Fox Hill Prison is the only prison in

the Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to ...

. Located in

Nassau Nassau may refer to: Places Bahamas *Nassau, Bahamas, capital city of the Bahamas, on the island of New Providence Canada *Nassau District, renamed Home District, regional division in Upper Canada from 1788 to 1792 *Nassau Street (Winnipeg), ...

, the capital, it is operated by the Bahamas Department of Correctional Services. Fox Hill Prison has minimum, medium, and maximum security facilities for male prisoners. It also has one block for female prisoners as well as a medical block.

History

The prison was established at its current location in Fox Hill, Bahamas, in March 1952. It was originally named Her Majesty's Prisons, a name shared with other prisons in the former

British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...

. On August 11, 2014, its name was changed to the Bahamas Department of Correctional Services. Fox Hill Prison was not the first prison in the Bahamas. The earliest record of a prison in what is now the Bahamas was in the 1600s. Former prisons in Nassau now house the

Nassau Public Library The Nassau Public Library and Museum, in Nassau, is the largest and oldest of five libraries in the Bahamas. The library was founded in 1837, when the Bahamas Society for the Diffusion of Knowledge was combined with a reading society. The Nassau ...

and the Royal Bahamas Police Force headquarters. The Bahamas also maintains the Carmichael Road Detention Center for migrants in Nassau,

New Providence New Providence is the most populous island in the Bahamas, containing more than 70% of the total population. It is the location of the national capital city of Nassau, whose boundaries are coincident with the island; it had a population of 246 ...

. The center opened in 1993 as the first immigration detention facility in the Caribbean.A short history of immigration detention
, Freedom for Immigrants. Before that time, immigrant detainees in the Bahamas were held at Fox Hill. Most detainees at the Carmichael Road facility are from

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...

and

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

.BAHAMAS: Forgotten Detainees? Refugees and Immigration Detainees: Appeals for Action
, Amnesty International (AI Index: AMR 14/003/2003).Carmichael Road Detention Center / Bahamas
, Center for Justice and International Law (November 3, 2017). Like the Fox Hill prison, the Carmichael Road facility has been criticized for poor conditions. The Bahamian immigration minister said in 2022 that the government was upgrading the Carmichael Road facility and also planned to build a migrant detention center in Inagua.

Conditions and reputation

The prison has been criticised internationally for poor conditions. A 2003 report by

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...

found that the prison had a high risk of transmission of diseases such as

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...

. According to the

United States Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other n ...

's 2020

Country Report on Human Rights Practices Country Reports on Human Rights Practices are annual publications on the human rights conditions in countries and regions outside the United States, mandated by U.S. law to be submitted annually by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor of ...

for the Bahamas, the prison is overcrowded, unsanitary, and lacks adequate food and medical care.Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2020: Bahamas
, United States Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (2021). The report stated that the prison was infested with maggots, rats, and insects; that cells had buckets instead of toilets; and that prisoners reported bed sores caused by sleeping on the ground. It also stated that prisoners shared 6 by 10 foot (2 by 3 meter) cells with no mattresses, no toilets, and as many as six prisoners to a cell. In 2017, Commissioner Patrick Wright confirmed that prisoners in the maximum-security block still had to use buckets instead of toilets. Bahamian attorney Romona Farquharson has stated that sometimes prisoners get as little as 30 minutes of outdoor time per week. Commissioner of Correctional Services Doan Cleare said in 2022 that conditions in the prison had improved, with renovations and an end to the "issues with rodents". A video from '' The Nassau Guardian'' the same year showed a mixture of age and quality of facilities, with some facilities renovated but some prisoners still in crowded cells.

Notable inmates

Notable inmates detained at the prison include: *

Sam Bankman-Fried Samuel Benjamin Bankman-Fried (born March 6, 1992), also known by the initialism SBF, is an American suspected fraudster, entrepreneur, investor, and former billionaire. Bankman-Fried was the founder and CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX ...

, businessman who founded the

cryptocurrency exchange A cryptocurrency exchange, or a digital currency exchange (DCE), is a business that allows customers to trade cryptocurrencies or digital currencies for other assets, such as conventional fiat money or other digital currencies. Exchanges may acce ...

FTX FTX Trading Ltd., commonly known as FTX (short for "Futures Exchange") is a bankrupt company that formerly operated a cryptocurrency exchange and crypto hedge fund. The exchange was founded in 2019 and, at its peak in July 2021, had over one mi ...

and cryptocurrency trading firm

Alameda Research Alameda Research was a cryptocurrency Proprietary trading, trading firm, co-founded in September 2017 by Sam Bankman-Fried and Tara Mac Aulay. In November 2022, FTX, Alameda's sister cryptocurrency exchange, experienced a solvency crisis, and ...

; held at the prison in 2022 before he was extradited to the U.S. to face fraud charges. *

Viktor Kožený Viktor Kožený (born 28 June 1963 in Prague, Czechoslovakia) is a fugitive financier. According to Bloomberg News, he graduated from Harvard in 1989 with a bachelor's degree in economics. However, he cannot be located in the Harvard Alumni di ...

, held at Fox Hill while fighting extradition to the United States; Kožený's counsel said the prison had a reputation for "breaking even the toughest of men" through harsh conditions. * Michaiah Shobek, serial killer executed in 1976. * David Mitchell, executed in 2000 for the murder of two Germans in the Bahamas.Deby Nash
Bahamas Hangs Convicted Stabber
, Associated Press (January 6, 2000).

References

{{Coord, 25, 01, 40, N, 77, 17, 31, W, display=title Prisons Nassau, Bahamas