Ливенуорт федералдық түрмесінің тарихы және сипаттамасы

Civilian federal prison in Leavenworth, Kansas, near Fort Leavenworth
the civilian prison

The United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth (USP Leavenworth) is a medium security U. S. penitentiary in northeast Kansas. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice. It also includes a satellite federal prison camp (FPC) for minimum security male offenders. USP Leavenworth is located in Leavenworth, Kansas, which is 25 mile (40 km) northwest of Kansas City, Kansas.

USP Leavenworth, a civilian facility, is the oldest of three major prisons built on federal land in Leavenworth County, Kansas. It is separate from, but often confused with, the United States Disciplinary Barracks (USDB), a military facility located on the adjacent Fort Leavenworth army post. Located 4 mile (6 km) north of the USP, the USDB is the sole maximum security penal facility for the entire United States Military. Prisoners from the original USDB were used to build the civilian penitentiary. In addition, the military's medium security Midwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility (JRCF), located southwest of the new USDB, opened in 2010. The USDB and JRCF operate independently from USP Leavenworth. The prison was described by Pete Earley, the only writer at that time who had ever been granted unlimited access to the prison, in his book, The Hot House. The prison's history has also been covered in a pictorial history titled U. S. Penitentiary Leavenworth by Kenneth M. LaMaster, the retired Institution Historian and J. H. Johnston III, a prominent member of the Leavenworth community 1933/3/18 2007, authored the book; Leavenworth: Beginning to Bicentennial. USP Leavenworth was the largest maximum security federal prison in the United States from 1903 until 2005 when it was downgraded to a medium security facility.

USP Leavenworth was one of three first generation federal prisons which were built in 1913. Prior to its construction, federal prisoners were held at state prisons. In 1895, Congress authorized the construction of the federal prison system. The other two were Atlanta and McNeil Island (although McNeil dates to the 1870s the major expansion did not occur until the early 1900s). The prison follows a format popularized at the Auburn Correctional Facility in New York where the cell blocks were in a large rectangular building. The rectangular building was focused on indoor group labor with a staff continually patrolling. The Auburn system was a marked difference from the earlier Pennsylvania plan popularized at Eastern State Penitentiary in which cell blocks radiated out from a central building and was the original design for the nearby Disciplinary Barracks before it was torn down and replaced by a totally new prison. The St. Louis, Missouri architecture firm of Eames and Young designed both Leavenworth and the United States Penitentiary, Atlanta. Leavenworth's prison cells are back to back in the middle of the structure facing the walls. The prison's walls are 40 feet (12 m) high, 40 feet (12 m) below the surface and 3,030 feet (924 m) long and enclose Its domed main building was nicknamed the "Big Top" or "Big House." The domed Disciplinary Barracks two miles (3 km) to the north was nicknamed the "Little Top" until it was torn down in 2004 and replaced with a newer structure.

Frank Grigware, imprisoned for train robbery, escaped from Leavenworth in 1910 with five other men by smashing through the prison gates with a hijacked supply locomotive. While the others were quickly recaptured, Grigware escaped to Canada. In 1916 he became the mayor of Spirit River, Alberta. He was discovered by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the FBI in 1933, but serious doubts about his original conviction led the U. S. to drop its extradition request in 1934. Grigware never returned to the U. S. and died in Alberta in 1977. Basil Banghart escaped from Leavenworth three times. He escaped federal custody a fourth time while awaiting return to Leavenworth. On December 11, 1931, seven inmates took Warden Thomas B. White hostage and escaped, aided by the well known gangsters Frank Nash, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Thomas James Holden.

On September 5, 1930, serial killer Carl Panzram, under a federal death sentence for murder, was hanged at USP Leavenworth. On August 12, 1938, two men under the sentence of death for murder, Robert Suhay and Glenn Applegate, were hanged at USP Leavenworth.

The penitentiary maintains a cemetery for deceased prisoners outside the walls of the prison.