District of Columbia Corrections System

The District of Columbia Department of Corrections

The District of Columbia Department of Corrections (DCDC) was founded in 1946. It is an independent agency within the District of Columbia government, with a director appointed by the mayor. It supervises confinement for the city's pretrial detainees and the misdemeanants. DCDC is also responsible for running the city-owned halfway house.

The District of Columbia Jail System

Two facilities, controlled by separate administrations, currently serve as jails for the District of Columbia: the Central Detention Facility and the Central Treatment Facility. They are located next to each other, and in fact are physically connected by a bridge. Transfer from one jail to the other is often referred to by both inmates and staff members as “going across the bridge.”

The Central Detention Facility is commonly called the DC Jail. It is run directly by the DCDC. Opened in 1976, it was built to house up to 2,200 inmates. Until 2002, the jail population was limited by a court order to a population of 1,674. Since that court order was lifted, it now houses an average population of more than 2,000 people.

The Central Treatment Facility (called CTF) was originally built to serve as an intensive medical and drug treatment facility for the District of Columbia's prison system. It opened in 1992. In 1997, the city signed a 20-year contact with Corrections Corporation of America to administer the day-to-day functions of the CTF. It is built to house a maximum of 898 inmates and houses an average of 800 people per day.

Composition of the DC Department of Corrections Population

According to publicly released DCDC statistics, almost 85% of the District's inmates are African American men. African American women make up the next largest group, comprising 8.5% of the [Page 249]population. Hispanic men are 2.8% of the population and Hispanic women, 0.2%. The rest of the inmate population in DC is made of people who are Asian, white, or other racial groups. Broken down by gender, men constitute 91% of the DC corrections population and women are the other 9%.

Prisons for Inmates from the District of Columbia

Historically, the District's 3,000-acre prison complex was located in Lorton, Virginia. In 1997, Congress passed the National Capital Revitalization and Self-Government Improvement Act to correct the serious financial difficulties facing the city. Congress wanted to address unfunded liabilities in the city's pension programs and other budgetary problems and refine the city's court system.

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