{{short description|Prison in Washington state, United States}} {{Use American English|date=August 2025}} {{Infobox prison | name = McNeil Island Corrections Center (MICC) | image = McNeil Island Penitentiary - NARA - 299566.tif | image_size = 230 | caption = McNeil Island in 1937 | pushpin_map = USA Washington#USA | pushpin_map_caption = Location in [[Washington (state)|Washington]]##Location in the [[United States]] | pushpin_relief = yes | location = [[McNeil Island]] | coordinates = {{coord|47|11|48|N|122|39|28|W|type:landmark_region:US-WA|display=inline,title}} | status = Closed | classification = Medium | capacity = 853 | population = | populationdate = | opened = {{start date and age|1875}} | closed = 2011 | former_name = McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary {{nowrap|(1904–1981)}} | managed_by = [[Federal Bureau of Prisons]] {{nowrap|(1904–1981)}}<br />[[Washington State Department of Corrections]] {{nowrap|(1981–2011)}} | director = | governor = | warden = | street-address = | city = | county = [[Pierce County, Washington|Pierce County]] | state = [[Washington (state)|Washington]] | zip = 98388 | country = United States | website = | prisoners = }}
The '''McNeil Island Corrections Center''' ('''MICC''') was a prison in the [[Pacific Northwest|northwest]] [[United States]], operated by the [[Washington State Department of Corrections]]. It was on [[McNeil Island]] in [[Puget Sound]] in [[unincorporated area|unincorporated]] [[Pierce County, Washington|Pierce County]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www2.census.gov/geo/maps/DC2020/DC20BLK/st53_wa/county/c53053_pierce/DC20BLK_C53053.pdf|title=2020 CENSUS - CENSUS BLOCK MAP: Pierce County, WA|publisher=[[U.S. Census Bureau]]|accessdate=2022-08-15|pages=11, 19 (PDF p. 12, 20/114)|quote=McNeil Island Corrections Ctr}}</ref> near [[Steilacoom, Washington]].<ref>"[http://www.doc.wa.gov/family/mail.asp Mailing Requirements] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110505032938/http://www.doc.wa.gov/family/mail.asp |date=2011-05-05 }}". [[Washington State Department of Corrections]]. Retrieved on April 1, 2011. "McNeil Island Corrections Center P.O. Box 88100 Steilacoom, WA 98388-0900"</ref>
== History == Opened in 1875, it had previously served as a territorial correctional facility and then a {{nowrap|[[Federal Bureau of Prisons|federal penitentiary]].<ref name=lmtlatmmi>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=XspeAAAAIBAJ&pg=3552%2C4968493 |work=Lewiston Morning Tribune |location=Idaho |agency=(Los Angeles Times) |title=McNeil Island |date=October 13, 1979 |page=2A}}</ref>}} Americans sentenced to terms of imprisonment by the [[United States Court for China|United States courts that operated in China in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries]] served their terms at McNeil Island.<ref>Peters, E.W. (2011). ''Shanghai Policeman''. Earnshaw Books: Hong Kong. p. 118. {{ISBN|9789881998385}}.</ref> In the 1910s, inmates included [[Robert Stroud]], the "Birdman of Alcatraz", who fatally stabbed a prison guard in March 1916.
During [[World War II]], eighty-five Japanese Americans who had resisted the draft to protest their [[Internment of Japanese Americans|wartime confinement]], including civil rights activist [[Gordon Hirabayashi]], were sentenced to prison terms at McNeil; all were pardoned by President [[Harry S. Truman]] in 1947.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/McNeil%20Island%20Penitentiary%20%28detention%20facility%29/ |title=McNeil Island Penitentiary (detention facility) |publisher=Densho Encyclopedia |access-date=August 6, 2014}}</ref> {{nowrap|Career criminal}} and novelist [[James Fogle]] was sent to McNeil at the age of 17 {{nowrap|in the 1950s.<ref>{{cite web|last=Jean |first=Sara |url=http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2014404392_cowboy05m.html |title='Drugstore Cowboy' sentenced to what may be his last ride |publisher=The Seattle Times |access-date=2015-10-16}}</ref>}}
In 1981, the State of Washington began to lease the facility from the federal government,<ref name=lmtlamc>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=XspeAAAAIBAJ&pg=3552%2C4968493 |work=Lewiston Morning Tribune |location=Idaho |agency=(Los Angeles Times) |title=McNeil Island |date=October 13, 1979 |page=2A }}</ref> and later that year the state department of corrections began moving prisoners into the facility, renamed "McNeil Island Corrections Center." In 1984, the island was deeded to the state government.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.doc.wa.gov/facilities/prison/micc/mcneilhistory.asp |title=McNeil Island Corrections Center History|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100702002352/http://www.doc.wa.gov/facilities/prison/micc/mcneilhistory.asp |archive-date=2010-07-02 |publisher=[[Washington State Department of Corrections]] |access-date= April 2, 2011}}</ref>
[[File:McNeil Island Corrections Center - 2025 aerial.jpg|thumb|Former prison on McNeil Island, Washington]] In November 2010, the department announced its plans to close the penitentiary by 2011, saving $14 million in the process.<ref name=closing>Sullivan, Jennifer; Clarridge, Christine "[http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2013474479_mcneil20m.html McNeil Island prison to close next year]". ''[[The Seattle Times]]'' (November 20, 2010). Retrieved November 20, 2010.</ref>
==Notable inmates== {{div col|colwidth=24em}} * [[Mickey Cohen]], 1930s [[Los Angeles]] mobster * [[Anselmo L. Figueroa]], Mexican anarchist * [[Roy Gardner (bank robber)|Roy Gardner]], bank robber, escaped from McNeil, 1921<ref name="RGGMI">{{cite news |last1=McNerthney |first1=Casey |title=Roy Gardner's great McNeil Island escape |url=https://www.seattlepi.com/seattlenews/article/Roy-Gardner-s-great-McNeil-Island-escape-1315880.php |access-date=September 25, 2025 |work=[[The Seattle Post-Intelligencer]] |date=February 9, 2012}}</ref> * [[Vincent Hallinan]], 1952 presidential candidate<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bellinghamherald.com/news/local/article22203312.html|title=Who's who of McNeil Island prisoners|first=Sean |last=Robinson |date=March 28, 2011 | newspaper=Bellingham Herald}}</ref> * [[Gordon Hirabayashi]], resister against Japanese American internment during World War II * [[Alvin Karpis]], Depression-era gangster{{r|lmtlamc}} * [[Tomoya Kawakita]], war criminal and collaborator with [[Imperial Japan]] * [[Charles Manson]], of the Manson Family{{r|RGGMI}} * [[John David Norman]], pedophile, sex offender and sex trafficker<ref>{{Cite book |last=Homewood Police Department |url=http://archive.org/details/JohnNorman_HomewoodPD |title=John Norman records from Homewood PD |date=2019-01-11 |language=English}}</ref> * [[Roy Olmstead]], bootlegger{{r|RGGMI}} * [[Alton Wayne Roberts]],<ref>‘Ex-Sheriff Rainey: He’s Haunted by the Past’; ''[[The Boston Globe]]'', September 22, 1974, p. 280</ref> convicted by ''[[United States v. Price]]'' of the [[murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner]] * [[Robert Stroud|Robert Franklin Stroud]], "The Birdman of Alcatraz", convicted murderer and ''cause célèbre''{{r|lmtlamc}} {{div col end}}
==See also== {{stack|{{Portal|Washington (state)|United States|Politics}}}} *[[List of law enforcement agencies in Washington (state)]] *[[List of United States state correction agencies]] *[[List of U.S. state prisons]] {{-}}
==References== {{Reflist}} *{{cite web|url=http://www.historylink.org/File/5239 |title= McNeil Island Corrections Center, 1981-present |first= Daryl C. |last=McClary |date=April 24, 2003 |publisher=HistoryLink.org Essay 5239|access-date=June 3, 2018}}
==Further reading== * {{cite book|last=Young|first=Elliott|chapter=Dawn of Immigrant Incarceration: Chinese and Other Aliens at McNeil Island Prison|title=Forever Prisoners: How the United States Made the World's Largest Immigrant Detention System|doi=10.1093/oso/9780190085957.003.0002|date=March 2021}}
==External links== * {{cite web |title=McNeil Island Corrections Center |url=http://www.doc.wa.gov/facilities/prison/micc/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100827190838/http://www.doc.wa.gov/facilities/prison/micc/ |publisher=[[Washington State Department of Corrections]] |archive-date=August 27, 2010 |access-date=April 2, 2011 |url-status=bot: unknown }}* "". [[Washington State Department of Corrections]]. * Oppman, Patrick. "[http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/04/01/last.prison.island.closes/index.html?hpt=C1 Last island prison in U.S. closes]". [[CNN]]. April 1, 2011.
{{Federal Bureau of Prisons}} {{State prisons in Washington}} {{Authority control}}
[[Category:2011 disestablishments in Washington (state)]] [[Category:Buildings and structures in Pierce County, Washington]] [[Category:Prisons in Washington (state)]] [[Category:United States Penitentiaries]] [[Category:1875 establishments in Washington Territory]] [[Category:Charles Manson]]
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