If you have a website I can look up, or if anyone has been imprisoned there can tell me their experience. Its a military jail
Answer:
I was a prosecutor in the Mannheim military community recently. It's typical of all the military confinement facilities in the states. I'm now a military defense attorney in the states. I'm not sure what it is you want to know, but I can tell you my client's who "do time" in military confinement find it to be "basic training behind barbed wire." The treatment is not bad, nor the food and facilities. My current clients can't wait to be transferred out of the local county jail to do their post-trial time in a military facility.
"U.S. Army Confinement Facility-Europe
At the far end of Coleman Barracks stands an 8-foot-high chain-link fence topped with concertina wire. The only way through it is a double-locked gate, where a sign details visitors’ dos and don’ts. To enter, visitors must surrender their ID cards at a guard shack located behind yet another locked gate. Inside, one senses the looming authority imposed by the 9th Military Police Detachment. As the visitor passes from one block of cells to the next, the unnerving clang of a steel door slamming shut echoes down the shiny hall. The distinct smell of disinfectant stings the nose, and eyes adjust to the striped sunshine that filters through barred windows. There’s no mistaking this place for There’s no mistaking this place for Club Med —.
The 21st Theater Support Command’s Mannheim Confinement Facility in Germany insists on rigid security. Officially known as the U.S. Army Confinement Facility-Europe, MCF was built in 1963 to house 236 inmates. By 2000 about 50 inmates or detainees called one of the cells “home.” Comparable to a county jail, the facility can house inmates of all ranks serving sentences of less than one year or detainees awaiting trial.
The MCF is the only U.S. military confinement facility in Europe, including the Balkans, except for a small Air Force facility in England. As a result, the facility is used for holding members of the Army, Air Force, Marines and Navy, as well as foreign prisoners of war. To tend to the mixed clientele, MCF has a cadre of Air Force and Navy correctional specialists assigned to its personnel roster.
During inprocessing, new prisoners and detainees are placed in a barren, 6-by-8-foot cell in “D Block” for at least the first 72 hours. They remain there 23 and a half hours a day with a camera watching them, and they are visited daily by a doctor, chaplain and social worker. Books and magazines are not allowed. The “D Block” cells contain only a bed, sink and toilet. Prisoners who want to run water or flush must call the guard on duty, who controls these functions from behind the cells. When it’s time for a shower, the guard unlocks the cell, chains the prisoners’ ankles and wrists, and walks them to the shower stall at the end of the hall. The cadre controls even the length and temperature of showers.
If prisoners have completed inprocessing and show no reason for concern, they are assigned to another block with larger cells that can accommodate up to 13 prisoners. By the third day of confinement, prisoners are allowed to phone home at their own expense. Free calls to a prisoner’s lawyer, commander or unit are allowed at any time. "
I have been there twice in 1976. On the first trip I waited outside while the prisoner we escorted was taken in by the armed guard. My role was driver/unarmed guard.
A VERY secure place.
On the 2nd trip I took Walter some issue items he needed. They lived as if in Basic Training. Issue items only.
When I arrived I went thru security and almost ran into Walter. He was at Parade Rest with several other prisoners just outside the CO's office. I stopped to speak to him and asked the E2 guard to release him to me to go to supply. I was tackled for speaking to a prisoner and drug back into another office. After he got screamed at for assaulting an NCO, things got worked out.
They hold persons for ALL infractions in the same open barracks. At least they did then. He was there for disobeying an order. There was a rapist and a murderer in the same room with him.
Is that a good enough visual?
I doubt you will find any pictures.
SSG US Army 73-82
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