FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kansas — The U.S. Army is celebrating its 250th birthday this year and has been using the motto “This We'll Defend” since the Revolutionary War.
The mission of the Army is to deploy, fight and win the nation’s wars by securing ready, prompt and sustained land dominance by Army forces across the full spectrum of conflict as part of the joint force.
History has documented that not everyone follows the rules of their armies, and a fraction of American soldiers have strayed from the acceptable norms.
Army Corrections did not exist at the forming of the Continental Army in 1775. For the first 99 years of the Army, there was no centralized structure for the confinement of prisoners. Discipline in the Army was harsh, and physical punishment was designed to be public with the desired effect of deterring the offender and those observing. Army and congressional leaders expressed concerns with the uniformity of treatment in Army stockades and the little control by the Army over the treatment of Army prisoners in state prisons.
Father of the USDB
In 1870, Maj. Thomas R. Barr was serving as the Adjutant of the East, responsible for the accountability of prisoners. Army prisoners were confined in 32 penitentiaries throughout the United States. Treatment of these prisoners varied and included branding, wearing striped uniforms, regimental shackling and beatings. Barr attended the first conference of the American Correctional Association, formerly the National Prison Association, in Cincinnati, Ohio, with wardens, superintendents, reformatory board members and general philanthropists. Barr called attention to the treatment of military prisoners to the Secretary of War, who formed a delegation to investigate. The delegation inspected military prisoner locations and visited the British Military Confinement Facility in Canada. Barr’s staff study concluded that a separate military prison was needed to ensure humane treatment of military prisoners. At the time of his retirement in 1901 he was a brigadier general and the Army judge advocate general. Barr is considered by Army corrections as the “Father of the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks.”
Establishment of USMP/USDB
On May 21, 1874, Congress approved the establishment of the United States Military Prison at Fort Leavenworth. From 1875-1895, the USMP housed military prisoners from across the Army. With the passing of the Three Prisons Act of 1891, the Federal Prison System was established with the first three federal penitentiaries in Atlanta, Georgia; McNeil Island, Washington; and Fort Leavenworth. The Army annexed part of the southern boundary of Fort Leavenworth for the construction of the first United States Penitentiary. From 1895-1906, the Federal Prison System operated the old USMP on Fort Leavenworth and marched both federal prisoners and Army prisoners four miles daily to build the USP-Leavenworth.
Brig. Gen Enoch H. Crowder, the Army judge advocate general, consulted with penologists on reforming the Army prisons, and Congress supported his vision in 1915 by authorizing the USMP to be renamed the USDB. The USDB was to identify prisoners who could be rehabilitated and restored to duty. This philosophy is still alive today with the motto of the USDB being “Our Mission - Your Future.”
WWI to 1940
During World War I, more than 2 million men were drafted into the military. The larger the military, the larger the percentage of disciplined soldiers in confinement. This also included conscientious objectors to war based on religion, political or humanitarian reasons. Conscientious objectors confined in Army prisons were not well treated by staff or other prisoners. Several months after WWI ended, the Army reviewed wartime courts-martial punishments and determined some were no longer appropriate after hostilities ceased. On January 1919, the Army ordered the release of 113 conscientious objectors from the USDB with pay for the entire time spent in the Army and prison. This caused a mutiny among the more than 2,000 prisoners and ended with the secretary of the Army promising to review each prisoner’s case with the consideration of granting clemency. In April of 1919, the clemency board looked at 5,400 cases of soldiers confined in disciplinary barracks and penitentiaries and recommended clemency in 4,724 cases.
In 1929 the Bureau of Prisons, formerly the Federal Prison System, in need of additional bed space, took control of the USDB and renamed it USP Leavenworth-Annex. The roaring 1920s, with prohibition, created more crime and criminals than the federal government could absorb. In the 1930s, the Bureau of Prisons built additional USPs, and in 1940 returned the USDB to the Army.
WWII era
During World War II, the massive troop mobilization increased the Army’s confined population causing the creation of additional USDB branches, disciplinary training centers (DTCs) and detention and rehabilitation centers (DRCs).
Some of the USDB branches were at Fort Missoula, Montana; Jefferson Barracks and Camp Crowder, Missouri; Camp Haan, Camp McQuaide and Camp Cooke, California; Pine Camp and New Haven, New York; New Cumberland, Pennsylvania; Fort Hood, Texas; and Fort Gordon, Georgia.
The DTCs were overseas in theaters-of-war and designed to return as many military prisoners as possible to a combat unit after a rigorous training program. There were DTCs in French Morocco, Australia, France, and England. DRCs were also overseas and had a dual mission. The centers held prisoners convicted of serious crimes until they could be transferred to a disciplinary barracks. Other prisoners of minor crimes received training and educational activities designed to restore them to duty. DRCs in operation from December1942 to May 1946 received 29,944 prisoners for rehabilitation, and 17,450 were restored to duty.
German and Italian prisoners-of-war were courts-martialed at different POW camps for committing murder or other serious crimes and sentenced to confinement at the USDB. In the summer of 1945, there were 14 German POWs executed by hanging at the USDB for murdering other German POWs.
Post-WWII
Starting in 1952, the Army made the decision to authorize only military police officers as the commandant (warden) of the USDB. Additionally, in 1952, the Military Training Company was established on Sherman Heights at Fort Leavenworth. The staff from the 1st Guard Company, USDB, provided training to prisoners from the Army and Air Force. The training consisted of eight weeks of basic training, and upon completion, the prisoner was restored to duty.
In 1959, an electric chair was built at the USDB and provided the Army with another method of execution in addition to hanging and musketry. The electric chair was never used, and the last execution in the Army was by hanging in 1961.
The 1960s
In the 1960s, the Army Corrections System continued to make major strides in restoring prisoners to duty and professionalizing the correctional staff. A new vocational training building was built in partnership with the Federal Prison Industries at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks. It provided training areas for woodworking, graphic arts and furniture repair. Prisoners earned certificates from the Bureau of Apprenticeship, U.S. Department of Labor.
In the mid-1960s, the Army Corrections Program consisted of two types of facilities. There were installation stockades, where the short-term offenders were confined, and the USDB, where long-term offenders were confined. From 1965-1968, the prisoner population increased from 4,300 to 8,300, with nearly one-half of the total population in stockades in pre-trial confinement status.
The 1960s in America was a decade of civil, social and political unrest involving the protesting of the Vietnam War, the movement for civil rights, the increased use of illegal drugs and lawbreakers. The Army, being a microcosm of American society, was having its share of soldiers violating rules and regulations, resulting in confinement in Army stockades worldwide.
Guard duty at Army stockades was temporary duty for 30-day periods for junior enlisted soldiers. These soldiers, selected by their company leaders, were not the “cream of the crop” and looked upon the stockade duty as demeaning. Some leaders selected problem soldiers to illustrate to them what it was like to be confined. The lack of training or professionalism by guards sparked massive riots in many stateside stockades and at Long Binh Jail in Vietnam. Several future USDB commandants gained valuable experience at Long Binh Jail.
In 1967, The U.S. Army Military Police School (USAMPS) identified this shortcoming and established a correctional course designed for the MP soldiers in the 95B military occupational skill in the junior-enlisted ranks of privates, second and third class, and with an age restriction of at least 20 years old. This course complemented the already established corrections courses for MP commissioned officers and non-commissioned officers. In 1969, the MP Corps refined the standard and established the 95C MOS correctional specialist, with permanent duty in Army stockades.
The 1968 Military Correctional Facilities Act amended public law and Title 10 United States Code to require service secretaries to provide for the education, training, rehabilitation and welfare of offenders confined in military correctional facilities. This eliminated the disparity among the military department’s provisions on correctional facilities and treatment of people convicted by courts-martial. The Department of Defense implemented the 1968 Military Correctional Facilities Act by issuing DoD Instruction 1235.4, Treatment of Military Prisoners and Administration of Military Correction Facilities.
In 1969, the U.S. Army Correctional Training Facility was established at Camp Funston at Fort Riley, Kansas. The CTF’s 10-week training cycle was designed to return the maximum number of Army prisoners to duty and reduce to a minimum the loss of manpower resulting from confinement of soldiers. From 1969 to its closure in 1992, it qualified approximately 30,000 soldiers for return to duty.
The 1970s
In 1970, a group of expert civilian penologists conducted a comprehensive analysis and evaluation of the Army Confinement System, which was a three-tier system. The first tier was stockades, later renamed installation detention facilities, housing pretrial and short-term post-trial prisoners. The second tier was the U.S. Army Retraining Brigade, later renamed U.S. Army Correctional Brigade (USACB), providing a return-to-duty program. The third tier was the USDB, housing long-term prisoners.
The “Report of the Special Civilian Committee for the Study of the United States Army Confinement System identified the Army Confinement System" was being plagued with similar problems as civilian corrections systems: personnel problems, riots, overcrowding and a weak decentralized management structure. The study recommended an Army correctional command be established and all Army Confinement System facilities would fall under the direction of the provost marshal general. Additionally, it found only 32.4 percent of the stockade’s authorized 1,492 95C MOS positions were filled with 95C soldiers. This was no surprise since the 95C MOS was still in its infancy and there were only a limited number of training courses at USAMPS. By 1977, the 95C MOS skill level-one positions, consisting of privates through specialist fourth class, were filled, in fact over strength, forcing the MP Corps to reduce their numbers.
Based on this report, the Army built four new confinement facilities designed on the “telephone pole style” with housing unit wings parallel to one another connected by one long hallway. These new modern facilities were located at Fort Dix, New Jersey; Fort Bragg, North Carolina; Fort Sill, Oklahoma; and Fort Carson, Colorado. The only facility still in operation is Fort Dix, and it is operated by the state Department of Corrections.
The 1980s
In 1981, the USDB was the first military correctional facility to be audited by the American Correctional Association, receiving its accreditation certificate at the ACA winter conference in Toronto, Canada. The Army is presently the recipient of the Golden Eagle Award and the Lucy Webb Hayes Award for having the Army Corrections Command headquarters, training academy and parole board accredited and all of its correctional facilities accredited and compliant with the Prison Rape Eliminate Act standards. The Army is one of only 12 departments of corrections worldwide to achieve and maintain this level of professionalism.
The 1986 study of the “Army Corrections into the Year 2000” recommended the creation of a centralized management structure to oversee the Army Confinement System and the consolidation of correctional facilities.
There were 15 installation detention facilities — 12 active, two inactive and one leased to a state DoC. The active IDFs were operating at approximately 40 percent standard design capacity. The IDFs directed to close were located at Fort Meade, Maryland; Fort Ord, California; Fort Gordon, Georgia; Fort Campbell, Kentucky; and Fort Polk, Louisiana. The seven remaining IDFs were located at Fort Knox, Kentucky; Fort Benning, Georgia; Fort Hood, Texas; Fort Sill, Oklahoma; Fort Carson, Colorado; Fort Lewis, Washington; and Fort Riley, Kansas, and reorganized under the regional correctional facility (RCF) concept.
The RCF concept restructured and reorganized existing IDFs equivalent to county jails into RCFs equivalent of mini prisons. Offender sentence length increased from six months to 36 months. This increase in mission required policy changes in the areas of personnel, correctional treatment programs and administrative support. The RCF commander’s position was upgraded to a field-grade officer and required a criminal justice-related graduate degree. Additionally, new key positions were established: institutional parole officer, operations officer, psychologist and chaplain. Crime-specific treatment programs and vocational training programs were established.
The 1990s
In May 1990, the secretary of defense approved the consolidation of corrections under DoD. The secretary of the Army was designated the executive agent of DoD for the incarceration of all members of the armed forces who had sentences to confinement longer than one year. As the executive agent for long-term prisoners, the Army operates, funds and staffs the facilities at no cost to the other services. The joint corrections staffing at the USDB was extremely reduced from more than 150 Marines and Airmen to just 12. The Army consolidated correctional facilities again, closing the RCFs at Fort Benning and Fort Riley.
The Army had just been designated as DoD’s executive agent for long-term corrections, but the main prisoner housing wings in the USDB “Castle” were deteriorating and in need of renovation. The Army was studying options on whether to repair the facility at a scale of $25 million to $195 million or build a new facility. The size and cost of the new facility would depend on the capacity requirements of the Army and other service corrections headquarters.
In 1994, the decision was to build a new modern state-of-the-art, 515-bed facility. The Army RCFs and other DoD Level II facilities would now house prisoners with sentences of up to five years. The Army and the Bureau of Prisons signed an agreement to house up to 500 military prisoners from the USDB in exchange for land and buildings at Fort Dix and Fort Devens, Massachusetts.
The 1997 Corrections Consolidation Working Group studied the DoD consolidation of corrections with the intent of establishing a single DoD corrections activity and realign and reduce military confinement facilities. The Army reduced its stateside correctional facilities to just four — the USDB and the RCFs at Fort Knox, Fort Lewis and Fort Sill. The creation of a single DoD Corrections headquarters was tabled.
See next week’s issue of the Fort Leavenworth Lamp for the third and final installment in this history series.
2000-2010
The 2000 Report of the Army Corrections Study Panel concluded the Army should accept the existence of a corrections mission as a “cost” of military operations and commit to retaining a corrections capability at both the long-term and short-term level. The Army pursued joint service operations at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks with the military branches sharing the cost for Level III corrections. A recommendation recurring in most of the major studies of the Army Corrections System was to reorganize into a single command headquarters.
Army Correction’s plan to move into the 21st Century were like other departments of corrections, the Y2K dilemma of whether the computer storage systems would malfunction with the four-digit year 2000 and would electronic security system’s malfunction at the stroke of midnight. The downsizing of the prisoner population with the transfers to the Bureau of Prisons and the construction of the new USDB continued. In 2000, all female prisoners were transferred to the Naval Consolidated Brig - Miramar in San Diego. Major policy changes at that time were to the sentence of life without parole, increasing the sentence length for Level II facilities to seven years, and the mandatory supervision upon release for those not granted parole.
In 2002, between Sept. 30 and Oct. 5, using a prison bus from U.S. Penitentiary Leavenworth, all 460 prisoners were transferred from the old USDB to the new USDB. At 5 p.m. a flag detail retired the national colors from the old USDB for the last time.
The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, started the Global War on Terrorism. The Army needed trained professional correctional specialists with the unique skills to perform detention operations of the enemy combatants captured and confined in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
In 2003, the implementation plan began to restructure active-duty military police corrections units for deployment on a rotational basis from stateside installations. In 2004, the title “correctional specialist” in the new 31E military occupational specialty changed to “internment and resettlement (I/R) specialist,” and the duties expanded to include not only supervision of military prisoners, but also supervision of enemy prisoners of war (EPWs), detainees and refugees. From 2004 to 2011, soldiers and units working at the Army Corrections System facilities deployed to conduct detainee operations overseas.
In October 2004, the 525th MP Battalion (I/R) activated in Cuba to supervise the high-risk detainees confined at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. In 2005, the MP corrections units at the USDB and at the Fort Lewis, Washington, Regional Correctional Facility were reorganized, equipped and scheduled for deployment to Iraq. The Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 508th MP Battalion (I/R) from Fort Lewis was the first to deploy to Iraq in 2005 and again in 2008. The HHC, 705th MP Battalion (I/R) from Fort Leavenworth deployed in 2006 and 2009. During the unit’s 2006 deployment, the 705th MP Battalion (I/R) of 31E soldiers was the only active-duty MP battalion at Camp Bucca, Iraq, confining 23,000 detainees. Immediately, and at a relentless pace, the soldiers reassessed security measures, separated security threat groups, established rehabilitation programs and improved the overall handling of detainees. Many senior military leaders believe the soldiers of the 31E MOS singlehandedly shaped the United States’ strategic role by improving the international community’s view on the safe, secure and humane treatment of detainees.
As the Global War on Terrorism continued, the 40th MP Battalion (I/R) activated at Fort Leavenworth in April 2009 and within two years deployed to Iraq. This unit was the last MP unit to leave Iraq in December 2011 after transferring the remaining 200 high-value detainees to the Iraqi government as part of the Status-of-Forces Agreement.
The Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commissions impacted Army Corrections. From 1975 until it was closed in 1999, Fort McClellan, Alabama, was home of the U.S. Army Military Police School, which included the career training base for correctional specialists. The 1995 BRAC Act moved the USAMPS to its current location at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. In 2005, the BRAC Commission concluded its review of the Department of Defense Correctional Program and in 2005, the Defense BRAC Act directed the DoD to consolidate correctional facilities into five Level II Joint Regional Correctional Facilities. For the Midwest Region, Fort Leavenworth was selected as the site to consolidate the correctional functions from the Lackland Air Force Base Confinement Facility, Texas; the Fort Knox Regional Correctional Facility; and the Fort Sill Regional Correctional Facility with components of the USDB. The Army built a new facility and opened the Midwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility in 2010. The correctional facilities at Fort Lewis and the Naval Brig at Submarine Base Bangor, Washington, consolidated into the Northwestern JRCF. This consolation was mandated by law to be completed by September 2011.
On May 6, 2007, two Army senior correctional professionals lost their lives in the line of duty, the supervision of captive persons. Col. James W. Harrison Jr. and Master Sgt. Wilberto Sabalu Jr. were assassinated outside the vehicle gate of the Pole-e-Charki prison in Afghanistan by a rogue Afghan soldier standing guard. These USDB corrections and detention subject matter experts were members of the Detainee Capabilities Directorate, Combined Security Transition Command. Their mission was to train, equip and mentor the Afghan National Detainee Guard Force. They oversaw the construction of the National Detention Facility and validated the facility in accordance with international standards and laws.
In October 2007, the U.S. Army Corrections Command (ACC) was established as a field operating agency under the authority, direction and control of the Office of the Provost Marshal General, Department of the Army. The first ACC commander was Col. Arthur Rovins, and the current ACC commanding general is Brig. Gen. Sarah Albrycht, provost marshal general of the Army. This one centralized command was first recommended in 1970 by the civilian blue-ribbon committee. The ACC standardized and eliminated command layers and streamlined corrections with policy and funding across the Army. The six original Army facilities assigned to the ACC were the USDB; the RCFs at Fort Knox, Fort Lewis and Fort Sill, Oklahoma; and the overseas confinement facilities in Germany and Korea.
2010 to present
In 2010, the Army activated the 15th Military Police Brigade, later replaced by the Army Corrections Brigade (ACB), at Fort Leavenworth to exercise mission command across the Fort Leavenworth Military Correctional Complex (MCC) consisting of the MWJRCF, USDB and its satellite Trusty Unit. The MCC was modeled after the BOP’s federal correctional complex. On order, the ACB prepared individual soldiers and units in support of the Global War on Terrorism.
With the end of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army focus shifted from fighting insurgents and detainee operations to fighting an enemy in large-scale combat operations. The ACC’s units were restructured from deployable units for detainee operations back to their U.S. Code Title 10 corrections mission. The 31E MOS changed the title again from “internment and resettlement (I/R) specialist” to “detention specialist.”
Correctional facility Army cooks were reassigned to field feeding companies for deployable units and replaced with civilian contract cooks.
Effective April 1, 2023, the ACC was redesignated as a direct reporting unit of the Office of the Provost Marshal General. The ACC Headquarters moved to Fort Leavenworth and is co-located with the ACB. The commanding general, ACC, exercises all authority, direction, command and control over ACC and oversight of the ACS correctional facilities. The ACC provides safe, secure and humane environments for the worldwide incarceration of U.S. military prisoners while simultaneously preparing eligible prisoners for their successful reintegration into the armed forces or return to society as a productive citizen. It proactively provides professional units, leaders and soldiers with expertise in corrections and detainee operations to geographic combatant commanders.
As the Army plans and prepares to fight and win then United States’ next conflict, the soldiers and civilians of the ACC stand ready. The experiential learning opportunities and collective training within the ACS facilities honed the detention specialist’s unique skill set needed in the management of a “captive person” either as a military offender, detainee or enemy prisoner of war. History has repeatedly demonstrated that the Army and DoD must have professional corrections experts capable of managing court-martialed military prisoners while simultaneously being prepared to deploy in support of the Army during any military conflict.
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