El Chapo Prison: He escaped twice in Mexico, but the ADX in Colorado is different

Deanna Paul

Reporter covering national and last-minute news

February 14 at 5:58

There is a supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, two hours from Denver. It is the most secure penitentiary in the United States. Since it opened in 1994, no prisoner has escaped from the maximum administrative prison – known as "the ADX" – one of the reasons why former members Federal forces are waiting for Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, a drug cartel in Sinaloa, to spend the rest of his life there. .

"In order for him to escape, he should have a guard in his pocket," said a retired federal corrections officer, who spoke to the Washington Post in the guise of the "death penalty". anonymity. "It's a very controlled environment. Nobody moves there without permission. There are not two inmates who move into the facility at the same time.

The retired officer badigned to ADX described the entire penitentiary as a special housing unit. The special housing unit (or "l & # 39; USD") is solitary confinement. The ADX prison officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Guzmán would be in rare company at the ADX, joining 400 inmates and a list of convicted criminals: Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber; Terry Nichols, co-conspirator in the Oklahoma City bombing; Robert Hanssen, the double traitor agent; and Zacarias Moussaoui, an active member of Al Qaeda and a conspirator of 11 September.

Duncan Levin, a former federal prosecutor, described the penitentiary as a secure housing unit for "the world's most dangerous and notorious criminals".

[Drug lord Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán found guilty on all counts in federal trial]

For many ADX visitors, the most memorable part of the penitentiary is the strange silence that envelops the corridors.

"I do not think I saw another detainee during my stay," said former federal prosecutor Allan Kaiser, about his visit to his client, Sal Magluta, convicted of leading an important anti-drug organization in South Florida and sentenced to 200 years. "It was immaculately spartan: the floors were shining, the walls were clean, the hallways were empty. There was no one around, no sound. "

ADX inmates are locked in small, bathroom-sized dressing rooms 23 hours a day, according to Deborah Golden, a senior counsel at the Center for Human Rights, who has visited ADX several times. Each austere cell is adorned with a bed (a concrete slab covered with a thin foam mattress) and a device "toilet, sink and drinking water combined three in one". Some inmates may be lucky with a single slot in the door. shows a burst of the corridor.

Golden explained that there are two types of prisoners serving time in the ADX: The vast majority of inmates have been transferred to the ADX for reasons of discipline or management. Fewer were sent directly based on their belief or background.

Golden said that Guzmán (who had escaped from two maximum-security Mexican prisons – in 2001 with the help of prison guards and in 2015 through a tunnel in the shower in his prison cell) would be a "Direct hit".

Aerial view of the federal penitentiary complex in Florence, Colorado. On the bottom left is the minimum security prison camp, the US high security penitentiary, the maximum security penitentiary, and the federal penitentiary. (Kevin Kreck / AP)

According to Golden, the super-maximum administrative program offers a completely different, more isolated approach. With 400 inmates, the ADX also has the highest ratio between custody, allowing for increased and personalized inmate attention.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the country became increasingly concerned about violent crime. The "superpredator" stereotype occupied a prominent place in the minds of the public: criminals without conscience who lacked empathy and were so imprudent that they killed, stole and raped by impulse. The administration of President Bill Clinton has adopted a reprehensible crime policy, but many of its policies and programs, including security prisons with maximum administrative security, are still being enforced.

At a press conference in 2017, US District Attorney General Robert Capers of New York states that the US government had badured Mexico that he would not seek the death penalty if Guzmán were extradited, standard procedure for extraditions between the United States and Mexico, in accordance with law enforcement.