El Dorado Correctional Facility

The El Dorado Correctional Facility (abbreviated EDCF), is a maximum security prison located in Prospect Township, Butler County, Kansas east of El Dorado.

El Dorado Correctional Facility
Location1737 SE US Highway 54
El Dorado, Kansas
StatusOpen
Security classMaximum
Capacity1,511
Opened1991
Managed byKansas Department of Corrections
WardenSam Cline

EDCF is the location of the Kansas Department of Corrections (KDOC) Reception and Diagnostic Unit (RDU), which processes every male inmate when they are received into custody. RDU helps determine the inmate's custody level, mental health classification, and educational program needs before he is assigned to a facility.

EDCF has two general population cellhouses and one medium security dormitory. EDCF is administratively linked to two minimum security units, formerly "honor camps", one in El Dorado and one in Toronto, Kansas. In 2009, the announcement was made that the state would be closing both minimum security units, due to budget constraints. As of 2015, medium and minimum security units in Oswego were administratively part of EDCF.

EDCF is also the location of the state's de facto death row. Condemned inmates (currently numbering ten[1]) are housed in administrative segregation ("AdSeg"). Executions, however, take place at the Lansing Correctional Facility (LCF) in Lansing. The state has not had an execution since June 22, 1965, when spree killers George York and James Latham were hanged there.

History

The El Dorado Correctional Facility was established in 1991. It was built in response to a federal mandate to ease over-crowding at the state's other two maximum security prisons.[2] Expansion in 2001 brought two new general population cellhouses. The facility is expected to expand in the future.

The first escape in facility history occurred on October 28, 2007. Inmates Jesse Bell and Steven Ford escaped with the assistance of former corrections officer, Amber Goff.[3] The three were apprehended in Grants, New Mexico, less than three days later. Bell and Ford were arrested in an apartment complex parking lot. Goff was found asleep in the driver's seat of a car parked in the driveway of a nearby vacant Grants home; a stolen handgun was found under a newspaper next to her.[4]

The state is considering relocating executions from Lansing Correctional Facility to El Dorado Correctional Facility[5]

Notable inmates
  • Dennis Rader - a convicted serial killer who murdered ten people from 1974 to 1991. He eluded capture until 2005. Rader plead guilty and was sentenced to ten consecutive life sentences. He was nicknamed "BTK", an initialism reflecting his modus operandi of binding, torturing, and killing his victims.[6]
  • John Robinson - a convicted serial killer, con man, embezzler, kidnapper, and forger. He was found guilty in 2003 of three murders and was sentenced to death for two of them. He subsequently admitted responsibility for five additional homicides, and investigators fear that there might be other, undiscovered victims. Because he made contact with most of his post-1993 victims via online chat rooms, he is sometimes referred to as "the Internet's first serial killer".

References
  1. A look at the 10 Kansas inmates on death row
  2. LibLime announces El Dorado Correctional Facility Selects Bibliovation
  3. Associated Press (April 5, 2008). "Lovesick prison guard who helped Kansas inmates escape says she feels used". foxnews.com. Retrieved November 13, 2014.
  4. CBSNEWS/CBS/AP (October 31, 2007). "Escaped inmates, ex-guard caught in N.M." cbsnews.com. Retrieved November 13, 2014.
  5. Kansas considers moving execution site to El Dorado
  6. "Rader, Dennis L." doc.ks.gov. Kansas Department of Corrections. November 12, 2014. Archived from the original on March 4, 2012. Retrieved November 13, 2014.

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