Kentucky State Penitentiary (Frankfort, Ky.)
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Kentucky State Penitentiary (Frankfort, Ky.)
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Kentucky State Penitentiary (Frankfort, Ky.)
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Legislation establishing a penal system in Kentucky was passed in 1798, and by 1800, the first prison west of the Allegheny Mountains, the Kentucky State Penitentiary, was completed on a one-acre tract of land in Frankfort. As early 1825, the penitentiary and the labor of its inmates were leased to private individuals in return for a percentage of the profits from prison labor, a practice that was not abolished until 1880. Convict labor, however, continued to be contracted out until the 1920s.
The for-profit nature of the prison system in Kentucky, along with substantial overcrowding, led numerous administrations during the nineteenth century to seek additional sources of funding, but progress in this area was low. The General Assembly appropriated money in 1872 for construction of a separate unit for women prisoners, and in 1884, a secord prison was added to the system when the Kentucky Branch Penitentiary was erected in Eddyville. In 1895, over 400 cells were added to the prison at Frankfort.
The Frankfort prison was officially renamed Kentucky State Reformatory in 1912, and the Eddyville penitentiary was officially renamed Kentucky State Penitentiary. Deteriorating conditions at the reformatory were such that by 1936, the State Planning Board recommended that it be abandoned. Before further action could be taken, however, the institution was destroyed by the 1937 flood. Inmates were temporarily quartered in camps on the grounds of the Feeble-Minded Institute in Frankfort, as well as in jails and workhouses throughout central Kentucky. After a brief period, male inmates were removed to Oldham County where they began construction of the new Kentucky State Reformatory at La Grange, which opened in 1939. Female inmates were moved to the Women's Division of the Kentucky State Reformatory in Pewee Valley, in 1938.
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Clothing and dress
Convict labor
Correctional institution
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Corrections
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Prison discipline
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Kentucky
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