Southern Ohio Correctional Facility
| Location | Lucasville, Ohio |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 38°52′28.26″N 82°58′12.19″W / 38.8745167°N 82.9700528°WCoordinates: 38°52′28.26″N 82°58′12.19″W / 38.8745167°N 82.9700528°W |
| Status | Operational |
| Security class | Maximum security |
| Population | 1,423[1] (as of 2010) |
| Opened | 1972 |
| Managed by | Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction |
| Director | Donnie Morgan |
The Southern Ohio Correctional Facility is a maximum security prison in Lucasville, Ohio, United States. The prison was constructed in 1972 and currently contains the death house for Ohio where death row inmates are executed. The current warden is Donnie Morgan.
[edit] 1993 riot
On Easter Sunday, April 11, 1993, 450 Lucasville prisoners, including an unlikely alliance of the Aryan Brotherhood and Gangster Disciples, rioted and took over the facility for 11 days. The main causes apparently were serious overcrowding and mismanagement of the facility and discontent in the general population that the authorities were going to force Muslim prisoners to undergo tuberculosis vaccinations in violation of their religious beliefs. Investigations conducted after the riot found that the gangs were also collaborating to murder inmates accused of being informants. Nine inmates and one corrections officer were killed.
During negotiations, the inmates did not feel they were being taken seriously, and there was discussion of killing a guard in retaliation. Though the group never reached a decision on the killing, one of the prisoners decided it was time to take action. Officer Robert Vallandingham, who they had taken hostage, was handcuffed and strangled with a dumbbell from the prison weight room. Testimonies vary as to which prisoner was responsible for his murder. [2] During those eleven days, representatives from the Sunni Muslims, Aryan Brotherhood, and Gangster Disciples met every day in an improvised leadership council.[3]
Five prisoners, including Bomani Shakur (Keith Lamar), Siddique Abdullah Hasan (Carlos Sanders), Jason Robb and Namir Abdul Mateen (James Were), were sentenced to death as a result.
Since the riots, death row has been moved three times. The first move was to the Mansfield Correctional Institution in Mansfield with the majority of inmates being moved later to the Ohio State Penitentiary, a supermax facility in Youngstown while a few remained at Mansfield. Currently, all but eight condemned inmates are housed in a new death row unit at the Chillicothe Correctional Institution in Chillicothe. Six high security inmates, most of whom were involved in the 1993 riots, remain at OSP with two others with serious medical conditions are housed at the Franklin Medical Center in Columbus.
There is a song by the band Blackbird Raum about the riots titled Lucasville.
[edit] References
- ^ "Southern Ohio Correctional Facility". www.drc.state.oh.us. http://www.drc.state.oh.us/Public/socf.htm. Retrieved 2010-02-10.
- ^ Pfeifer, Paul. The Lucasville Prison Riot, Supreme Court of Ohio, 2005-05-18. Accessed 2009-06-30.
- ^ Lynd, Staughton, et. al. Wobblies and Zapatistas, p.113.
[edit] External links
- ODRC's Profile Page on SOCF
- Ohio Historical Society, 2005, "Lucasville Prison Riot", Ohio History Central: An Online Encyclopedia of Ohio History.
 |
This article about a building or structure in Ohio is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
 |
This article about a United States prison is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
