Farmington -- Missouri Department of Corrections officials held a special ceremony at the Farmington Correctional Center (FCC) on December 16 to mark the 25th anniversary of the opening of the institution, which began housing offenders on December 4, 1986.
"Farmington Correctional Center is one of our largest prisons in the state," said Missouri Department of Corrections Director George A. Lombardi. "Over the past 25 years, the staff has provided leadership to develop and maintain significant and effective programming to address a wide variety of offender needs. The biggest reason for the success of this facility has been the quality of staff we have been able to obtain from the greater Farmington region and southeast Missouri."
Farmington Correctional Center is located on the former grounds of the Southeast Missouri Mental Health facility. The 326-acre campus was purchased by the state in 1899 at a cost of $19,989.40. Construction of five cottages and other support buildings was completed in 1903. At its peak, it housed over 2,000 patients. In 1983, plans were made to redirect the majority of long-term patients to private nursing home care, build an appropriate facility for the newly structured mission of the Department of Mental Health, and begin construction of the correctional center.
Construction and renovation of the correctional center was completed in 1986. Existing buildings were renovated to house services such as medical, education, library, food service, recreation and religion, as well as the administration and security functions. Nine new housing units were erected, utilizing the most modern design concepts at the time, including electronically controlled movement within each of the four 50-offender wings of the housing units. One-hundred and ten acres were secured by an electronically monitored, double perimeter fences and 24-hour perimeter patrol.
Today FCC houses six general population housing units, one administrative segregation unit, one transititional housing unit, a work release house, substance abuse treatment unit, including an 84-day program, a six month therapeutic community and a one year program, two mental health units, and a therapeutic community for sex offender treatment. Farmington Correctional Center has two Missouri Vocational Enterprise factories, a computer vocational program, and special education programming. The institution is a participant in the department's Puppies for Parole Program and is in the process of training its seventh class of dogs. With the addition of drug treatment unit, the therapeutic community for sex offender programming and the minimum security unit, FCC's current capacity is 2,693.