Winn Correctional Center (WCC) is a

state prison State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

for men, part of the Louisiana Department of Corrections prison system, located about Bauer, Shane.
My four months as a private prison guard.
'' Mother Jones''. July/August 2016. Retrieved on June 27, 2016. " .. pull into Winnfield, a hardscrabble town ..hirteen miles away, Winn Correctional Center .. southwest of

Winnfield Winnfield is a small city in, and the parish seat of, Winn Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 5,749 at the 2000 census, and 4,840 in 2010. Three governors of the state of Louisiana were from Winnfield: Huey Long, Earl K. Long, ...

in unincorporated

Winn Parish, Louisiana Winn Parish is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2020 census, the population was 13,755. The parish seat and largest city is Winnfield. The parish was founded in 1852. It is last in alphabetical order of Louisiana's s ...

. It is within the

Kisatchie National Forest Kisatchie National Forest, the only National forest in Louisiana, United States, is located in the forested piney hills and hardwood bottoms of seven central and northern parishes. It is part of the Cenozoic uplands (some of Louisiana's oldest ...

. As of February 2014, Winn is one of several privately operated prisons in the state. The facility is medium-security and currently has the capacity to house 1,538 inmates. Opened in 1990, it was expanded in 1992. Winn opened as the first privately managed medium-security prison in the United States. Management of the state-owned facility passed from

Corrections Corporation of America CoreCivic, Inc. formerly the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), is a company that owns and manages private prisons and detention centers and operates others on a concession basis. Co-founded in 1983 in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas W. ...

to LaSalle Corrections in mid-2015.

Aged

* Adult 18+

Demographics

75% of the inmates are black, and 25% of the prisoners are white or of other ethnic groups. Like in other Louisiana prisons, prison gangs are not common and inmates of various races socialize with one another. About 20% of the prisoners at Winn had committed crimes related to recreational drugs. women, including some

single mothers A single parent is a person who has a child or children but does not have a spouse or live-in partner to assist in the upbringing or support of the child. Reasons for becoming a single parent include death, divorce, break-up, abandonment, beco ...

, make up more than 50% of the prison guards. African-Americans make up the majority of the prison guards.

Composition

The prison has five units: Ash, Birch, Cypress, Dogwood, and Elm. More difficult to manage prisoners are located in the Ash and Elm units, nicknamed by prisoners as "the projects". Dogwood houses trustees and better behaved prisoners, Cypress serves as the segregation unit, and Birch houses mentally ill, elderly, and physically handicapped prisoners.

Notable employees

Shane Bauer Shane Bauer is an American journalist, best known for his undercover reporting for ''Mother Jones'' magazine. He has won several awards including the Harvard's Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting and the National Magazine Award for Best ...

, '' Mother Jones'' reporter and former detainee in

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

. His article for ''Mother Jones'', titled "My Four Months as a Private Prison Guard," exposes conditions at the facility that include violence among inmates, poor medical and mental healthcare for inmates, mismanagement and lack of training for CCA employees."My Four Months as a Private Prison Guard": Shane Bauer Goes Undercover to Expose Conditions
''

Democracy Now! ''Democracy Now!'' is an hour-long TV, radio, and Internet news program based in Manhattan and hosted by journalists Amy Goodman (who also acts as the show's executive producer), Juan González, and Nermeen Shaikh. The show, which airs live ...

'' June 27, 2016. His memoir '' American Prison'' chronicled these experiences.

References

External links

Letters from CCA and the Government of Louisiana related to the status of the prison
Prisons in Louisiana Buildings and structures in Winn Parish, Louisiana Private prisons in the United States CoreCivic Men's prisons 1990 establishments in Louisiana {{US-prison-stub