FCI Big Spring sits on the grounds of the former Webb Air Force Base, which closed in the early 1970s, and the Bureau of Prisons converted part of that site into a federal correctional institution in 1979. It's a low-security prison for male offenders, paired with an adjacent minimum-security satellite camp, and together they hold roughly 1,100 to 1,200 men in west Texas, about midway between Dallas and El Paso. Because it grew out of repurposed military infrastructure rather than a purpose-built prison campus, the layout still carries some of that old base character. Big Spring doesn't have a reputation for major scandals or headline-grabbing incidents; it functions as a fairly standard mid-sized BOP institution, and much of the surrounding town's identity and economy has been tied to the base-turned-prison transition for decades. For families with a loved one there, it's worth knowing this is a lower-security setting generally geared toward non-violent offenders, with programming and camp-to-institution movement being fairly typical parts of life there.