Opened 1993 Phone +1 719-269-5120 | Capacity 756 | |
Address 50 Evans Rd, Cañon City, CO 81212, USA Similar United States Penitentiary, Allenwood, United States Penitentiary, Atwater, United States Penitentiary, Beaumont, | ||
Colorado State Penitentiary (commonly abbreviated CSP) is a Level V maximum security prison in the U.S. state of Colorado. The facility stands in the state's East Cañon Complex with six other state correctional facilities of various security levels.
Contents
Colorado State Penitentiary (Maximum Security) and A Maximum Security Chinese Prison
Description
CSP is located in Fremont County, just east of Cañon City, Colorado. It is one of 25 prisons in the Colorado Department of Corrections system, and one of seven in and around Cañon City.
The oldest of the seven, originally built in 1871 and predating Colorado's statehood, was the original State Penitentiary, the home of Colorado's death row, and the site of the 1929 riot. After the 1993 construction of the current facility, that prison was re-dedicated as the medium-security Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility. It stands within the Cañon City city limits.
Other prisons in the East Cañon Complex include the Arrowhead Correctional Center, the Centennial Correctional Facility, Four Mile Correctional Center, the Fremont Correctional Facility, and Skyline Correctional Center, all nearby in unincorporated Fremont County. The Colorado Women's Correctional Facility near Cañon City in unincorporated Fremont County was decommissioned on June 4, 2009.
Today CSP houses some of Colorado's most dangerous, most violent and most disruptive prisoners. It also houses the Lethal Injection Chamber, although the prisoners who were sentenced to death are currently housed at Sterling Correctional Facility.
At the Colorado State Penitentiary, all inmates are placed in solitary confinement, formally known as Administrative Segregation (AdSeg). Those in AdSeg spend 23 hours a day in solitary cells for the duration of their sentence. Despite this, in 2012, there were plans to start accommodating a limited number of high-security inmates within the facility.
As of 2011, the prison housed a total of 984 inmates.
Death row
When the Colorado State Penitentiary opened, death row moved there from the Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility. Currently the state of Colorado has no physical death row since 2011 when the State of Colorado moved its death row prisoners to the Sterling Correctional Facility in order to settle a federal lawsuit filed by Nathan Dunlap, a death row prisoner who had successfully complained about the state's lack of outdoor exercise facilities at Colorado State Penitentiary. By state statute death-row inmates are executed at the Colorado State Penitentiary where they spend the week before the terminated execution in a separate holding cell situated in the execution suite. All prisoners with death sentences are given classifications of "securest custody level, administrative segregation".
Publicly known inmates
Death Row inmates
In popular media
CSP was the focus on the documentary series National Geographic Explorer episode "Solitary Confinement". The episode was first broadcast April 11, 2010.
The original penitentiary was the subject of the 1948 semi-documentary Canon City, chronicling the December 30, 1947, prison break of 12 inmates. Principal filming was conducted in the prison and environs of Cañon City six months after the actual event.
Maximum Insecurity, an Amazon bestseller, gives an inside look at the medical system at the Colorado State Penitentiary.
In Tallgrass, a novel by Sandra Dallas, Bobby Archuleta, a beet farmer who confesses to raping and killing his sister-in-law, a teenage girl with polio, is sent to the Colorado State Penitentiary after confessing.