Wallkill Correctional Facility

The Wallkill Correctional Facility is a medium security prison in New York state in the United States. The prison is located just north of the hamlet of Wallkill, in the Town of Shawangunk.

Wallkill Correctional Facility
Location50 Mc Kendrick Road
Wallkill, New York
Statusopen
Security classmedium
Capacity606
Opened1933
Managed byNew York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision

History

The prison opened in 1933, in the form of a collegiate campus with no surrounding wall or fence. The architect was Alfred Hopkins, an east-coast estate architect with a sideline in prisons such as Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary in Pennsylvania. Connected three-story English Gothic buildings of gray stone "self-consciously embraced an idealistic notion of the rural idyll and an old-fashioned sense of place". [1] Hopkins also designed Woodbourne Correctional Facility and Coxsackie Correctional Facility for the state.

View of landscape near the Walstein Childs House on prison grounds

Inmate population

Wallkill was once only used to house "Good Behavior/White Collar" inmates. Due to changing times, the inmate population has changed and first-time offenders now begin and end their sentences at Wallkill CF. The one-time "Prison without a Wall," is no more -- in the 21st century chain-link fencing and razor wire was constructed around the perimeter.

On-premise activities

The facility has a long-running optical laboratory to grind lenses and produce eyeglasses. Inmates may also learn to serve retired racehorses through the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation's Second Chances program.[2][3]

Wallkill's grounds contain the historic Walstein Childs House, circa 1763. The state's Shawangunk Correctional Facility is also nearby.

References
  1. Joseph F., Spillane (9 May 2014). Coxsackie: The Life and Death of Prison Reform. JHU Press. p. 48. ISBN 9781421413228. Retrieved 3 September 2016.
  2. It Started at Wallkill
  3. Wulfhorst, Ellen (Jun 18, 2014). "Racehorses teach New York inmates unexpected lessons 30 years on". Reuters. Retrieved 25 March 2015.


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