FCC Florence is located in unincorporated Fremont County, Colorado,[1] 90 mi (145 km) south of Denver.

[2] USP Florence High was built in 1993 in response to the growing need for a place to house high-security federal inmates.

In anticipation of these jobs the community raised $160,000 to purchase the 600 acres (240 ha) needed to build the prisons.

In 2000, seven federal correctional officers whom the union called "The Cowboys" were charged with committing misconduct which occurred between January 1995 and July 1997, which included beating and choking handcuffed inmates, mixing waste into the inmates' food, and threatening other officers who objected to their actions.

[5] The case went to trial in 2003, and three of the officers, Mike Lavallee, Rod Schultz, and Robert Verbickas, were convicted of violating the civil rights of inmate Pedro Castillo by beating him while he was in restraints.

[8] In 2008, inmate Gary Douglas Watland, who was serving a combined 55-year state sentence for the murder of a friend and attempting to escape the Maine State Prison, was accused of killing fellow inmate Mark Baker, a member of the Nazi Lowriders gang.

The white supremacists were drinking hooch, a form of homemade wine, and were armed with rocks and improvised weapons.

It also intensified chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Dick Durbin's request to the Attorney General to fire BOP chairman Michael Carvajal, citing failure to respond adequately to rising levels of violence within federal prisons and corruption among BOP staff.

[24][25] He was to be transferred to USP Terre Haute in Indiana when his execution date was set, but the death sentence was vacated in July 2020 due to inadequate screening for potential biases among jury pool.