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 re ...

prison located in Atmore,

Alabama Alabama ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South, Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gu ...

. The facility is located along Alabama Highway 21, 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 Coastal Alabama Community College (also known as Coastal Alabama Community College – South) is a Public college, public Community colleges in the United States, community college with campuses in southern Alabama. Coastal Alabama was formed thr ...

(formerly

Jefferson Davis Jefferson F. Davis (June 3, 1808December 6, 1889) was an American politician who served as the only President of the Confederate States of America, president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. He represented Mississippi in the Unite ...

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 National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...

and a former prison commissioner in

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

, said that Fountain and the

Draper Correctional Facility Draper Correctional Facility was an Alabama Department of Corrections state prison for men located in Elmore, Elmore County, Alabama. The prison first opened in 1939 with a capacity of 600 beds, replacing the former Speigner Reformatory. Speign ...

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 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. The facility was originally built to house 581 inmates. Holman held as many as ...

, 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 Prisons completed in the 1920s