Wabash Valley Correctional Facility
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| Location | Haddon Township, Sullivan County, near Carlisle, Indiana |
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| Status | Operational |
| Security class | Minimum to maximum |
| Capacity | 2,125 |
| Population | 2,080 – Daily average |
| Opened | December 11, 1992 |
| Director | Richard Brown, Superintendent |
Wabash Valley Correctional Facility is a prison situated south of Terre Haute, located in Haddon Township, Sullivan County, just north of Carlisle, Indiana.
The Wabash Valley Correctional Facility was established in 1992. Designed by Woollen, Molzan and Partners, construction of the facility began on October 29, 1990. A 530-acre (2.1 km2) site north of Carlisle, Indiana, was selected for the new prison because of the area’s low costs and access to U.S. 41. Wabash Valley Correctional Facility received its first group of 20 inmates on December 11, 1992. Although they were all low-medium-security prisoners, they were held in the prison’s super-maximum security section (SHU), because it was the only finished part at the time.
The Wabash Valley Correctional Facility has four security levels, divided into four sub-facilities. These facilities are divided by “internal zone” fences. The maximum security section was divided into four housing units that each have 88 two-man cells. The D-Unit, which was part of the maximum security level, was the administrative segregation and protective custody area. It has 15 cells. The high-medium-security section, consisting of five housing units, holds two inmates to a cell except for the K-Unit, which holds offenders in single cells. The K-Unit is a treatment center for inmates. The minimum-security section, which is outside the fence, was originally intended to house 120 inmates, but currently holds approximately 200 inmates.
Two chain-linked fences surround the prison. The inner fence has razor ribbon on the bottom, center, and top of the fence, and the outer fence has razor ribbon on the top. Between the fences there are intrusion alarm and microwave detection systems. Two armed vehicles guard the perimeter, and there are seven armed towers.
It holds approximately 2,125 male adult inmates under security that ranges from minimum to super-maximum in four sub-facilities. This state prison is best known for its super-maximum Secured Housing Unit (SHU) which drew national attention because of the 1997 publication Cold Storage, a report by Human Rights Watch.
Although forty-two percent of inmates at Wabash Valley Correctional Facility are people of color, minority employees make up only three percent of the staff. The proportion of employees of color is lower at Wabash Valley Correctional Facility than at any other prison for men in Indiana except Branchville. This stark disproportion is due to the prison’s location in a rural setting. The nearest largely populated area, Terre Haute, which has a fairly small Black and Hispanic population, is thirty miles from Wabash Valley Correctional Facility. Most of the inmates, meanwhile, come from the state’s urban centers.
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