Federal Medical Center, Butner
{{Short description|United States federal prison}}
{{Infobox prison
| prison_name = Federal Medical Center, Butner
| image = FMC Butner.jpg
| location = Durham County, North Carolina
| coordinates = {{Coord|36.13753|-78.81368|type:landmark_region:US-NC|display=inline,title}}
| status = Operational
| classification = All security levels (with adjacent camp for minimum-security inmates)
| population = 775 (June 2023)
| opened = 1995
| closed =
| managed_by = Federal Bureau of Prisons
| warden =
}}
The Federal Medical Center, Butner (FMC Butner), is a United States federal prison opened in 1995{{cite web | url=https://prisonpath.com/federal/north-carolina/federal-correctional-institution-fci-butner-medium/ | title=Federal Correctional Complex, Butner (FCI Butner Medium I) }} in North Carolina for male inmates of all security levels who have special health needs. It is part of the Butner Federal Correctional Complex and is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice. An adjacent satellite prison camp houses minimum-security male inmates.
It is located in Mangum Township,{{cite web|url=https://www2.census.gov/geo/maps/DC2020/DC20BLK/st37_nc/cousub/cs3706391972_mangum/DC20BLK_CS3706391972.pdf|title=2020 CENSUS - CENSUS BLOCK MAP (INDEX): Mangum township, NC|publisher=U.S. Census Bureau|accessdate=2022-08-15|page=2 (PDF p. 3/3)|quote=Butner Federal Correctional Complex}} Durham County, North Carolina,{{cite web|url=https://www2.census.gov/geo/maps/DC2020/DC20BLK/st37_nc/county/c37063_durham/DC20BLK_C37063.pdf|title=2020 CENSUS - CENSUS BLOCK MAP: Durham County, NC|publisher=U.S. Census Bureau|access-date=2024-07-18|page=6 (PDF p. 7/19)|quote=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). near Butner.{{cite web|url=http://www.butnernc.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/March-1-2019.pdf|title=Official Zoning Map|publisher=Butner, North Carolina|accessdate=2021-04-15|archive-date=2020-06-23|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200623073104/http://www.butnernc.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/March-1-2019.pdf|url-status=dead}} - FMC Butner is not in the Butner city limits.
FMC Butner is located near the Research Triangle area of Durham, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill.{{cite web|url=http://www.bop.gov/locations/institutions/buh/index.jsp |title=BOP: FMC Butner |publisher=Bop.gov |access-date=2012-08-27}}
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."Fornaci, Philip (Director of the DC Prisoners' Project). "[http://judiciary.house.gov/_files/hearings/pdf/Fornaci090721.pdf Federal Bureau of Prisons Oversight Hearing] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160907070638/http://www.judiciary.house.gov/_files/hearings/pdf/Fornaci090721.pdf |date=2016-09-07 }}" ([https://web.archive.org/web/20160907070638/http://www.judiciary.house.gov/_files/hearings/pdf/Fornaci090721.pdf Archive]). Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security. U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary. July 21, 2009. Retrieved on February 5, 2016. 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.{{Cite news |last=Anderson |first=Meg |date=23 September 2023 |title=1 in 4 Inmate Deaths Happens in the Same Federal Prison. Why? |work=NPR |url=https://www.npr.org/2023/09/23/1200626103/federal-prison-deaths-butner-medical-center-sick-inmates |access-date=23 September 2023}}
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. 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.{{Cite journal |last1=Alsan |first1=Marcella |last2=Yang |first2=Crystal S. |last3=Jolin |first3=James R. |last4=Tu |first4=Lucy |last5=Rich |first5=Josiah D. |date=2 March 2023 |title=Health Care in U.S. Correctional Facilities — A Limited and Threatened Constitutional Right |journal=The New England Journal of Medicine |volume=388 |issue=9 |pages=847–852 |doi=10.1056/NEJMms2211252|doi-access=free |pmid=36856624 }} Furthermore, vacancies in over 20% of nurse and paramedic positions at FMC Butner were linked to staff shortages and burnout.
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.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/us/19sex.html?pagewanted=all|title=Debate on Child Pornography's Link to Molesting|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=2012-08-27|first1=Julian|last1=Sher|first2=Benedict|last2=Carey|date=2007-07-19}}
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.{{cite web|url=http://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/12/child-abuse.aspx |title=Porn use and child abuse |publisher=Apa.org |date=2007-07-19 |access-date=2012-08-27}}
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."{{cite journal|title=The Child Pornography Crusade and Its Net-Widening Effect|author=Hamilton, Melissa|date=April 2012|journal=Cardozo Law Review|volume=33|number=1679}}
Notable inmates
=Current=
| class="wikitable sortable" |
| width=12%|Inmate Name
!width=8%|Register Number !width=25%|Status !width=55%|Details |
|---|
| style="text-align:center;"| Russell Weston Jr.
| style="text-align:center;"| [https://archive.today/20121212091621/http://www.bop.gov/iloc2/InmateFinderServlet?Transaction=IDSearch&needingMoreList=false&IDType=IRN&IDNumber=22372-016&x=73&y=19 22372-016] | Being held indefinitely; the Bureau of Prisons lists his status as "Hospital Treatment Completed." | Responsible for the 1998 United States Capitol shooting, during which he fatally shot Detective John Gibson and Officer Jacob Chestnut of the US Capitol Police and wounded a tourist. Weston was subsequently ruled mentally incompetent to stand trial.{{cite news | url = https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9F07E5DE153BF930A3575BC0A9649C8B63&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fPeople%2fC%2fChestnut%2c%20Jacob%20J%2e | title = Judge Rules Capitol Gunman Can Be Forced to Take Medicine | publisher = Newyorktimes.com | access-date = 2008-06-11 | date=2002-08-03}} |
| style="text-align:center;"| John Russell Whitt
| style="text-align:center;"| [https://www.bop.gov/inmateloc# 19945-057] | 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. |
| style="text-align:center;"| Mohammad Shibin
| style="text-align:center;"| [http://www.bop.gov/iloc2/InmateFinderServlet?Transaction=IDSearch&needingMoreList=false&IDType=IRN&IDNumber=78207-083&x=105&y=17 78207-083] | Serving life sentence. | Somali pirate leader; convicted in 2012 of piracy, kidnapping, and hostage-taking for acting as a ransom negotiator during the hijacking of the civilian vessel Quest in 2010 and the oil tanker Miranda Marguerite in 2011; Shibin is the highest-ranking pirate ever prosecuted.{{cite news |date=3 October 2011 |title=Somali pirates face hard time in US prison |work=BBC News |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15068088}}[https://www.justice.gov/usao/vae/news/2011/05/20110525omarnr.html] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120115132107/http://www.justice.gov/usao/vae/news/2011/05/20110525omarnr.html|date=15 January 2012}} |
=Former=
See also
{{Portal|United States|Politics|Law}}
References
{{Reflist}}
{{Federal Bureau of Prisons}}
Category:Buildings and structures in Granville County, North Carolina