USP Victorville is the high-security anchor of the Victorville federal correctional complex in San Bernardino County, California, opened on October 21, 2004, at a construction cost of roughly $101 million. It was built on part of the former George Air Force Base after the base shut down, and its first inmates were largely transferred from the Lompoc federal penitentiary as the Bureau of Prisons worked to ease crowding at older institutions. The facility spans well over 600,000 square feet and was designed to hold around 960 male inmates convicted of serious federal offenses, including violent crimes, making it one of the higher-security penitentiaries added to the system in the 2000s. Over the years USP Victorville has drawn media attention for a number of inmate deaths and violent incidents, and some news coverage and inmate accounts have referred to it with the grim nickname "Victim-ville" because of that history. It sits alongside two medium-security institutions and a camp as part of the larger Victorville complex, about 85 miles northeast of Los Angeles. Families should know this is the most restrictive of the Victorville facilities, with correspondingly stricter visiting and communication rules.