Status open Phone +1 316-321-7284 Opened 1991 | Security class maximum Capacity 1,511 | |
Location 1737 SE US Highway 54El Dorado, Kansas Similar Butler County Adult Det, Butler County Sheriff's, Butler County Economic, Butler County Building, Butler County JV Intake | ||
El dorado correctional facility
The El Dorado Correctional Facility, or EDCF, is a maximum security prison located in Prospect Township in Butler County, Kansas east of the town of El Dorado.
Contents
EDCF is home of the Kansas Department of Corrections Reception and Diagnostic Unit, or RDU, which processes every male inmate when they are received into KDOC custody. RDU helps determine the inmate's custody level, mental health classification, and educational program needs before he is sent to another facility.
The largest long-term segregation unit in the state is also at EDCF, with over 350 beds in three cellhouses. The inmates in these cellhouses are considered to be a threat to the safety or security of EDCF, and are kept in their cells for 23 hours a day. Kansas keeps all of its capital punishment inmates in El Dorado, but executions take place at the Lansing Correctional Facility in Lansing, Kansas.
EDCF has two general population cellhouses, and one medium security dormitory. EDCF is administratively linked to two minimum security units, formerly "honor camps", one in El Dorado and one in Toronto, Kansas. In 2009, the announcement was made that the state would be closing both minimum security units, due to budget constraints. As of 2015, medium and minimum security units in Oswego, Kansas, were administratively part of EDCF.
History
The El Dorado Correctional Facility was established in 1991. It was built in response to a federal mandate to ease over-crowding at the state's other two maximum security prisons. Expansion in 2001 brought two new general population cellhouses. The facility is expected to expand in the future.
The first escape in facility history occurred on October 28, 2007. Inmates Jesse Bell and Steven Ford escaped with the assistance of former corrections officer, Amber Goff. The three were apprehended in Grants, New Mexico, less than three days later. Bell and Ford were arrested in an apartment complex parking lot. Goff was found asleep in the driver's seat of a car parked in the driveway of a nearby vacant Grants home; a stolen handgun was found under a newspaper next to her.