Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary

The Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary is a high security prison housing male inmates in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania and houses approximately 1,500 inmates. An adjacent satellite prison camp houses minimum security male offenders. The Lewisburg Penitentiary was opened in 1932. This penitentiary is one of four federal prisons in the county and ten prisons within Union County and the adjacent counties [http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/marsh/lewisburg_tour/preindustrial_lewsiburg.htm] .

Lewisburg Penitentiary has housed many infamous criminals, such as Jimmy Hoffa, John Gotti, Whitey Bulger, Leonard Peltier. [http://www.crimelibrary.com/gangsters_outlaws/mob_bosses/james_whitey_bulger/2.html] , Alger Hiss [http://homepages.nyu.edu/~th15/reinstate.html] , Robert Lee Johnson, Bayard Rustin (a non-criminal civil rights activist) [http://www.blackstripe.com/archives/blacklist/frontiers2.html] , John Wojtowicz, Henry Hill, Angelo Sepe, Paul Vario, Thomas DeSimone, Robert Thompson, Wilhelm Reich, Samuel Roth, and others.

Known for running a tight regime, Lewisburg Penitentiary had a prison riot in November 1995. Although started by only 10 prisoners, more than 20 visited the hospital that November 1, and one prisoner recorded multiple broken bones and missing teeth. Many were sentenced to the "hole" and over 400 were transferred [http://www.prisonactivist.org/pipermail/prisonact-list/1995-November/000083.html] . This incident thrust the Penitentiary into the national spotlight, where it gained much of its current notoriety.

The prison is known for it's "Mafia row," or the G Block, a maximum security wing which houses many Mafiosi.

A local non-profit group, the Lewisburg Prison Project, assists prisoners here and in the surrounding area with issues of conditions of confinement.