Western Kentucky Correctional Complex


Western Kentucky Correctional Complex is a segregated, dual-sex, medium-security prison in Lyon County, Kentucky, near the city of Fredonia. , the facility had 693 prisoners.

History

The facility was built in 1968 to support the Kentucky State Penitentiary. In 1977, it became is own separate institution, the Western Kentucky Farm Center, a minimum-security prison. When WKFC became Western Kentucky Correctional Complex in 1989, medium-security infrastructure was added. The facility was converted from a men's prison to a women's prison in 2010. Five years later, it was divided into two separate facilities: the current men's prison and a separate women's prison—the 200-bed Ross-Cash Center—due to fewer female prisoners; this change was projected to save per year and only require 90 days of work to accomplish. Ross-Cash was named for two Kentucky Department of Corrections staff members killed in the 1980s, Patricia Ross and Fred Cash.
WKCC and Ross-Cash reunited under the WKCC name in 2016, and as of 2019, is the "only state-level co-ed facility in Kentucky." Sixty-four percent of prisoners were white while the other thirty-six percent were black. Annual imprisonment cost per person, while WKCC had an operating budget of.