Official websites use .gov

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Secure .gov websites use HTTPS

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Sleep soundly. We'll be up all night.

In our institutions located around the country, we work throughout the night to keep you safe.

The majority of our employees work at one of our 122 prisons (we call them, "institutions") located throughout the Nation. They are operated at five different security levels in order to confine offenders in an appropriate manner. Security levels are based on such features as the presence of external patrols, towers, security barriers, or detection devices; the type of housing within the institution; internal security features; and the staff-to-inmate ratio. Facilities are designated as either minimum, low, medium, high, or administrative; and facilities with different security levels that are in close proximity to each other are known as prison complexes. Learn more about each prison type below.