Fountain Correctional Facility is an

Alabama Department of Corrections The Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) is the agency responsible for incarceration of convicted felons in the state of Alabama in the United States. It is headquartered in the Alabama Criminal Justice Center in Montgomery. Alabama has rela ...

prison located in Atmore, Alabama. The facility is located along

Alabama Highway 21 State Route 21 (SR 21) is a state highway that extends from the Florida state line, near Atmore in Escambia County to Piedmont in Calhoun County. The route travels almost the entire length of the state from the northeast to the south ...

, about north of the Atmore city center.Fountain / JO Davis Correctional Facility
."

. Retrieved on July 4, 2011. The prison may hold up to 855 medium-custody male prisoners. The prison has agricultural operations, cattle operations, and vegetable gardens. Fountain and Coastal Alabama Community College (formerly

Jefferson Davis Jefferson F. Davis (June 3, 1808December 6, 1889) was an American politician who served as the president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. He represented Mississippi in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives as a ...

Community College) offer vocational programs to the prisoners. The annual budget is $8,132,000. J. O. Davis Correctional Facility, an extension of Fountain, is a 400-prisoner unit. The unit was named after a previous Fountain warden.Fountain Correctional Facility
"

. August 11, 2002. Retrieved on July 4, 2011.

History

In 1928 the Moffett Prison Farm opened. It later received the name "Atmore Prison Farm." The facility burned down in 1949. In 1955 it was rebuilt and named for a prison guard who was killed at work. Davis opened in 1973. In periods of the 1970s the Fountain facility, built for 632 prisoners, instead housed over 1,000. In 1975 John Boone, the director of the National Campaign Against Prisons and a former prison commissioner in Massachusetts, said that Fountain and the Draper Correctional Facility had situations where "at any time the prisoners want to, they could take complete charge by force." On Friday, August 29, 1975, two U.S. district court federal judges,

William Brevard Hand William Brevard Hand (January 18, 1924 – September 6, 2008) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama. Early life and education Born in Mobile, Alabama, where his father, Char ...

and Frank M. Johnson Jr., prohibited Alabama authorities from sending any more prisoners to Fountain, Draper,

Holman Correctional Facility William C. Holman Correctional Facility is an Alabama Department of Corrections prison located in Atmore, Alabama. The facility is along Alabama State Highway 21, north of Atmore in southern Alabama. The facility was originally built to house ...

, and the Medical and Diagnostic Center, due to overcrowding; the four prisons, designed to hold 2,212 prisoners, were holding about 3,800. In 1993, prisoners who did not want to work in the fields were shackled during work times. The prisoners filed lawsuits against this process. A fire damaged the Davis facility on March 30, 1995. By October 8, 1995, the Davis facility had been refurbished. The city of Atmore annexed the land in the prison in 2008. The Alabama DOC asked for the city to annex the land.

References

External links

Fountain / JO Davis Correctional Facility
{{coord, 31, 9, 25, N, 87, 27, 56, W, type:landmark_region:US-AL, display=title Buildings and structures in Escambia County, Alabama 1928 establishments in Alabama Prisons in Alabama State government buildings in Alabama