The North Carolina Division of Adult Correction and Juvenile Justice today announced the impending arrival of female offenders to the former Lanesboro Correctional Institution, which has been renamed the Anson Correctional Institution.
“This is a new day for the prison formerly known as the Lanesboro Correctional Institution,” said Director of Prisons Kenneth Lassiter. “It has a new warden, a new and very different offender population and a new mission.”
Most of the female offenders to be housed at the newly renamed prison will be in medium custody. The prison’s layout gives management flexibility to house other custody levels in the future and provides for potential growth of the state’s female offender population.
The male offenders who had been housed at the facility have been moved to other adult male institutions, including Southern Correctional Institution in Troy (Montgomery County) and Eastern Correctional Institution in Maury (Greene County). Those male offenders were classified as medium or closed custody, which is the highest level of supervision within state prisons, and they are now in smaller facilities or smaller housing units to provide increased security.
The female offenders who will soon be moved into the new Anson facility will mostly come from the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women, which consistently operates above its capacity causing safety issues and stresses on the facility’s infrastructure. Other female offenders going to Anson will come from Neuse Correctional Institution (Wayne County), which will be converted to a male facility.
The still-existing Lanesboro minimum custody unit will continue to house minimum custody male offenders at the former Brown Creek facility, which is adjacent to the larger facility. Anson CI was chosen as the name of the prison because it is in Anson County.
For more than a year, the Department of Public Safety has conducted a comprehensive review of security measures in state corrections facilities and taken steps to increase the safety of prison employees and offenders statewide.
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