![]() The Administrative Maximum Facility, or ADX, ran like clockwork. It wasn’t exciting work, watching grainy video for hours at a time, but it wasn’t all that taxing either. Guadian could control them from a computer at his post. The feed came from cameras positioned in the prison’s recreation yards. He inspected the VCRs connected to the screens they were loaded with tapes. He switched on the monitors they were all working. At the complex’s administrative hub, he signed out a set of keys for the video-monitoring room, a small office outfitted with a desk, a couple of swivel chairs, and about two dozen small TV screens. The correctional officer walked through a metal detector and past the guards at the front entrance, then down a quiet, sterile hallway illuminated by fluorescent bulbs. Guadian had made a habit of arriving early for his shift he never wanted to rush any tasks. Sun-bleached grass, scattered shrubs, no trees to speak of-it was lonely terrain. ![]() They stood in majestic contrast to the land around the prison. To the north and west, Guadian could see the Rocky Mountains towering on the horizon. The bland, low-lying complex in Florence, Colorado, was located off a stretch of State Highway 67, a two-lane road running like a jagged vertical scar through the middle of the state. Near dawn on April 21, 2005, José Guadian arrived at the federal prison where he’d worked for more than a decade. His recent work has appeared on and in 5280, Denver’s city magazine, among other publications. Chris Outcalt is an award-winning freelance journalist based in Colorado.
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