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View from the Inside

By Ashley Wiehle, the southern

Thursday, January 11, 2007 7:10 AM CST

The legacy inside the stone walls of Marion's federal penitentiary has been confined to decades of whispers and innuendo about the institution that was once heralded as the new Alcatraz.

It was the country's first "supermax" facility, a stronghold in the heart of Southern Illinois. It housed the most brutal, violent criminals in the nation as well as the scene of some of the most brilliant escape attempts.

It housed its celebrities as well, among them Mafioso John Gotti and baseball great Pete Rose. The prison itself has merited appearances and references in popular movies and television.

Decades of secrets have swirled through its hallways: And now, area residents are invited to tour those same passageways.

The U.S. Penitentiary in Marion will open its doors Friday and Saturday to public tours, an opportunity made available because inmates are not being currently housed at the prison.

Recent changes to the Marion penitentiary downgraded the prison's status to a medium-security facility; supermax-security inmates have been transferred to a Colorado supermax penitentiary.

Prison employees have been doubling as construction workers as the facility prepares for the 900-plus inmates who will come into the facility in mid-February.

Changes in procedure from a supermax to medium-security prison are widespread, said Thomas Werlich, prison public information officer.

Inmates in a supermax facility spent 23 hours a day in their small, one-person cells, Werlich said. Supermax inmates were free to move when accompanied by a guard assigned to each prisoner.

A medium-security prison will allow for free movement by the prisoners throughout the day.

"They will be out of their cells from virtually 6 in the morning to 10 at night," Werlich said.

A majority - about 47 percent - of medium-security inmates are serving time on drug offenses. Weapons, explosives and arson offenders make up 21 percent; immigration offenders, 12 percent.

"You're not going to have the issues that you do with supermax inmates," Werlich said.

Werlich predicts a popular tour spot will be the infamous control room, at one time the most restrictive room in the entirety of the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

It was in here that two prison guards were murdered by inmates in a highly publicized incident in October 1983. Werlich described the room as "its own prison."

The prison system revamped its Marion operation after the death of the guards, Werlich said, creating a different procedure for handling dangerous inmates.

Procedures for medium-security inmates could not be more different than those for dealing with supermax-security inmates, who could not have face-to-face contact even with their attorneys without Plexiglas separators.

Even something as personal as religious worship will change significantly. Prisoners in recent years have had personal visits from clergy or watched religious programming on small television sets in their cells.

Medium-security prisoners, however, will be able to worship in the prison's stained-glass chapel, a sunny facility that has sat unused for decades because security wouldn't allow prisoners to remain unfettered in even a holy place.

"It is beautiful," Werlich said, looking at the stained-glass columns. "We'll finally be able to blow the dust off."

ashley.wiehle@thesouthern.com

(618) 997-3356 ext. 5807