Anson Correctional Institution, formerly Lanesboro Correctional Institution, is now a female medium-custody prison.
Female offenders to the Anson Correctional Institution have been transported to the newly named and renovated prison.
Offenders traveled to the new facility from the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women. It has been operating above capacity for years, and causes safety issues and stresses on the facility’s infrastructure. Other female offenders going to Anson will come from Neuse Correctional Institution in Wayne County. Neuse will also be converted to a male facility.
“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.”
According to Department of Public Safety’s Communications Officer/Adult Correction Jerry Higgins, 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.
Former offenders housed in the facility prior to its change are now at other adult male institutions, such as Southern Correctional Institution in Montgomery County and Eastern Correctional Institution in 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,” Higgins said.
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.
According to the Department of Public Safety, Correction Enterprises operates the inmate packaging operation, which will continue with female offenders. The facility, which has partnered with Union Supply Direct, is part of the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program.
Offenders working for PIE programs make prevailing wages above the typical wages earned by offenders at other positions.
“Anson CI has more programming space than any other female facility in the state, Some of the programs provided include Thinking for a Change, Get it Right (Change Plan Journal, Responsible Thinking, Relapse Prevention), Anger Management, Commitment to Change, Mother Read, Reaching Out from Within, Proverbs 226, High School Equivalency, and three programs directed by Guilford College – Certificate Program, LEED and Peer Support, and Specialist Classes,” stated the Prison’s page at the Department of Public Safety site.
According to news reports, the former facility was one of North Carolina’s most dangerous facilities, and had been roiled by violence and corruption.
Reports of dozens of officers and inmates who were attacked there, since it opened in January 2004, and at least eight Lanesboro officers were caught bringing in drugs, cellphones and tobacco from early 2013 to early 2017.
“We anticipate that recruitment for custody, program, medical and mental health staff to work with the females at Lanesboro will be more successful than it has been for adult male offenders,” interim state prison chief Reuben Young wrote in a letter sent to prison staffers.
“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,” Higgins said.
