Robert Hood, who served as warden at ADX Florence from 2002 to 2005, described the federal supermax prison as an environment that exceeds the harshness of a life sentence, calling it “worse than the death penalty.” Located deep in the Colorado Rockies and often referred to as the “Alcatraz of the Rockies,” ADX Florence houses approximately 400 inmates under near-constant isolation, confined to their cells for 23 hours a day. The facility is heavily secured with 12 gun towers and frequent armed patrols.
Designed in 1994 to contain the most dangerous federal prisoners, ADX Florence’s restrictive conditions are intended to prevent frequent interaction with the outside world or even other inmates, a feature Hood described as deliberately obscuring the natural surroundings. The prison population includes high-profile criminals such as Zacarias Moussaoui, convicted for his role in the September 11 attacks, Richard Reid, the so-called “shoe bomber,” Ramzi Yousef, who masterminded the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the Mexican drug lord. Other notorious detainees have included Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, who reportedly spent two decades exercising by running in a confined 7-by-12-foot cell.
Former inmate Justin Levasseur, who was released in 2004, described the psychological toll of the extreme isolation and minimalist environment, which consisted of a concrete cell with a cement desk, chair, toilet, sink, and shower. Communication with others was virtually impossible, forcing inmates to resort to shouting through plumbing drains or doors. Levasseur said time outside the cell was often cancelled by guards, and the only human contact came from being chained and unchained by officers.
Eric King, another former inmate released in 2023, recounted witnessing inmates like Moussaoui exhibiting signs of severe mental deterioration. King, imprisoned for actions linked to protests in Ferguson, Missouri, said many prisoners suffered intense psychological distress, including relentless screaming and months-long cell confinement. He emphasized the importance of mental resilience to withstand such conditions, describing ADX Florence as “a clean hell” in his memoir.
The detrimental psychological impact of solitary confinement has been extensively studied by experts such as Terry Kupers, a psychiatrist and professor emeritus at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, California. Kupers noted that isolation can induce insomnia, anxiety, paranoia, self-harm, and exacerbate existing mental health issues. He highlighted that while only 3 to 7 percent of prisoners in state prisons are held in solitary confinement, this group accounts for about 60 percent of inmate suicides, either during or shortly after their isolation period. ADX Florence has seen several suicides among its inmates.
The U.S. Department of Justice defends the use of ADX Florence, stating the prison’s occupants present extreme security risks that justify such confinement. The department emphasized that incarceration conditions align with the severity of the inmates’ crimes. Following President Joe Biden’s commutation of most federal death row sentences at the end of his term, former President Donald Trump attempted to transfer some of those inmates to ADX Florence, but a judge halted several transfers.
Despite his experience with some of America’s most violent offenders, Hood expressed reservations about ADX Florence’s regime. While acknowledging the necessity of imprisoning dangerous individuals, he questioned whether the extreme isolation for 23 hours daily was justified, suggesting that the conditions might be unnecessarily severe.