Colorado State Penitentiary (commonly abbreviated CSP) is a Level V maximum security prison in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

. The facility is part of the state's East Cañon Complex, together with six other state correctional facilities of various security levels.

Description

CSP is located in Fremont County, just east of the county seat

Cañon City A canyon (from ; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), or gorge, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tendency to cu ...

. It is one of 25 prisons in the

Colorado Department of Corrections The Colorado Department of Corrections is the principal department of the Colorado state government that operates the state prisons. It has its headquarters in the Springs Office Park in unincorporated El Paso County, Colorado, near Colorado Sp ...

system, and one of seven in and around Cañon City. The oldest of the seven, originally built in 1871 and predating Colorado's statehood, was the original State Penitentiary. This is the site of Colorado's death row, and the 1929 prison riot. After the 1993 construction of the current facility, that prison was re-dedicated as the medium-security

Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility (CTCF), colloquially known simply as "Territorial," is a medium security prison in Cañon City, Colorado, Cañon City, Colorado. CTCF is the oldest prison in the Colorado DOC system. It was built in 18 ...

. It is located within the city limits of Cañon City. Other prisons in the East Cañon Complex include the Arrowhead Correctional Center, the

Centennial Correctional Facility Centennial Correctional Facility (CCF) is a prison located in the East Canon complex in Fremont County, Colorado, Fremont County, just east of Canon City, Colorado. CCF consists of two separate buildings, North and South. The South facility, op ...

, Four Mile Correctional Center, the

Fremont Correctional Facility Fremont Correctional Facility (FCF) is a state prison located in the East Canon prison complex in Fremont County, just east of Canon City, Colorado. FCF offers treatment programs for special inmate populations such as sex offenders and drug abu ...

, and Skyline Correctional Center, all nearby in unincorporated Fremont County. The Colorado Women's Correctional Facility near Cañon City in unincorporated Fremont County was decommissioned on June 4, 2009. Today CSP houses some of Colorado's most dangerous, most violent and most disruptive prisoners. It also holds the state's lethal injection chamber for execution of the death penalty. The prisoners with death sentences are held on "death row" at Sterling Correctional Facility. All inmates at Colorado State Penitentiary are held in solitary confinement, officially termed Administrative Segregation (AdSeg). AdSeg inmates are all held in solitary cells on 23-hour

lockdown A lockdown is a restriction policy for people, community or a country to stay where they are, usually due to specific risks (such as COVID-19) that could possibly harm the people if they move and interact freely. The term is used for a prison ...

for their entire sentence. Such conditions have been held to be adverse for prisoners' mental health and can aggravate existing mental problems. CSP allows offenders out of their cells for an hour per day, including yard time. As of 2011 the prison has 984 prisoners.Mitchell, Kirk.
Colorado moves death-row inmates so they can exercise outdoors
", ''

Denver Post ''The Denver Post'' is a daily newspaper and website published in Denver, Colorado. As of June 2022, it has an average print circulation of 57,265. In 2016, its website received roughly six million monthly unique visitors generating more than 13 ...

''. 28 July 2011. Retrieved on April 19, 2012.

Death row

When the Colorado State Penitentiary opened, death row was moved there from the

. Colorado has had no physical death row since 2011, when the State of Colorado moved its death row prisoners to the Sterling Correctional Facility.''Death Row FAQ''

. Retrieved on August 15, 2010
Archive
Retrieved on July 6, 2015) This was done in settlement of a federal lawsuit filed by Nathan Dunlap, a death row prisoner who had complained about the adverse effects of his physical and mental health of the state's lack of outdoor exercise facilities at Colorado State Penitentiary. By state statute, inmates sentenced to death are executed at the Colorado State Penitentiary. Each is held here for the week before a scheduled execution in a separate holding cell located in the execution suite. All prisoners with death sentences are classified as "securest custody level, administrative segregation".

Capital Punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

was abolished by the

legislature A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its p ...

for any crime committed after July 2020 in Colorado, with the only three men on death row being granted clemency from suffering death by governor

Jared Polis Jared Schutz Polis (; born May 12, 1975) is an American politician, entrepreneur, businessman, and philanthropist, serving as the 43rd governor of Colorado since January 2019. He served one term on the Colorado State Board of Education from 20 ...

Notable inmates

* Charles 'Chucky' Limbrick Jr. - Youngest person in Colorado State history to be tried as an adult. Convicted of 1st Degree murder in 1988, when he was 15 years old, for the death of his mother in

Colorado Springs Colorado Springs is a home rule municipality in, and the county seat of, El Paso County, Colorado, United States. It is the largest city in El Paso County, with a population of 478,961 at the 2020 United States Census, a 15.02% increase since ...

, and sentenced to 40 years to life. Released from prison on parole in 2011, by orders of Colorado Governor Bill Ritter. *

Scott Lee Kimball Scott Lee Kimball (born September 21, 1966) is a convicted serial killer, con man and fraudster from Boulder County, Colorado, who murdered at least four people over a two-year period; investigators strongly suspect him in as many as 21 other un ...

- Serial killer, sentenced to 70 years in 2009, held here following escape attempt from Sterling in 2017 until transfer to federal prison in 2021. *

James Eagan Holmes James Eagan Holmes (born December 13, 1987) is an American mass murderer responsible for the 2012 Aurora, Colorado shooting in which he killed 12 people and injured 70 others (62 directly and eight indirectly) at a Century 16 movie theater ...

- sentenced to 12 straight life sentences plus over 3

millennia A millennium (plural millennia or millenniums) is a period of one thousand years, sometimes called a kiloannum (ka), or kiloyear (ky). Normally, the word is used specifically for periods of a thousand years that begin at the starting point (ini ...

in prison for the 2012 Aurora, Colorado shooting in a movie theater, in which he killed twelve people and wounded others. Transferred to

USP Allenwood The United States Penitentiary, Allenwood (USP Allenwood) is a Incarceration in the United States#Security levels, high security United States federal prison in Pennsylvania. It is part of the Allenwood Federal Correctional Complex (FCC Allenwood) ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. *

Jack Gilbert Graham John "Jack" Gilbert Graham (January 23, 1932 – January 11, 1957) was an American mass murderer who, on November 1, 1955, killed 44 people aboard United Airlines Flight 629 near Longmont, Colorado, using a dynamite time bomb. Graham planted ...

- Responsible for bombing of

United Airlines Flight 629 United Air Lines Flight 629, registration N37559, was a Douglas DC-6B aircraft also known as "Mainliner Denver", that was blown up on November 1, 1955, by a dynamite bomb placed in the checked luggage. The explosion occurred over Longmont, Colo ...

carrying his mother, killing all passengers. * Benjamin Ratcliff -

hanged Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature around the neck.Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Hanging as method of execution is unknown, as method of suicide from 1325. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' states that hanging i ...

on February 7, 1896, for the murders in 1895 of three school-board members in Park County. * Nathan Dunlap - Sentenced to death in 1996 in Arapahoe County for killing four people during a revenge killing and robbery at an

Aurora An aurora (plural: auroras or aurorae), also commonly known as the polar lights, is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of bri ...

Chuck-E-Cheese restaurant in 1993. Dunlap was granted a temporary reprieve from execution by Colorado Governor

John Hickenlooper John Wright Hickenlooper Jr. (; born February 7, 1952) is an American politician serving as the junior United States senator from Colorado since 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 42nd governor of Colorado from 2011 to 20 ...

in 2013. Dunlap's sentence was commuted to life without parole after the state abolished use of the death penalty. * Sir Mario Owens - in 2008, sentenced to death in Arapahoe County for the murder of witnesses of a previous murder for which he was convicted. His sentence was commuted to life without parole on March 23, 2020, after the state abolished the death penalty. * Robert Ray - in 2010, sentenced to death in Arapahoe County. He is the co-defendant in the same case as Sir Mario Owens. His sentence commuted to life without parole on March 23, 2020, after abolition of the death penalty. * Freddie Glenn - Murdered actor

Kelsey Grammer Allen Kelsey Grammer (born February 21, 1955) is an American actor and producer. He gained notoriety and acclaim for his role as psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane on the NBC sitcom ''Cheers'' (1984-1993) and its spin-off ''Frasier'' (1993-2004), ...

’s sister, Karen, in 1975.

In popular media

CSP was the focus of the documentary series ''

National Geographic Explorer ''National Geographic Explorer'' (or simply ''Explorer'') is an American documentary television series that originally premiered on Nickelodeon on April 7, 1985, after having been produced as a less costly and intensive alternative to PBS's ' ...

'' episode "Solitary Confinement". The episode was first broadcast April 11, 2010. The original penitentiary was the subject of the 1948 semi-documentary '' Canon City'', chronicling the December 30, 1947, prison break of 12 inmates. Principal filming was conducted in the prison and environs of Cañon City six months after the actual event. ''Maximum Insecurity'', an Amazon bestseller, gives an inside look at the medical system at the Colorado State Penitentiary. In ''Tallgrass'', a novel by Sandra Dallas, Bobby Archuleta, a beet farmer who confesses to raping and killing his sister-in-law, a teenage girl with polio, is sent to the Colorado State Penitentiary after confessing."Tallgrass" Dallas, Sandra (page 300)

External links

Official website
*

References