. It is the largest maximum security prison and the third oldest prison in New York.
Built in 1844, it originally served as a site where prisoners were used to work in local mines in both Dannemora and nearby
Lyon Mountain.
in 1887 it was given new concrete walls 30 feet tall that still stand.
In 1892, the first prisoner was executed in the
electric chair at the prison, beginning the use of
capital punishment at Clinton Correctional. Twenty six men were executed between 1892 and 1913.
This period also saw many prisoners cured of
tuberculosis due in part to the clean air in the
Adirondacks, leading to the importation of prisoners with this disease from other prisons.
In 1899, a mental health facility, the
Dannemora State Hospital, was built on the grounds to house prisoners who became insane while serving their sentence.
In 1929, Clinton Correctional witnessed a
riot which, coupled with riots in other prisons in that year, led to prison reform in New York State. This led to the building of schools in the prison, and the renovation or rebuilding of most of the structures within the prison walls, making the facility more modern.
In the wake of the Attica uprising in September of 1971, the New York Department of Corrections commissioned Kaplan & McLaughlin to asses the prison’s design as it related to the safety of the prison, staff and inmates. The NYDoC wanted to avoid another rebellion.
The most astounding sight within Dannemora was the terrace of “courts” sandwiched between the exterior wall and the prison yard. It is thought the courts began as garden plots in the late twenties or early thirties, although there is no official mention of their existence until the 1950s.
Simply, the most remarkable example of a prisoner-made environment I have ever come across......
is a tough place to do hard time.
Nearly 90 percent of inmates at the maximum-security prison have been convicted of violent crimes, compared with an average of two-thirds statewide. They are serving minimum sentences of 13 years on average, more than twice the systemwide rate.
About three-quarters of the prisoners are black or Latino, while none of the 929 corrections officers are black and five are Hispanic, according to a recent report
From 2000 to 2014, more prisoners at Clinton have committed suicide, a total of 23, than at any other state prison except the Elmira Correctional Facility in Chemung County, which had 27,
described racial harassment as common, and more than half said there were frequent fights among inmates. During the 1990s,
17 inmates who said they were beaten by guards either won or settled lawsuits against the state.
NOTE: Did not copy and paste? The black dot is their suite !
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/08/n...olent-criminals-is-embraced-by-town.html?_r=0
http://www.doccs.ny.gov/faclist.html
http://www.villageofdannemora.com/clinton_correctional.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_Correctional_Facility
goggle images
http://prisonphotography.org/tag/dannemora/
