1893 Commissioners of the Penitentiary are force to file suit against the contractor in order to secure pay for officers at the Branch Penitentiary.

1893 Sixty-eight to one hundred inmates per month are whipped. During the month of August, inmates receive 1,263 lashes. Nineteen inmates escape.

1906 The first prisoner is sent to Kentucky Branch Penitentiary for execution.

1912 Kentucky State Penitentiary in Frankfort is renamed Kentucky State Reformatory. Kentucky Branch Penitentiary at Eddyville is renamed Kentucky State Penitentiary.

1913 Whipping is forbidden at the Kentucky State Penitentiary.

1921 State Board of Charities and Corrections rule that no inmate can be paroled if he is illiterate.

1921 Total inmate population at KSR and KSP is 1,101. This figures grows to 3,167 by 1930 and 4,024 in 1935.

1922 A reward of $100 is offered for the capture of an escape convict. Guards would sometimes take civilians along on a manhunt because guards could not collect this reward. The inmate paid for the reward out of his earnings.

1923 There are a total of 206 employees of penal institutions; 78 at Frankfort, 46 at Eddyville, and 32 at the Kentucky House of Reform at Greendale.

1923 At Kentucky State Penitentiary, three convicts obtain guns, kill three officers, wound a fourth officer, and barricade themselves in the dining room. The Fifty-Fourth Machine Gun Squadron is called to the scene from Hopkinsville. They fire at various intervals into the dining room. The siege lasted from Wednesday morning until Saturday night. After 81 hours of almost uninterrupted firing, the assaulting army discovers that the three convicts had been dead since Wednesday. Two had killed themselves, and left suicide notes, and the third inmate died of wounds received when he entered the dining room.

1926 The Office of Commissioner of Pardons is created to assist the Governor.

1926 There are a total of 674 inmates at the Kentucky State Penitentiary; 335 are white, 339 are black.

1926 Total cost of operating KSR and KSP is $99,313. Cost per inmate per year at KSP is $322.24; cost per year at KSR is $316.93. Revenue from sale of goods reduced these figures to $71.17 and $70.52 respectively. Governor Sampson calls for the two prisons to be self-supporting.

1928 Formation of the first parole staff.

1928 Kentucky State Penitentiary, Eddyville, has a total of 52 employees on the payroll. Thirty-eight are guards appointed by the warden. The guards work a 12 hour schedule, seven days a week, and have 14 days off per year. There are 750 inmates.

1928-1929 Forty-nine men are executed at the Kentucky State Penitentiary.

1929 Seven men were electrocuted in one night at the Kentucky State Penitentiary. This holds the national record for the most electrocuted in one day.

1930 Governor Flem Sampson calls for probation of prisoners by the courts, before or after trial; a probation and parole service under trained persons for every county; introduction of indeterminant sentences; establishment of academic and vocational schools; mandatory attendance in citizenship classes; acquisition of 1,500- 2,000 acre prison farm and State use of prison-made goods.

1931 Total parole caseload is 3,367 almost double the 1927 caseload of 1,786. Twenty-four percent violate their parole.

1931 On April 21 at KSP, an inmate kills William L. Moneymaker, a guard with a hatchet.

1931 Eddyville merchants protest the opening of an inmate canteen at KSP because it diverts $1500-$2000 worth of business.

1931 KSP is so crowded that inmates sleep on cots in corridors.

1931 Board of Charities and Corrections requests the courts to place convicted criminals in county jails until a sufficient number of prisoners can be released to provide bed space.

1931 Governor Flem Sampson pardons 187 inmates at KSP on the day before he leaves office.

1933 The two penitentiaries receive 2,656 convicts, an increase of 125.9% over 1922 figures. In 1922, 188 inmates had been paroled. In 1933, 2,025 convicts are paroled. In spite of these efforts, total prison population increased from 1,559 in 1922 to 3,499 in 1933.

1934 Adult probation law passes but judges fail to use it.

1935 Of all Kentucky convicts 27.7% are serving sentences for murder or manslaughter. Only Tennessee approaches this high percentage.

1935 Inmates serving sentences of five years or less make up 60.2% of the population.

1935 Total population of KSR, Frankfort, and KSP, Eddyville, is approximately 4,300 the capacity is only 2,240. Governor Lafoon pardons 276 inmates at Frankfort and 282 inmates at Eddyville.

1935 Unruly inmates at KSP are put in stripes and chains with weights attached for the duration of their sentence.

1936 New probation law goes into effect.

1937 Kentucky State Reformatory at LaGrange, Ky. Is built at a cost of $3 Million.

1937 Kentucky State Reformatory in Frankfort is demolished. This site is now occupied by the State Office Building.

1937 At the Kentucky State Penitentiary dining room, three inmates overpower the Deputy Warden and take his gun. Two inmates were killed as they tried to escape and one guard is shot in the leg. Inside officers relinquished their guns as a result of the incident.

1939 Kentucky Correctional Institute for Women is built.

1939 Population at Kentucky prison is 4,584. KSP houses 1,569 of those inmates.

1941 Cellhouse #5 is completed at KSP providing approximately 363 new cells.

1944 At Kentucky State Penitentiary, inmate population is 1,078 and total staff is 86.

1944 The War Production Board awards Certificates of Merit to officers and inmates at KSR and KSP for production of dungarees and work jackets shipped to Allied Countries.

1945 In June the Department of Welfare sends an investigation team to KSP. Results of the investigation show filthy food service and that 100 of the 900 inmates eat meals in the commissary which is owned and operated by inmates. Some inmates have not eaten in the prison dining room for five years. Investigation also noted rackets in money lending, narcotics, sex, and weapons.

1945 On July 21, at KSP, six prisoners armed with knives lock five guards and the school principal in a cell during an escape attempt. When Warden Guy Tuggle arrives at the scene he is also overpowered and taken hostage. Deputy Warden L.R. Gumm arms himself with a pistol and proceeds to the scene along with several guards and quickly subdues the inmates. Tuggle had been appointed Warden nine days prior to this incident.

1945 On December 22, an inmate at KSP obtains a smuggled gun and kills Deputy Warden L.R. Gumm and wounds a Correctional Officer.

1946 Total Population of the Kentucky State Penitentiary is 860 inmates. An inmate breaking the rules might have his head shaved and be marched to the rock quarry to work under the gun. The dark hole is also used.

1946-1947 Total Corrections budget is $995,000.

1947 40.2% of inmates meeting the Parole Board make parole.

1948 Hickory canes carried by correctional officers are done away with, causing a rift between old line staff and the administration.

1949 KSP Correctional Officer Julius Cummins is killed in an auto accident while transporting inmates to a work detail in Kuttawa.

1950 At KSP four prisoners attempting to escape, throw Molotov Cocktails into a wall tower. The officer, his clothing in flames, fires a shot and disperses the inmates. The escape attempt fails but the officer is seriously burned.

1950-1951 360 cases are probated in Kentucky.

1951-1952 Total staff at KSP is 110 and total inmate population is 1,122. A prisoner rebellion causes $10,000 damage.

1952 At KSP, one officer and 10 inmates are injured as 75 inmates seize control of the garment factory. The Institutional Chaplain successfully negotiates release of the garment factory superintendent who is held hostage. After four days of disturbances, prisoners are stripped of all clothing and forced to eat meals in the nude. A committee of five inmates presents inmate grievances to prison officials. Complaints include better food, medical treatment, and recreation, a pledge of no retaliation against participants in the rebellion and dismissal of Deputy Warden Walter Stephens who had ordered a guard to fire into a group of menacing prisoners. Warden Jess Buchannan establishes permanent inmate grievance committee.

1953 At KSP, six inmates reach the cellhouse roof by sawing through several doors and then lowering themselves to freedom on a 90 foot rope made of braided bedding. All six inmates were caught within 48 hours.

1953 A KSP inmate trustee is accused of attacking a woman in her Kuttawa grocery store. Lyon County residents petition Governor Wetherby to stop use of prison labor on KSP farms and to sell the farm as quickly as possible. The Courier-Journal responds with an editorial stating that sale of the prison farms would increase problems caused by inmate idleness. Of 1,000 inmates 800 have no employment.

1953 Plans are made to remodel Cellhouse #3 at KSP. The interior will be gutted and 152 maximum security cells built in four sections of 38 cells each. In addition 11 solitary confinement cells, 6 death row cells, and the new death chamber will be located on the ground floor.

1956 A joint Senate House Welfare Department Investigating Committee holds an un- announced inspection of KSP and reports that weapons, whiskey, and barbiturates are being smuggled to prisoners by employees; narcotics are administered by prisoners to other prisoners working in the prison hospital; the prison hospital is fire trap and should be razed; no fire hoses attached to fire hydrants; ground floor cells in Cellhouse #1 flood during heavy rain; and infestation of bedbugs and roaches.

1956 On July 18, Lt. Owen W. Davenport is stabbed to death by an inmate in the yard at KSP

1956-1960 Warden Dan Grey at the Kentucky State Reformatory uniform correctional officers, initiates weekly staff meetings, stresses officer training, initiates a classification board, and stresses inmate orientation into the system, starts a pre-release program, and doubles farm production.

1961 Classification and Treatment Officers, Vocational, and Academic teachers are added to the staff at the Kentucky State Reformatory.

1961 Total Kentucky inmate population is 4,000 inmates. By 1969 this figure is reduced to 3,290.

1962 A full time Parole Board is established.

1962 Kelly Moss is executed at the Kentucky State Penitentiary. Total numbers of persons electrocuted was 162. It will be 35 years before the electric chair is used again.

1963 Inmates were allowed to use forks to eat.

1963-1965 Bell County Forestry Camp is established.

1965 At KSP, newly appointed Warden John Wingo along with Commissioner Joe Cannon and Harold E. Black, Director of Correctional Institutions announces plans to hire 30 new Correctional Officers, start a continuous intensive staff training program; establish a 40 hour work week for all Correctional Officers (night-shift Officers were working 54 hours a week and other shifts were working 42-48 hours/week). Warden Wingo states he will not hire through the system of political patronage.

1966 Riot squads, each having 45 officers, are established at KSP and KSR and given special training by Kentucky State Police and the FBI.

1967 Western Kentucky Farm Center, designed for 100 minimum security inmates is completed at a cost of $600,000 and is expected to ease overcrowding at KSP. This facility remain empty for months and reasons given include lack of funds and difficulty recruiting 14 qualified personnel. Community resistance to a minimum security institution also contributes to the delay in opening the facility.

1968 Governor Louie B. Nunn make an unannounced inspection of KSP. Problems found include overcrowding; lack of special facilities for inmates with mental handicaps; shortage of Correctional Officers; and outdated hospital; and absence of a prison psychiatrist.

1969 800 inmates are involved in a race riot at the Kentucky State Reformatory.

1971 There are 20 escapes from the Kentucky State Reformatory

1971 Average turnover for Correctional Officers is seven months; treatment staff 1.75 years; and administration 2.9 years.

1972 Five inmates hold three employees hostage in the hospital pharmacy at KSP. After eighteen hours of negotiating the hostages are released.

1972 At the Kentucky State Reformatory a racial disturbance last 8 days.

1972-1975 At KSP there are ten inmate suicides; nine murders; and five accidental deaths.

1973 Charles J. Holmes newly appointed Commissioner of Corrections, states one of his objectives is to tear down KSP and replace it with a more humane institution.

1973 Harlen Country Forestry Camp opens. It closes in 1981 for financial reasons.

1973 The number of inmates at KSP drops below 1000 for the first time since 1944. Reasons given for the drop include; assignment of more prisoners to the new pre-release center at Blackburn Correctional Complex; fewer transfers from KSR which had declined in population to 1500 inmates; shifting more inmates to work details in Frankfort (a project formerly handled by KSR).

1973 Five inmates use a pocket knife to hold a Correctional Officer hostage at KSP.

1973 At KSP three inmates take a Correctional Officer, a prison canteen employee, and two inmates hostage in the canteen.

1976 Roederer Farm Center, Frankfort Career Development Center, and Daniel Boone Development Center opens to ease overcrowding. In 1981 DBDC closes to save money.

1976 Honor Unit at KSR is the first living unit to be racially integrated.

1977 KSR hires females for Correctional Officers and Classification and Treatment Officer positions.

1980 After 4 years of litigation, inmates and correctional officials settle a KSP/KSR class action suit. Settlement includes de-population of both institutions, pay raises for staff, extensive construction and renovation, and changes in the classification system. Improvement mandated by this settlement are expected to cost $40 million.

1980 Three KSR inmates, being transported on a Corrections bus from KSR to KSP on the Western Kentucky Parkway, overpowered one of the transportation officers and take his gun. KSP Correctional Officers Buck Owens and Sidney McDaniels subsequently were shot and critically injured and left at the roadside. One inmate, John Batovsky escaped on foot. Another of the three escapees began driving the bus. A chase lead to a crash on the parkway that injured several inmates, some severely. The two escapees took off running. Both were caught within 72 hours. Batovsky died in Florida in 1995 without ever being caught.

1981 Kentucky has a higher percentage of women correctional officers 8% than any other state.

1981 Inmate William Woolum stabs Inmate Lester Rhodes 52 times on the Yard.

1982 Inmate Billy Teeters dies from multiple stab wounds during basketball game in the Gym.

1982 Kentucky State Penitentiary is accredited by the American Correctional Association.

1983 Inmate Benjamin Higgins dies from multiple stab wounds.

1983 Renovations in #5 Cellhouse are completed.

1984 At KSP, Pat Ross, Food Service Instructor is killed by an inmate.

1986 The Parole Board is expanded from five members to seven.

1986 Lt. Governor Steve Beshear calls for the abolition of parole.

1986 House Labor and Industry Committee approves a bill making correctional employees who are in direct contact with inmates eligible for hazardous duty retirement benefits. Police officers, firefighters, and Probation and Parole officers already have this benefit and are eligible to retire after 20 years of service. The legislature turns this proposal down.

1986 On May 8, at Western Kentucky Farm Center, Charles Fred Cash, Farm Supervisor is murdered by an inmate.

1986 In June at KSP, 500 inmates refuse to eat meals during the weekend. The following morning after breakfast approximately 150 inmates refuse to leave the yard and begin throwing billiards balls and other objects at wall towers. Inmates break into the law library, and set it afire and ransack the classification and treatment building. The KSP Emergency Squad quails the disturbance within two hours.

1986 In compliance with a 1980 Federal Court Consent Decree, cellhouses #1 and #2 at KSP are closed. Inmates are moved to Cellhouse #6, a six million dollar facility built on the site of the old garment factory.

1988 Eight (8) inmates escape from #3 Cellhouse. Three (3) are caught a few days later within a few miles of the Penitentiary. Two (2) are caught later in Taylor County, Ky. The final three (3) murder and rob a elderly couple in Dover, Tenn. They flee to Mexico and are later extradited by Mexican officials, convicted in Tenn of Capital Murder and are now on Death Row in Tennessee.

1989 Inmate David Buckner is killed by Inmate Frankie Covington by blows to the head in the Recreation Shop with a weight bar.

1990 Correctional employees who are in direct contact with inmates are eligible for hazardous duty retirement benefits

1992 Inmate Paul McBurney killed by Inmate George Stidham at the weight pile area with a weight bar by blows to the head.

1992 Consent Decree is lifted from the Kentucky State Penitentiary.

1993 Warden Seabold leaves as Warden of the Kentucky State Penitentiary

1993 Warden Philip W. Parker is appointed Warden at the Kentucky State Penitentiary.

1993 All free weights are removed from the yard at the Penitentiary. They are replaced with

Universal Machines.

1993 Bill Buchanan, son to Former KSP Warden Jess Buchanan, authors "Execution Eve". A book dealing with the Penitentiary and the executions carried out during his father’s administration at the Penitentiary

1994 Circuit Judge Bill Cunningham authors "Castle". A book dealing with the Penitentiary and the Four Day Siege in 1923.

1995 The movie "Last Dance" starring Sharon Stone, Randy Quaid, and Rob Morrow was filmed partially at the Penitentiary.

1997 On July 1, 1997, Inmate Harold McQueen becomes the first person to die in Kentucky’s Electric Chair since 1962.

1998 In March 1998, Execution Law changed in Ky to lethal injection.

1999 May 25, 1999, Inmate Eddy Harper the 1st inmate executed by lethal injection.

Kentucky State Penitentiary

Execution Statistics

RACIAL PERCENTAGES 51% White

49% Black

COUNTY OF CONVICTION

Jefferson 29%

Fayette 9%

Christian 4%

OTHER 58%

CRIME

Murder 77%

Wilful Murder 14%

Rape 4%

Armed Robbery 3%

Criminal Assault 2%

TOTAL EXECUTED BY DECADE

1910's 30

1920's 34

1930's 47

1940's 34

1950's 16

1960's 1

1990's 1

TOTAL EXECUTED 164

TOTAL CURRENTLY ON DEATH ROW 39

CORRECTIONS FACTS

* In 1996, 2,617 inmates were released from Kentucky prisons by Expiration of their sentence; 2,613 by Parole; 14 released to other agencies, and 984 by other methods.

* In 1996 inmates in the Kentucky Prison System filed 870 lawsuits.

* In 1996 510 inmates in Kentucky were in mental health programs; and 650 in Sex Offender Programs.

* On January 1, 1997, 3,293 persons were employed by Kentucky Corrections.

* On January 1, 1997; 1,455 Correctional Officers were employed by Kentucky Corrections. Of those Correctional Officers 80.8% were Male and 19.2% were Female.

* The average length of probationary time for a new Correctional Officer in Kentucky is 6 months. The longest reported period in the United States is 12 months and the shortest is 0 months in Rhode Island.

* During 1996; 393 Correctional employees left Kentucky Corrections; 339 of these were Correctional Officers. For a Correctional Officer turn-over rate of 23.0%. Kentucky ranked 6th in highest overall Correctional Officer turnover rate. South Dakota was highest with 36%. Rhode Island and Hawaii were tied at lowest with 4% turnover rate. The average Correctional Officer turn-over rate for the nation was 12.9%.

* In Kentucky new correctional officer must complete 120 hours of pre-service training and 40 hours of annual training.

SHOCK INCARCERATION BOOT CAMP 51

COMMUNITY SERVICE CENTERS 524

CLASS D 1971

TOTAL COMMUNITY SERVICE CENTERS 2546

TOTAL CONTROLLED INTAKE 1002

TOTAL INMATE POPULATION 14,305

CORRECTIONS FACTS

* In 1992 1,357 inmates were released from Kentucky prisons by Expiration of their sentence; 2,693 by Parole; and 24 by other methods.

* In 1992 inmates in the Kentucky Prison System filed 272 lawsuits.

* In 1992 484 inmates in Kentucky were in mental health programs; and 473 in Sex Offender Programs.

* On January 1, 1993; 2, 948 persons were employed by Kentucky Corrections.

* On January 1, 1993; 1,366 Correctional Officers were employed by Kentucky Corrections. Of those Correctional Officers 1,119 were Male and 247 were Female.

* The average length of probationary time for a new Correctional Officer in Kentucky is 6 months. The longest reported period in the United States is 13 months and the shortest is 4 months.

* In 1992 the entry level starting salary for a correctional officer was $13,668. The only states with a lower starting salary was Rhode Island at $13,000 and the officers increase to $23,337 after 6 weeks training; and Utah at $13,363 and their officers increase to $16,620 after training. The nation’s agency average starting salary was $18,374, increasing to $19,538 at the completion of pre-service training, $20,440 after completing the probationary period, and reaching an average maximum salary of $29,684. Kentucky Correctional Officer’s salaries increase to $14,352 after 6 months.

* In Kentucky new correctional officer must complete 120 hours of pre-service training and 40 hours of annual training.

* In 1996 there were 125 assaults committed by inmates against staff members in Kentucky, 59 of which required medical attention. Only 14 of the inmates who committed these assaults were referred for prosecution.