Location | E US Highway 50 Evans Blvd, Cañon City, Colorado, U.S. |
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Capacity | 756 |
Opened | 1993 |
Managed by | Colorado Department of Corrections |
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.
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.
All inmates at Colorado State Penitentiary are under solitary confinement, officially termed Administrative Segregation (AdSeg). AdSeg inmates are all held in solitary cells on 23-hour lockdown for their entire sentence. However, CSP was expected to begin housing a small number of high security inmates in 2012.