Prison Talk

Before we lived in Florida (the second time), we lived in a little town, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Population: approx. 5000. Lewisburg is the county seat of Union County, Pa. The total county population is about 41,000. The total bovine population of the county is over 100,000. More cows than people!

Lewisburg is on the west branch of the Susquehanna River, about 65 miles north of Harrisburg and about 25 miles south of Williamsport, the home of Little League Baseball. Lewisburg is the home of Bucknell University, a small, well-respected liberal arts college. Between Lewisburg Borough and Williamsport thousands of acres of fertile farmland lie against the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains in the Appalachian chain. It is peaceful, pastoral country. It is also the home of some of the country's most notorious, vicious, and violent felons.

A little known fact about Central Pennsylvania is that it's the one of the United States Department of Justice's favorite areas for federal prisons. USP Lewisburg is a maximum-security facility housing all kinds of drug dealers and other violent male offenders. Further up the road is Federal Correctional Facility Allenwood. Allenwood is a 1,000-acre complex that's home to a penitentiary (maximum security), a medium-security facility, and a minimum-security facility that was fondly known as Club Fed. Allenwood is about 20 miles north of Lewisburg. There's another facility in Frackville, about 50 miles southeast. There's a facility near Penn State in Moshannon; that's about an hour west of Lewisburg.

Why am I thinking of prisons today? Because former lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, is being shipped off to serve his sentence today. I am curious where he'll be a "guest" of the DOJ. Forbes reports that Abramoff will serve his time at the Federal Correctional Institute at Cumberland, Maryland. It's a medium-security facility.

Enough prison talk. I wish Mr. Hillbilly would go there.