearby prison or to off-site work programs, according to the bureau.

The bureau’s notice to union representatives says no jobs at Oxford have been eliminated as a result of the prison camp’s deactivation.

And the announcement is not expected to have any immediate effect at Oxford, because the prison camp was already cleared, according to the Bureau of Prisons. About 85 men were incarcerated at the Oxford satellite camp before it was cleared out.

The prison camp was cleared out in June of 2023, but bureau’s announcement makes the closure official, said Russ Kaminsky, who leads AFGE Local 3495.

Men incarcerated at the Oxford camp were sent to other institutions, while workers at the Oxford satellite camp have been transferred to the main Oxford prison “to maximize existing resources,” a Bureau of Prisons spokesperson wrote in response to emailed questions from WPR.

Last year, federal officials announced the reclassification of FCI Oxford prison from medium to low security. The move was intended to “alleviate the Bureau’s growing need for low security beds” and to comply with the federal law known as the First Step Act. Among other changes, the First Step Act aims to reduce recidivism by housing prisoners no more than 500 miles away from their hometowns.

In April of 2022, a man escaped from the Oxford satellite prison camp while serving time for bank fraud and identity theft. He was eventually arrested for retail theft in California nearly six months after he escaped.

In a news release, federal officials promised to “make every effort” to transport people incarcerated at the affected prisons to facilities within 500 miles of their planned release locations.

And the Federal Bureau of Prisons emphasized that it’s not trying to shrink its footprint.

“The FBOP is not downsizing and we are committed to finding positions for every employee who wants to remain with the agency,” the release said. “The movement of these employees will positively impact our staffing levels at several institutions and mitigate mandatory overtime and augmentation which will help alleviate the exhaustion our employees feel.”

But in a statement this week, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees National wrote that the planned closure of seven federal prisons “jeopardizes the continued employment of 400 federal employees just weeks before the holidays.”

“While the agency says it will attempt to place employees in other jobs, the reality is that most Bureau of Prisons facilities are in isolated locations far from each other, so many if not most employees affected will face disruptive relocations to remain employed,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said. “The closure of these facilities and likely loss of so many skilled and dedicated workers will exacerbate the existing staffing crisis within the Bureau of Prisons, making our prisons less safe for staff, inmates, and the surrounding communities.”

The bureau’s announcement that the prison in Dublin, California will close permanently comes after the Associated Press reported on widespread sexual abuse by corrections officers against women incarcerated at Dublin FCI.