The average offender at FCI Lompoc is serving between one and fifteen years for federal drug and or other non-violent offenses.

The institution offers a full range of inmate employment, vocational training, education, counseling (both mental health and drug abuse), medical, dental, pre-release preparation, and other self-improvement opportunities.

In the late evening hours of January 21, 1980, Christopher Boyce, who was serving a forty-year sentence for spying for the Soviet Union, escaped from FCI Lompoc.

[3] With the assistance of fellow inmates, he hid in a drainage hole, used a makeshift ladder and small tin scissors to cut through a barbed wire perimeter.

Marshals and FBI Agents captured him on the Olympic Peninsula of western Washington at Port Angeles on August 21, 1981,[4][5] ending one of the most extensive and complex manhunts in the history of the U.S.