These Patients Have Time on Their Hands

Doctors and nurses scurry to make their rounds and patients in wheelchairs and gurneys fill the halls. It looks like an ordinary hospital, but the patients are convicted felons, among them swindlers and spies.

The Federal Medical Center could just as easily be a college campus with its open spaces, tree-lined walkways and outdoor recreational facility that includes a basketball court, ice rink and jogging path. The combined prison and hospital moved onto the grounds of a former state hospital that closed in 1982.

“We want the appearance to be reasonably attractive,” said Warden Joseph Bogan. “We think it would be unproductive and unwise to tear down the trees, remove the grass and put in concrete.”

The tranquil scene has its limits. The 55-acre center is surrounded by a double razor-wire fence, patrol trucks carrying armed guards circle the complex and computerized sensing devices detect movement along the perimeter.

But unlike most federal prisons, the Federal Medical Center concentrates security on the perimeter and allows inmates relative freedom inside the fences. There are no bars on the windows of the low-to-medium-security facility and inmates do not need passes to move about the campus.

The prison, located in this southeastern Minnesota town of 60,000 that is home to the Mayo Clinic, admits federal convicts who need medical or psychiatric care. The only similar institution, the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners at Springfield, Mo., is a high-security facility.

In Rochester, guards within the perimeter do not carry weapons. Inmates are aware of the prison’s policy that it will not give in to the demands of prisoners in the event of a hostage situation, John Chreno, executive assistant to the warden, said recently. No one has tried to escape since the first prisoners arrived in October, 1984, he said.

“You wouldn’t even know you’re in prison here,” said Michael Rosenow, who is serving a three-year sentence for tax evasion. Rosenow works in the prison’s business office during the day and takes classes at night.

Frederick Coffey, who is serving time for a fraud conviction, described the atmosphere as “much more relaxed” than other prisons.

“My idea of being incarcerated was the bar (on the windows) scene, but we’re mostly free to move around here,” he said.

Bogan defended the prison against criticism that it coddles criminals.

“Most of our inmates will be back among us eventually, and it’s in society’s best interests not to brutalize them,” he said.

The hospital, which employs eight full-time physicians, 57 nurses and 72 other medical personnel, can treat most illnesses except those requiring kidney dialysis, Chreno said. The prisoners often go to the nearby Mayo Clinic for treatment, and clinic doctors come to the prison for consulting work or to perform surgery.

“Patients come here for everything from severe mental disorders to personality disorders to terminal cancer to orthopedic work,” Chreno said. “We represent a cross-section of the illnesses of society. There’s nothing in society that’s not represented by some offender.”

About half of the prison’s approximately 580 patients work in the kitchen, on the grounds crew or in a factory that makes cables for the government.

About 120 inmates are there for medical reasons, about 75 for psychiatric treatment and others for chemical dependency.

Criminals who have spent time at Rochester include FBI agent Richard Miller, who was sentenced in January, 1986, to life in prison for spying for the Soviet Union; Lee Alexander, the former mayor of Syracuse, N.Y., sentenced to 10 years for running an extortion-kickback scheme, and Anne Pollard, who is serving a five-year term for helping her husband sell documents to Israel.

The prison drew opposition when the plans for it were announced. Gertrude Tyce, who led the fight, said she still believes prisons don’t belong in neighborhoods.

“But it’s here now, and we’re not going to sit and crab about it forever,” she said.