FMC Devens is a federal medical center in Ayer, Massachusetts, about 39 miles west of Boston, that opened in January 1999, with an adjacent minimum-security satellite camp that had opened the year before. It sits on land that was once part of Fort Devens, a U.S. Army post that was scaled back in the 1990s, and the surrounding area still carries that military history in its layout and infrastructure. Devens is one of only a handful of federal institutions built specifically to care for male inmates who need long-term or specialized medical and mental health treatment alongside incarceration, and it's rated to provide a high level of medical care within the prison system. Because of its medical mission, it's classified as an administrative facility, meaning it holds inmates across different security classifications side by side, from white-collar offenders to those with more serious criminal histories, as long as their primary need is medical or psychiatric care. For families, this often means a loved one was transferred there specifically for health reasons rather than as a standard security placement, which can be reassuring context when trying to understand why someone ended up at this particular facility.