Nestled into a valley some fifty miles from where we are staying, with the magnificent Rocky Mountains rising up on the horizon, sits the US Penitentiary, Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colorado – a federal supermax prison for male inmates! It is nicknamed the “Alcatraz of the Rockies!”

The prison has four separate units each with its own security classification, the supermax being the highest. Over 400 occupants are housed in the supermax facility who are deemed to be too dangerous, too high-profile or too great a national security risk for even a maximum-security prison.

Inmates are confined in specially designed single-person cells for 23 hours a day. Their one-hour time out of their cell, for showering or exercise, may occur at any time of the day or night and they are moved between places under restraint – handcuffed, shackled or both. The exercise location is a concrete pit resembling an empty swimming pool designed to prevent those using it from knowing their location in the facility.

Each cell has a concrete desk, stool and bed, plus a toilet, a shower and a sink lacking a potentially dangerous tap. Rooms may also be fitted with an electric light that can be shut off only remotely, a radio, and on rare occasions, a black-and-white television that shows recreational, educational, and religious programming. In addition, all cells are soundproofed to prevent prisoners from communicating with each other.

Cell windows are four inches high by four feet wide and are designed to prevent inmates from knowing their specific location within the complex because they can see only the sky and roof through them, making it virtually impossible to plan an escape.

Officers in the prison’s control centre monitor inmates 24 hours-a-day and can activate a “panic button” that instantly closes every door in the facility should an escape attempt be suspected.

Pressure pads and 12-foot-tall razor wire fences surround the perimeter, which is patrolled by heavily armed officers with attack dogs. Mike and I were somewhat nervous at stopping the car to take a couple of pics of the facility from the roadside!