FMC Butner is located near the Research Triangle area of Durham, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill.[5]
Facility and programs
FMC Butner has a full hospital facility specializing in oncology and behavioral science. Many medical and surgical specialties hold clinics and perform procedures at the FMC. It has the only residential program devoted to the treatment of individuals convicted of sexual offenses in the federal prison system.
In 2009 Philip Fornaci, the director of the DC Prisoners' Project, stated that FMC Butner, along with FMC Carswell and FMC Rochester, "are clearly the 'gold standard' in terms of what BOP facilities can achieve in providing medical care" and that they had provided "excellent medical care, sometimes for extremely complex medical needs."[6] However, in 2021, the Bureau of Prison's accreditation from the Joint Commission lapsed, raising concerns of a decline in the quality of medical care.[7]
A 2023 NPR investigation found that from 2009-2020, roughly a quarter of all deaths in federal prisons occurred at the Butner Federal Correctional Complex.[7] Due to bureaucratic delays in diagnoses and referrals, prisoners often arrive at FMC Butner with terminal conditions, only eligible for palliative care and compassionate release, despite the 1976 US Supreme Court case Estelle v. Gamble guaranteeing prisoners Eighth Amendment rights against deliberate indifference to their medical needs.[8] Furthermore, vacancies in over 20% of nurse and paramedic positions at FMC Butner were linked to staff shortages and burnout.[7]
Butner study
In 2009, a study conducted by psychologists Michael Bourke and Andres Hernandez was published in the Journal of Family Violence. The results suggested a strong link between viewing child pornography and sexual abuse. The findings went against the conventional and widely held belief that a person passively viewing child pornography had an insignificant causal link with that person actually molesting a child.[9]
In what is known as the "Butner Study," Bourke and Hernandez analyzed data on 155 men convicted of child pornography offenses, who took part in an 18-month treatment program between 2002 and 2005, during which the men filled out assessment measures including a "victims list," where they revealed the number of children they had molested in the past.
74% of the men denied molesting anyone when they were sentenced. However, by the end of treatment, 85% had admitted to sexually molesting a child at least once. The numbers are more than twice that of other studies. In explaining this discrepancy, Bourke said, "Our treatment team worked for an average of 18 months with each offender, and the environment was one of genuine therapeutic trust" that encouraged the men to tell the truth about themselves.[10]
A critique of the study is that the use of a population of participants in the most intensive sex offender treatment program offered in the federal prison system skewed the sample. Offenders had to have received at least a thirty-six-month sentence to be eligible for the program. Melissa Hamilton argues, "These offenders may well, then, have represented particularly dangerous offenders who were a high risk to children since they had been prosecuted, convicted, given more than minimal prison sentences, and accepted into the limited-space program because of a perceived need by themselves and program clinicians for a lengthy and intensive residential program."[11]
Currently serving a federal prison sentence for robbery.
Pled guilty on January 15, 2020, to two charges of second degree murder and two charges of concealment of death and was sentenced to 26 to 32 years for each murder, to be served consecutively after he completes his sentence in federal prison for robbery in 2037.
Member of the United Freedom Front, a Marxist group which carried out bank robberies and bombings at corporate buildings, courthouses and military facilities in the 1970s and 1980s; convicted of the 1981 murder of NJ State Trooper Philip Lomonaco.[27]
Pleaded guilty to murdering Federal Correctional Officer Jose Rivera at the United States Penitentiary, Atwater on June 20, 2008; accomplice Jose Cabrera-Sablan also pleaded guilty and is serving a life sentence.[30]
Died at FMC Butner in April 2021, while serving a 150-year sentence.
Securities fraud, investment advisor fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, false statements, perjury, making false filings with the SEC, theft from an employee benefit plan
Died, reportedly by suicide, at FMC Butner in June 2023, while serving 8 life sentences.[35]
Known as the Unabomber; pleaded guilty in 1998 to building, transporting, and mailing explosives to carry out 16 bombings from 1978 to 1995 in a mail bombing campaign targeting those involved with modern technology, which killed 3 people and injured 23 others.[36][37][38]
^"2020 CENSUS - CENSUS BLOCK MAP: Durham County, NC"(PDF). U.S. Census Bureau. p. 6 (PDF p. 7/19). Retrieved 2024-07-18. Butner Federal Correctional Complex - Cross-check the map with the exact prison location (the map directly specifies the whole complex but not where the exact FMC Butner facility is).