Kentucky State Penitentiary

The Kentucky State Penitentiary, also known as the "Castle on the Cumberland," is the state’s only maximum security male facility. The prison is located on Lake Barkley on the Cumberland River, about 5 km from Eddyville. Completed in 1886, it is Kentucky's oldest prison facility. The prison houses Kentucky's male death row inmates as well as the state's execution facility. The prison has a capacity of 856 prisoners, approximately two-thirds of whom are white and one-third black. As of 2008, it has approximately 348 staff members and an annual operating budget of 16 million dollars. [http://www.corrections.ky.gov/ksp/about/]

History

The Kentucky State Penitentiary was built in 1884. It was the second prison built in the state, the first being the Kentucky State Reformatory, which was built in 1798. When the Kentucky State Penitentiary was built, the reformatory (originally called Kentucky State Prison) was forced to change its name.

Governor Luke Blackburn was a major influence on the development of the Kentucky State Penitentiary. Before the penitentiary was built, prison life in Kentucky was “dead and miserable.” An 1875 study showed that 20 percent of the inmates in the Kentucky State Prison had pneumonia. It was something that no one had really ever focused on, until Blackburn. Something had to be done, and it was in 1884 when the Kentucky State Penitentiary was authorized but not yet funded.

An early problem that occurred in the penitentiary was in an attempt to end overcrowding in the prison. The General Assembly allowed some inmates to work outside of prison walls, sometimes even unsupervised. In the first few years, around half of the fifty inmates working outside of the prison managed to escape. Finally, in the early 1890’s, this law was abolished and all inmates were forced to stay in the penitentiary and it was almost full immediately.

External links

* [http://www.kentuckylake.com/gallery/lakecam/misc/100198.htm KentuckyLake.com: The Kentucky State Penitentiary]
* [http://apps.corrections.ky.gov/kentuckystatepenitentiary Kentucky State Penitentiary - Kentucky Department of Corrections]