FCI Allenwood Low is the low-security institution within the larger Allenwood Federal Correctional Complex in Union County, Pennsylvania, near the town of Allenwood and roughly 75 miles north of Harrisburg. It opened in 1992 as part of a major expansion of the original Allenwood site, which had operated since 1952 as a small minimum-security camp on land once used as a World War II prisoner-of-war camp. That same expansion added a medium-security institution the same year and a high-security penitentiary the year after, so the three now function together as one complex under shared administration, even though each runs as its own facility. Allenwood Low houses male inmates only, generally numbering in the low thousands, and is designed for lower-risk offenders who don't require the tighter controls of the complex's higher-security units next door. The broader Allenwood site has a notable footnote in political history: several men convicted in the Watergate scandal served time on these grounds decades ago. For visiting families, it helps to know the rural central-Pennsylvania location is a bit removed from major cities, though it's within a couple hours' drive of Harrisburg, Philadelphia, and New York.