Within the hour, the 727 was taxiing to the other side of the airport where the Bureau of Prisons transfer facility is located. Equipped with a jetway, the facility houses incoming prisoners and those on their way to trials, hospitals or other prisons. When airlines and members of Congress balked at the risk, the idea of a federal airline for prisoners began to take shape. The prisoners, too, come from different walks of life. After a quick stop in northern Utah to drop off five prisoners and pick up 27 more, the plane headed for California one passenger shy of its 123-convict capacity.
Flights hopscotch from city to city, sometimes touching down in six states in a single loop.
But I love this job. In California, the officers dropped off most of their passengers, who were destined for a new federal prison in Victorville. They were replaced by 74 new convicts, including 11 Cuban convicts in INS custody. The Cubans had arrived during the Mariel boat lift of 1980, when the Communist government commingled prisoners and psychiatric patients with 125,000 islanders permitted to flee for the United States. As changes in immigration law and aggressive enforcement have caused the number of INS detainees to soar, the service has relied increasingly on air movements.