Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women
| Location | 7205 LA-74 St. Gabriel, Louisiana |
|---|---|
| Status | Temporarily closed due to August 2016 flooding |
| Security class | mixed |
| Capacity | 1100 |
| Opened | 1961 |
| Managed by | Louisiana Department of Public Safety & Corrections |
Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women (LCIW) is a prison for women located in St. Gabriel, Louisiana. It is the only female correctional facility of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections. Elayn Hunt Correctional Center is immediately west of LCIW. LCIW includes the state's female death row. As of 2017[update] the prison is temporarily closed due to flooding that occurred in August 2016, and its prisoners are housed in other prisons.
In 1961 the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women opened on the grounds of a former prison farm camp. Female inmates were moved from the Louisiana State Penitentiary (Angola) to LCIW. A 200 bed dormitory intended to alleviate an overcrowding of female prisoners was scheduled to open in the northern hemisphere spring of 1995. In 1995 the state received federal approval for its plan to double-bunk inmates. That way the state could transfer state-sentenced female prisoners who were held in parish jails to the women's prison. The television special 900 Women: Inside St. Gabriel's Prison is about the women inside the facility.
In August 2016 the facility, which had 985 prisoners,experienced flooding, ranging from 8 inches (200 mm) to 3 feet (0.91 m). LCIW, the only state-operated prison to receive flooding during that incident, temporarily closed. It was the first time in state history that the whole population of a particular prison was evacuated to other facilities.
LCIW prisoners were immediately transferred to the former C. Paul Phelps Correctional Center a facility near DeQuincy, which received 678 prisoners; the private Louisiana Transitional Center for Women in Tallulah, which received 221 prisoners; Avoyelles Parish Jail in Marksville, which received 47 prisoners; and Angola, which received 39 prisoners. By September the prisoners housed near DeQuincy were transferred to the former Jetson Youth Center, a youth prison near Baker which closed in 2014. As of 2017[update] the prisoners are divided between Jetson, where the administration of LCIW is temporarily located; Angola; and Elayn Hunt.
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