Rahul Sharma (Editor)

Topeka Correctional Facility

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Status
  
multi-security

Director
  
Warden Shannon Meyer

Capacity
  
749

Opened
  
1970s

Phone
  
+1 785-296-3432

Location
  
815 S.E. Rice Road Topeka, Kansas

Managed by
  
Kansas Department of Corrections

Address
  
815 SE Rice Rd, Topeka, KS 66607, USA

Hours
  
Closed now Sunday9AM–3:30PMMondayClosedTuesdayClosedWednesdayClosedThursdayClosedFridayClosedSaturday9AM–3:30PMSuggest an edit

Similar
  
Shawnee County Adult Det, Shawnee County Sheriff's, Shawnee Juvenile Detention, Shawnee County Courthou, Shawnee County Appraiser

Topeka correctional facility


Topeka Correctional Facility is a Kansas Department of Corrections state prison for women located in Topeka, Kansas. Built in the 1970s, in March 2001 it became the only women's prison in the state. It administers a wide range of security levels, from maximum security through work-release.

Contents

The site was founded in 1905 as the Topeka Industrial Institute by the African American educator Edward S. Stephens, as a school on its own farmland, more or less modeled on the Tuskegee Institute. The school closed in 1955.

Current inmates include the Kansas physician Debora Green.

Inside outside program at topeka correctional facility


Conditions

Conditions in the facility have long been identified as extremely problematic.

A series of investigative articles in the The Topeka Capital-Journal in September 2009 revealed a "complex black market" of contraband, bribes, and a sex trade, practices that culminated in a prison employee impregnating an inmate. In January 2010 two independent audits, one by the National Institute of Corrections and another by a committee of the state legislature, recommended two dozen operational changes, and the facility's administrator was reassigned elsewhere.

The result of a 2011–2012 investigation by the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division found that the problems persisted. The Division's September 6, 2012 letter to Kansas Governor Sam Brownback concluded that "TCF fails to protect women prisoners from harm due to sexual abuse and misconduct from correctional staff and other prisoners in violation of their constitutional rights. TCF has a history of unabated officer-on-prisoner and prisoner-on-prisoner sexual abuse and misconduct."

References

Topeka Correctional Facility Wikipedia