Metro State Prison, previously the Metro Correctional Institution, [1] is an American former Georgia Department of Corrections prison for women in unincorporated southern DeKalb County, Georgia, [2] near Atlanta. [1] [3] Female death row inmates (UDS, "under death sentence") were held in the Metro State Prison. [4] The prison had room for 779 prisoners. It was closed in 2011. [5] In 2018, the prison was renovated and reopened as the Metro Reentry Facility.
Metro State opened in 1980 as a men's prison. In 1993 the male prisoners were moved out of Metro and were replaced with prisoners from the Georgia Women's Correctional Institution. [5] The prison planned to move the 700 male prisoners at Metro to other prisons. The swap was scheduled for completion on July 1, 1993. [6] As the transfer occurred the prison was the only co-ed prison in the State of Georgia. [1] Georgia DOC officials said that the gender swap occurred because many female prisoners were from Greater Atlanta and the proximity would provide more opportunities for family members to visit them. In addition, the location allowed female prisoners to have more access to psychological and medical services available in Greater Atlanta. Lynn Cook of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said "[t]he swap also made[ sic ] to get the female inmates out of a culture at Georgia Women’s Correctional Institution that had allowed officers and other workers at the prison to engage in sexual relationships with inmates." [5]
In 2011 the State of Georgia closed the prison. The women were moved to Lee Arrendale State Prison and Pulaski State Prison. Georgia DOC officials declined to state when the agency began moving the prisoners or when the move had been completed, citing security concerns. The inmates and employees had been cleared out of the prison by April 30, 2011. Brian Owens, the Commissioner, stated in 2011 to members of the Georgia Legislature that the number of women coming into the Georgia DOC system had declined even though the overall prison population had increased. In January 2011 Owens said that a private prison company may have expressed an interest in buying the prison. In April 2011 a spokesperson for the Georgia DOC said that the state had no plans for the facility. [5] At the time of the closure the prison had 319 employees. The state offered them transfers to other prisons. [7]
After renovation, the facility reopened in 2018 as the Metro Reentry Facility. [8]
Non-death row
Death row
DeKalb County is located in the north central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 764,382, making it Georgia's fourth-most populous county. Its county seat is Decatur.
The Washington State Department of Corrections (WADOC) is a department of the government of the State of Washington. WADOC is responsible for administering adult corrections programs operated by the state. This includes state correctional institutions and programs for people supervised in the community. Its headquarters are in Tumwater, Washington.
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The Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation & Reentry, commonly and formerly referred to as simply the Arizona Department of Corrections, is the statutory law enforcement agency responsible for the incarceration of inmates in 13 prisons in the U.S. state of Arizona. As of December 2015, the ADC manages over 42,643 imprisoned inmates and over 5,466 inmates who have been paroled or that are statutorily released. ADC is also in involved in recruitment and training of Correctional Officers at the Correctional Officer Training Academy (COTA) in Tucson, Arizona. The ADC is headquartered in Downtown Phoenix.
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Opened in 1969, Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison (GDCP) is a Georgia Department of Corrections prison for men in unincorporated Butts County, Georgia, near Jackson. The prison holds the state execution chamber. The execution equipment was moved to the prison in June 1980, with the first execution in the facility occurring on December 15, 1983. The prison houses the male death row, while female death row inmates reside in Arrendale State Prison.
The Department of Public Safety and Corrections (DPS&C) is a state law enforcement agency responsible for the incarceration of inmates and management of facilities at state prisons within the state of Louisiana. The agency is headquartered in Baton Rouge. The agency comprises two major areas: Public Safety Services and Corrections Services. The secretary, who is appointed by the governor of Louisiana, serves as the department's chief executive officer. The Corrections Services deputy secretary, undersecretary, and assistant secretaries for the Office of Adult Services and the Office of Youth Development report directly to the secretary. Headquarters administration consists of centralized divisions that support the management and operations of the adult and juvenile institutions, adult and juvenile probation and parole district offices, and all other services provided by the department.
Lowell Correctional Institution is a women's prison in unincorporated Marion County, Florida, north of Ocala, in the unincorporated area of Lowell. A part of the Florida Department of Corrections, it serves as the primary prison for women in the state. Almost 3,000 women are incarcerated in the complex, which includes the Lowell Annex. As of 2015 2,696 women are in the main Lowell CI, making it the largest prison for women in the United States; its prison population became larger than that of the Central California Women's Facility that year.
The Connecticut Department of Correction (DOC) is the government agency responsible for corrections in the U.S. state of Connecticut. The agency operates 18 correctional facilities. It has its headquarters in Wethersfield.
Death row, also known as condemned row, is a place in a prison that houses inmates awaiting execution after being convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to death. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting execution, even in places where no special facility or separate unit for condemned inmates exists. In the United States, after an individual is found guilty of a capital offense in states where execution is a legal penalty, the judge will give the jury the option of imposing a death sentence or life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. It is then up to the jury to decide whether to give the death sentence; this usually has to be a unanimous decision. If the jury agrees on death, the defendant will remain on death row during appeal and habeas corpus procedures, which may continue for several decades.
The Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) is the agency responsible for incarceration of convicted felons in the state of Alabama in the United States. It is headquartered in the Alabama Criminal Justice Center in Montgomery.
The Baldwin State Prison, previously the Baldwin Correctional Institution and the Georgia Women's Correctional Institution (GWCI), is a prison located in Milledgeville, Georgia, United States, with a Hardwick postal address. The prison has a capacity of 900. After complaints in the early 1990s by more than 200 women of sexual abuse by guards, an investigation was conducted. More than a dozen guards were prosecuted. The state decided to move the women to other prison facilities for a total change in culture. This facility now houses only adult male felons, with a capacity of 992.
The Central Mississippi Correctional Facility (CMCF) is a Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) prison for men and women located in an unincorporated area in Rankin County, Mississippi, United States, between the cities of Pearl and Brandon. The 171-acre (69 ha) prison was, for a period of time, the only state prison to hold female prisoners in Mississippi, in addition to minimum and medium security male offenders. It operates as the female death row of the state.
Metro State Prison
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