The Varner Unit is a high-security state

prison A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correc ...

for men of the

Arkansas Department of Correction The Arkansas Department of Corrections (DOC), formerly the Arkansas Department of Correction, is the state law enforcement agency that oversees inmates and operates state prisons within the U.S. state of Arkansas. DOC consists of two divisions, t ...

in Varner, Choctaw Township, unincorporated Lincoln County,

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

. It is located along

U.S. Highway 65 U.S. Route 65 (US 65) is a north–south United States highway in the southern and midwestern United States. The southern terminus of the route is at U.S. Route 425 in Clayton, Louisiana. The northern terminus is at Interstate 35 just south of In ...

,Varner Unit
"

. Retrieved on July 18, 2010. "28 miles south of Pine Bluff off Highway 65 in Lincoln County." near Grady, and south of Pine Bluff. The prison can house over 1,600 prisoners, and it includes a 468-bed supermax (Super Maximum Security) facility.History of the Arkansas Department of Correction
The supermax and non-supermax facilities are separate from one another. The Varner Unit Supermax houses male inmates scheduled for execution in Arkansas, currently performed by

lethal injection Lethal injection is the practice of injecting one or more drugs into a person (typically a barbiturate, paralytic, and potassium solution) for the express purpose of causing rapid death. The main application for this procedure is capital puni ...

. The actual executions take place at the nearby Cummins Unit. The female death row is located at the

McPherson Unit McPherson Unit is a prison for women of the Arkansas Department of Correction, located in Newport, Arkansas, off Arkansas Highway 384, east of central Newport. Established in 1998, the prison houses the state's death row for women.Haddigan, M ...

. Varner is one of the state of Arkansas's "parent units" for male prisoners; it serves as one of several units of initial assignment for processed male prisoners.

History

The Varner Unit was opened in 1987 with 300 beds, and its capacity was soon increased to 700 beds. Further construction has brought the total capacity to over 1,600 prisoners. The supermax units opened in 2000, and federal grants paid 90% of the construction costs. At one time the State of Arkansas housed all young male offenders in the state prison system in Varner. While this was the case, Correction Officers and prisoners nicknamed the facility the "

Gladiator A gladiator ( la, gladiator, "swordsman", from , "sword") was an armed combatant who entertained audiences in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire in violent confrontations with other gladiators, wild animals, and condemned criminals. Some gla ...

School." On Friday August 22, 2003, all 39 Arkansas death row inmates were moved from the Maximum Security Unit to the Supermax at the Varner Unit. In 2011, a fight among prisoners and correctional officers led to injuries among correctional officers. During 2004/2005, ADC installed an

electric fence An electric fence is a barrier that uses electric shocks to deter people or animals from crossing a boundary. The voltage of the shock may have effects ranging from discomfort to death. Most electric fences are used for agricultural fencing ...

between two non-electric fences in the Varner Unit. It received testing in late December 2004 and was activated in January 2005. The system used inmate labor to assist with the construction of the fence.

Composition

The property is in Choctaw Township.

Operations

Varner houses a vegetable processing plant. The main campus of the Riverside Vocational Technical School is located behind the Varner Unit.

Notable inmates

Current

* Zachary Holly: convicted in the murder of Jersey Bridgeman.

Former

Death row: *

Damien Echols Damien Wayne Echols (born Michael Wayne Hutchison; December 11, 1974) is an American writer, best known as one of the West Memphis Three, a group of teenagers convicted of a triple murder. Upon his release from death row in 2011 under an Alford p ...

:Echols , Damien
"

. Retrieved on November 25, 2010. member of the West Memphis Three (released on August 19, 2011). Non-death row *

Jessie Misskelley The West Memphis Three are three men convicted as teenagers in 1994 of the 1993 murders of three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas, United States. Damien Echols was sentenced to death, Jessie Misskelley Jr. to life imprisonment plus two 20-year ...

:Miskelly Jr , Jessie L
"

. Retrieved on November 25, 2010. member of the West Memphis Three (released on August 19, 2011). * Jason Baldwin : member of the West Memphis Three (released on August 19, 2011).

References

External links

Varner Unit, Arkansas Department of Corrections

"Varner Unit"
entry from the

Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture The Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) ''Encyclopedia of Arkansas'' is a web-based encyclopedia of the U.S. state of Arkansas, described by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) as "a free, authoritative source of information ab ...

{{coord, 34, 02, 32, N, 91, 36, 27, W, scale:10000, display=title Prisons in Arkansas Buildings and structures in Lincoln County, Arkansas Supermax prisons Capital punishment in Arkansas 1987 establishments in Arkansas