Minimum Security (ACI)

The ACI's work-focused facility, where every man holds a job — with evening-only visiting on weekdays and the campus's one allowance for bringing food.

Overview

Minimum Security is the ACI’s work-release and employment facility, operating since 1978 in a converted hospital building behind a low fence. Its defining rule is work: everyone there, unless medically excused, is employed inside the institution, on public-service crews, on work release in the community, or actively seeking a job. Recent programming includes a welding course run with the New England Institute of Technology and state job coaches who come to the facility.

What Makes Minimum Security Different

• Visiting is evenings only, on weekdays — Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, in two 90-minute sessions alternating between B and D dorms. There are no Wednesday or weekend visits on the posted schedule, the reverse of most facilities’ patterns.
• Food is allowed — uniquely on this campus, visitors may bring food to outside visits, weather permitting, with drinks only from the vending machines.
• Work-release visits run during every period, not just the dorm rotation.
• The work requirement means the person’s schedule matters too — daytime jobs are why visiting lives in the evening.

Visiting Hours and Procedures

The statewide rules above — the 9-name visiting list, the dress code, ID, and screening — apply at Minimum. What follows is specific to this facility.

The monthly schedule PDF on RIDOC’s facility page matches dorms to dates, and RIDOC’s advice is to verify before each visit — the 24/7 information line at (401) 414-2871 covers visiting times. The full approval-list process, dress code, and entry rules are in Visiting in Rhode Island.

Getting There and Parking

RIDOC’s published directions: I-95 to Exit 14 (14B northbound), Route 37 West to Exit 3 (Pontiac Avenue), left at the end of the exit, then right onto Howard Avenue at the third light — Minimum Security is on the left entering the campus. From the west, I-295 to Route 37 East, exiting at Oaklawn Avenue (Route 2 South), left at the first light onto Howard Avenue.

RIDOC publishes no visitor parking details for the facility.

Nearby Services

The Garden City Center shopping area is minutes away — on the same RIPTA Route 21 that serves the campus — with food at the Chapel View development and gas on Pontiac and Oaklawn Avenues. Lodging clusters near T.F. Green Airport in Warwick, including a Crowne Plaza with free parking. Kent Hospital in Warwick runs an emergency department staffed around the clock; Rhode Island Hospital in Providence is the state’s only Level I trauma center.

Learn More

For detailed information about visiting and communicating with someone at the ACI:

• Visiting in Rhode Island — the 9-name list, dress code, and entry rules
• Mail & Packages — addressing mail to the facility’s post office box
• Phone & Video Calls — the Securus system
• Sending Money — the visiting-list deposit rule and its 30-day grace period
• Medical & Mental Health — the Patient Liaison line for families
• Transfers — how classification moves people around the campus