Arthur Kill Correctional Facility was a medium security

correctional facility In criminal justice, particularly in North America, correction, corrections, and correctional, are umbrella terms describing a variety of functions typically carried out by government agency, government agencies, and involving the punishment, ...

on Arthur Kill Road in Charleston,

Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is the southernmost of the boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County and situated at the southernmost point of New York (state), New York. The borough is separated from the ad ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. It operated from 1976 to 2011, run by what was then the

New York State Department of Correctional Services The New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (NYSDOCCS) is the department of the New York State government that administers the state prison and parole system, including 42 prisons funded by the state government. New ...

. The prison had a capacity of 931 male inmates. The facility is currently a film set often used for prison scenes. The prison property bordered

Arthur Kill The Arthur Kill (sometimes referred to as the Staten Island Sound) is a tidal strait in the New York–New Jersey Harbor Estuary between Staten Island (also known as Richmond County), New York, and Union and Middlesex counties, New Jersey. It ...

, a waterway that separates Staten Island from

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

. The

Clay Pit Ponds State Park Preserve Clay Pit Ponds State Park Preserve is state park located near the southwestern shore of Staten Island, New York. It is the only state park located on Staten Island. History The park was the site of extensive mining of white kaolin clay in the ...

is located just south of the prison site. Part of its site contains buried truck trailers and is potentially contaminated; the decision was made to "deal" with the abandoned trailers' contents in this way.

History

Opened in 1976, the site formerly served as a 650-bed

drug rehabilitation Drug rehabilitation is the process of medical or psychotherapeutic treatment for dependency on psychoactive substances such as alcohol, prescription drugs, and street drugs such as cannabis, cocaine, heroin, and amphetamines. The general int ...

center, with an indoor swimming pool (closed when it became a prison); the housing of that unit was destroyed by fire. Sixteen housing (dormitory) units, the medical building, and the SHU or Special Housing Unit were built just before or while it was a prison. In the summer of 2006, the Arthur Kill Correctional Facility was used to shoot scenes for the juvenile detention center shown in the film '' Tenderness''. Arthur Kill housed a call center of the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles. They answered questions about regulations, but had no access to the Department's databases. When the prison closed it was to be moved to Greene. The facility was closed in 2011 as part of Governor

Andrew Cuomo Andrew Mark Cuomo ( , ; born December 6, 1957) is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 56th governor of New York from 2011 until his resignation in 2021. A member of the Democratic Party and son of former governor Mario Cuomo, ...

's prison closing program. At the time, the prison had 408 employees, including 315 security employees.Annese John and Tom Wrobleski.
N.Y. Gov. Cuomo orders Staten Island's Arthur Kill Correctional Facility closed
. ''

Staten Island Advance The ''Staten Island Advance'' is a daily newspaper published in Staten Island, one of the five boroughs of New York City. It is the only daily newspaper published in Staten Island and the only major daily newspaper focused on covering it exclu ...

''. Friday July 1, 2011. Retrieved on September 19, 2012. Because of dropping prison population, due to revised sentencing guidelines, some prisons were to be closed. Upstate lawmakers were adamant that it should not be just upstate prisons. The other prisons closed in 2011— Buffalo, Fulton, Mid-Orange, Mt. McGregor, Oneida, and Summit—were all upstate. Following the prison's closure, Broadway Stages, which already operated sound stages elsewhere in the city, negotiated with New York State to purchase the prison property for use in films and productions needing "real" prison experiences. In May 2017, Broadway Stages announced it was filming the upcoming ''

Ocean's 8 ''Ocean's 8'' is a 2018 heist comedy film directed by Gary Ross and written by Ross and Olivia Milch. A spin-off of Steven Soderbergh's ''Ocean's'' trilogy, it is the fourth installment in the ''Ocean's'' franchise. The film features an ensem ...

'' project at the facility. In addition, the 2018 and 2019, the sixth and seventh seasons of ''

Orange Is the New Black ''Orange Is the New Black'' (sometimes abbreviated to ''OITNB'') is an American comedy-drama television series created by Jenji Kohan for Netflix. The series is based on Piper Kerman's memoir '' Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Pr ...

'' were filmed at the facility.

Notable inmates

* Paul Bateson, murderer who appeared in the film ''The Exorcist''Search on "Paul F Bateson", inmate #79A1383, at

References

External links

NY prison information
{{Coord, 40, 33, 02, N, 74, 13, 43, W, display=title Government buildings in Staten Island Defunct prisons in New York City 1976 establishments in New York City 2011 disestablishments in New York City