Columbia Correctional Institution (Florida)


The Columbia Correctional Institution is a state prison for men located in Lake City, Columbia County, Florida. The facility first opened in 1992, has a mix of security levels including community, minimum, medium, and close, and has a capacity of 1427 inmates.
The Columbia Annex opened in October 2004 and holds another 1,566 inmates at the same security levels. Both prisons are near the Lake City Correctional Facility, a privately run prison that also holds state inmates.

History

In March 2012 a Columbia correctional officer named Sgt. Ruben Thomas was stabbed to death by an inmate. In April 2016 a correctional officer received stab wounds from a prisoner, and the next morning a schizophrenic inmate being held in protective custody was found dead.
In 2016 Florida state representative David Richardson came to tour the prison, visiting initially on November 23 of that year. Inmates personally made numerous complaints to him about poor facilities, and Richardson described the facilities as "unfit for human habitation".

Notable Inmates