Abandoned since 1995 when the West Virginia Supreme Court declared it uninhabitable, the prison once held more than 2,500 maximum-security inmates in 5-foot by 7-foot cells stacked 4 stories high. The National Institute of Justice's Office of Law Enforcement Technology Commercialization (OLETC) in Wheeling, WV, recently began working with the Moundsville Economic Development Council to turn the old West Virginia State Penitentiary in Moundsville into a state-of-the art training facility for corrections, law enforcement, and other public safety personnel. The facility will be called the National Corrections and Law Enforcement Training Center. When completed, the training center will provide space for OLETC's annual mock prison riot and serve as a year-round, hands-on training facility for Federal, State, and local public safety personnel. In addition, retention of the prison environment will provide a site for testing and demonstrating new and emerging custodial technologies. This can only happen, however, after much of the prison has been reconditioned and upgraded, including a new heating and air-conditioning system, new plumbing, and structural repairs to existing buildings.
Out of Retirement, Into Training
NCJ Number
211763
Date Published
1999
Length
2 pages
Annotation
This article describes plans for the conversion and renovation of a Civil War-era prison in West Virginia into a modern corrections and police training facility.
Abstract