Cell blocks jutted out from the dome, making it look like a giant concrete octopus. A sixty-foot wall with a barbed-wire crown surrounded the complex. Gun towers were placed strategically both inside and outside of the wall. This was Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary, a maximum-security facility that convicts unaffectionately called “the big top.” There were forty of us chained and shackled, hand, waist, and foot. Guards led us off the prison bus and up the long row of steps to the main entrance. On either side was a gauntlet of guards holding M16 military assault rifles, each man with a give-me-an-excuse glint in his eye. Inside the main gates we were greeted by a captain, a redneck ex-Marine in his fifties who appeared to be still fit and combat ready. The captain spoke to us in his southern drawl: “Welcome to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. If you convicts are here, then you have worked hard to get here, so let me quickly introduce you to your home for the next few years.
