Correctional Facility
Opened in 1927, the first Federal women's prison in the United States. Famous inmates at Alderson have included Billie Holiday, Tokyo Rose, Axis Sally and would-be Gerald Ford assassins Sara Jane Moore and Squeakie Frome. The original design was a horseshoe-shaped configuration of 14 cottages.
The Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola is one of the largest and most notorious maximum security prisons in the country. Nicknamed "the Farm," it is a working agricultural complex that utilizes cheap prisoner labor (wages range between 4 cents and 20 cents per hour) for traditional agriculture...
This medium security desert prison opened in 2000, and is a stunning sight, either by day when its monolithic forms stand out on the desert pavement like ancient Egyptian architecture, or by night when floodlights bathe the gleaming facility in an orange glow which can be seen from as much as 30...
This correctional facility, is located on the grounds of Camp San Luis Obispo, a National Guard training site. The 356-acre complex houses almost 7,000 inmates (with a designed capacity of 3,800), most in medium security facilities (security levels II and III). For years this was the largest...
A maximum security prison, run by the State, and opened in 1992. Designed with a capacity of 2,200 inmates, there are over 4,000 in residence there, including illegal immigrants held by the INS, pending deportation.
A group of several prisons including the "Supermax," a state-of-the art $223 million Federal Prison, which is known as "the Alcatraz of the Rockies." It's perhaps the flashiest of the nine-state and four federal prisons located in Fremont County, Colorado, a county in which more than 6,000 members...
More women are incarcerated in the small Central Valley town of Chowchilla - where the largest women's prison in the country is across the street from the second largest - than any other place in America. The two adjacent state prisons are the Central California Women's Facility with around 3,...
Probably the most remote prison in California, the Chuckwalla State prison houses around 3,700 inmates, with a designed capacity of only 1,738. These are mostly low and medium security inmates.
New York State's largest prison. Called "Little Siberia" due to its remote northern location, near the Canadian border. Opened in the late 1800's, this maximum security facility has housed some of the nation's most notorious mobsters, ax murderers, gangster rappers, and kidnappers.
One of the toughest and highest security California State prisons. Built in 1988, the Central Valley-located facility is home for 5,000 inmates, mostly from the Los Angeles area, including Charlie Manson. The Central Valley has several of the nation's superlative correctional complexes amid its...
A relocation center for nearly 10,000 Japanese Americans who were imprisoned here during World War II. This is one of several internment camps in the Southwest, which in total confined about 100,000 people of Japanese descent, from 1941 (Pearl Harbor), to 1944, when it was deemed unconstitutional...
This island in the Carr Inlet serves as a 20 square mile penal colony. Since 1875, a number of prison complexes have been built on the island, including a maximum security prison on the shore closest to Tacoma, and a minimum security annex, which houses the "Work Ethic Camp." Some of the grounds of...
Around 5,000 people are incarcerated within the walls that surround this square-mile block, west of Lancaster. Mira Loma has a state and a county correctional facilty here. The State's confusingly named Los Angles County prison has a designed capacity of around 1,200 inmates, and generally houses...
A number of incarceration and law enforcement facilities are clustered on Otay Mesa, near the international border with Mexico. east of San Diego. The Richard J. Donovan State Correctional Facility was designed to hold 2,200 inmates, but has a current population of around 5,000. As with many...
California's highest security, modern prison facility, opened in 1989, to move the state's worst offenders out of antiquated facilities such as Folsom and San Quentin (which are now medium and minimum security). Pelican Bay, located near the Oregon border, has two areas, the maximum security prison...
An internment camp in the desert where 17,000 people of Japanese ethnicity were imprisoned during World War Two. The facility consists of three camps in the region. One of ten such relocation camps in the country that imprisoned over 100,000 people during the war.