Eagle Mountain Community Correctional Facility was a privately operated state correctional facility for men located in the modern California mining ghost town of

Eagle Mountain, California Eagle Mountain, California, is a modern-day ghost town in the California desert in Riverside County founded in 1948 by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser. The town is located at the entrance of the now-defunct Eagle Mountain iron mine, once owned by th ...

. The prison opened in a converted shopping center in 1988, operated by the Utah-based prison operator Management and Training Corporation under contract with the

California Department of Corrections The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) is the penal law enforcement agency of the government of California responsible for the operation of the California state prison and parole systems. Its headquarters are in Sacrame ...

for the housing of 436 low-risk inmates. The prison become the area's largest employer. On October 25, 2003, a 90-minute riot broke out over viewing the

2003 World Series The 2003 World Series was the championship series of Major League Baseball's (MLB) 2003 season. The 99th edition of the World Series, it was a best-of-seven playoff between the National League (NL) champion Florida Marlins and the American Leagu ...

, involving 150 prisoners nearing release fighting predominantly along racial lines. Inmates attacked each other with kitchen knives, meat cleavers, broom handles, dust pans, rocks, pipes, crutches and fire extinguishers. The privately employed guards retreated, while state correctional officers were called in from Ironwood and Chuckawalla state prisons in Blythe, 61 miles distant. Two black inmates were stabbed to death, seven others were critically injured, and dozens more hurt. Eight inmates were ultimately charged with and convicted of murder. The facility was closed later in 2003. A proposed adaptive reuse analysis for the prison was done in 2007 by architectural firm DMJM (now part of AECOM). The study recommended against re-opening the facility, based in part on its isolated location, the physical condition of the plant, and the fact that the demand for this level of correctional facility has been undercut by work release, home confinement, work furlough, treatment programs, and other state programs.

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External links

video of 2003 riot
{{State prisons in California Defunct prisons in California Prisons in Riverside County, California Management and Training Corporation 1991 establishments in California 2003 disestablishments in California