Most secure form of prison

For the most dangerous of criminals highly secure prisons have been developed in the USA and elsewhere called supermax prisons. They have the most extreme security procedures and systems. Typically, prisoners stay in their cells, alone, for 23 hours a day with few opportunities for education or relaxation. Meals are passed through a slot in the door and, if they exercise, it is alone in a confined area. Contact with staff, other prisoners or the outside world is heavily censored and minimal. Furniture is made of metal or concrete. Inmates wear handcuffs, belly chains and leg shackles when moved out of their cells and automatic doors and a series of electronic sensors and laser beams, pressure pads and dogs control and guard the whole facility. No one has yet escaped from a supermax, and the USA now holds some 25,000 prisoners in such facilities. Opened in November 1994.

Several prisons house supermax units in a number of states and the United States Penitentiary, Administrative Maximum Facility (ADX) located in Florence, Colorado, is the only federal supermax prison for male inmates. It houses international terrorists such as Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, and domestic terrorists like Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber, as well as violent criminals not easily controlled by normal methods.