page_title: Federal Bureau of Prisons
section_title: Types of federal prisons
hierarchical_section_title: Federal Bureau of Prisons / Types of federal prisons
caption_attribution_description: English: The entrance to the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners Español: La entrada del Centro Medico de Presos Federales de los Estados Unidos
context_page_description: The Federal Bureau of Prisons is a United States federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Justice responsible for the care, custody, and control of incarcerated individuals.
context_section_description: The Bureau has five security levels:
  Federal Prison Camps (FPCs), the BOP minimum-security facilities, feature a lack of or a limited amount of perimeter fencing, and a relatively low staff-to-inmate ratio.
  Low-security Federal Correctional Institutions (FCIs) have double-fenced perimeters, and inmates live in mostly cubicle or dormitory housing.
  Medium-security FCIs and some United States Penitentiaries (USPs) are classified to hold medium-security inmates. The medium facilities have strengthened perimeters, which often consist of double fences with electronic detection systems. Medium-security facilities mostly have cell housing.
  Most U.S. Penitentiaries are classified as high-security facilities. The perimeters, highly secured, often have reinforced fences or walls.
  Federal Correctional Complexes (FCCs) are co-locations of BOP facilities with different security levels and/or genders.
  Administrative Security Facilities are prisons with special missions and capabilities. An example would be Federal Medical Centers which house sick and injured inmates getting medical care which is beyond the capabilities of a normal institution.
  Some units have small, adjacent, minimum-security "satellite camps". Twenty-eight institutions hold female inmates. As of 2010 about 15% of Bureau inmates are in facilities operated by third parties, mostly private companies, whilst others are in local and state facilities. Some are in privately operated Residential Reentry Centers (RRC) (or Community Corrections Centers). The Bureau uses contract facilities to manage its own prison population because they are "especially useful" for housing low-security, specialized groups of people, such as sentenced criminal aliens.
caption: The United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners, a unit for male prisoners requiring medical care.
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