Quantico brig closes as prisoners moved to Chesapeake

The Associated Press
© January 1, 2012

QUANTICO

The Marine Corps is closing the brig at Quantico.

The pretrial confinement facility is being permanently closed Saturday as part of the cost-cutting measures recommended by the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Commission.

Prisoners awaiting trial will be held instead at a regional military correctional facility in Chesapeake. The 209,000-square-foot facility, which opened earlier this year, is surrounded by security fences and topped with spirals of barbed and razor wire. It can hold as many as 400 prisoners in its vault-like 8-by-10 rooms.

The Marine Corps announced the move in October.

The brig was built in 1972. It had space for 30 detainees.

The Quantico brig was home for nine months to Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, the soldier suspected of passing classified documents to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. Manning was moved to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in April and is still awaiting trial.

Past prisoners include John Hinckley Jr., who wounded President Ronald Reagan in a 1981 assassination attempt.

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Virginian-Pilot reporter Bill Bartel contributed to this report.

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Have a thought!

Submitted by NO JONES on Sat, 12/31/2011 at 10:39 am.

Turn America's prisons over to The United States Marine Corp! Ship 'em to the Federal Fema Camps for permanent basic training so the rest of America's downtowns can get back to uptown middle-class Mayberry's and Retailing Economics instead of unprofitable "Jailing and Bailing" diseconomies.

The United States Marine

Submitted by jc78120 on Sun, 01/01/2012 at 8:13 am.

The United States Marine Corporation??? What is that? I've never heard of it. Or did you mean the United States Marine Corps (corpS with an S on the end).