The Dorchester Penitentiary (
French: Pénitencier de Dorchester) is a Canadian federal
corrections facility located in the village of
Dorchester,
New Brunswick
New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English and ...
. It shares a property with
Westmorland Institution and
Shepody Healing Centre.
History
It was opened on 14 July 1880 as a
maximum security penitentiary on a hill overlooking the
Memramcook River
The Memramcook River is a river located in Westmorland County, in southeastern New Brunswick, eastern Canada.
Geography
Its meander length is approximately , of which approximately is a tidal estuary to its discharge point into the Petitcodiac ...
valley. It is now, having been built three years after
Stony Mountain Institution (1877), the second oldest federal corrections facility in Canada still in operation following the closure of
Kingston Penitentiary
Kingston Penitentiary (known locally as KP and Kingston Pen) is a former maximum security prison located in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, between King Street West and Lake Ontario.
History
Constructed from 1833 to 1834, and opened on June 1, 1 ...
on September 30, 2013.
The prison became notorious following
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
as it was responsible for all maximum security offenders in
Atlantic Canada. It was replaced by the modern
Atlantic Institution in
Renous and was downgraded to handle medium security offenders.
Together with