Federal authorities this week announced they will close FCI Terminal Island prison in the Port of Los Angeles, citing the building’s deteriorating underground tunnels.
Officials from the Federal Bureau of Prisons said in a statement that the building has a longstanding backlog of maintenance issues.
A 2022 report by the Office of the Inspector General, as well as a study by an outside firm two years later, found the facility needs more than $110 million in “critical repair needs” over the next 20 years.
“A recent discovery of a critical life-safety issue, involving the support of the steam system used for heating the institution, has prompted immediate action,” a spokesperson said Wednesday.
This comes after a memo obtained by the Associated Press quoted Director William K. Marshall III in an address to the agency saying that it would suspend operations at the prison over fears that its crumbling underground tunnels would damage the steam heating system underneath.
Past reporting by the news wire service has found the federal prison system to be facing a $3 billion repair backlog, hiring freeze and other prison closures following reports of staff-on-inmate sexual abuse.
This decision “is not easy, but is absolutely necessary,” Marshall reportedly wrote, adding it was a matter of “safety, common sense, and doing what is right for the people who work and live inside that institution.”
It’s unclear when the facility will be shuttered. Inmates will be relocated to other federal prisons with priority on keeping them “as close as possible to their anticipated release locations.”
“We take seriously our responsibility to safeguard the inmates in our care, our staff, and the broader community,” a spokesperson said.
In a statement Tuesday, Congresswoman Nanette Barragán, who represents parts of Long Beach and San Pedro, urged prison officials to relocate prisoners close to their families and attorneys.
“No one should be held in or work in unsafe conditions, and Terminal Island’s aging infrastructure has been neglected for too long,” she wrote.
She also said that “under no circumstances” should the prison be considered for use as an ICE detention facility, likely in response to reports over the summer that immigration agents used the site as a staging area.
A Federal Bureau of Prisons spokesperson declined to discuss any plans for the prison’s future.
“Once we have assessed the situation further and ensured the safety of all those involved, we will determine the next steps for FCI Terminal Island,” the spokesperson said.
Since its opening in 1938, FCI Terminal Island has been used as a low-security prison on the harbor front. In its tenure, the facility has held notorious mobsters and murderers like Al Capone, Salvatore “Bill” Bonanno and Charles Manson.
Built to handle a rated capacity of 779 people, the facility houses more than 950 inmates, including fraudulent crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried as well as Michael Avenatti, a celebrity attorney convicted of stealing millions of dollars from his former clients.