Otter Creek Correctional Center
Otter Creek Correctional Center was a minimum and medium-security prison located in Wheelwright, Kentucky. The facility is owned by CoreCivic and housed both male and female inmates at different times, from Kentucky and from Hawaii. The prison opened in 1981.
In 2008, a secretarial employee of the center fatally shot herself in the office of then-warden Joyce Arnold, raising questions about how the weapon had been smuggled in past security. Amid other allegations of mismanagement and poor medical care, Hawaii removed its 168 female inmates from Otter Creek beginning in 2009 over multiple charges of sexual abuse.
Kentucky removed its state inmates from Otter Creek in 2012. As of August 1, 2012 the facility is vacant.
On October 18, 2019, Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin announced that the Commonwealth of Kentucky would enter into a ten-year agreement with CoreCivic to lease and reopen the facility. The prison, which will be renamed the Southeast State Correctional Complex, will be operated and staffed by the Kentucky Department of Corrections and will be managed under the same rules and procedures as state owned prisons. The facility is expected to reopen in early 2020.
