Meet Vernon C. Bain Center, the World's Largest Prison Ship

When talking about a prison, everyone has in mind the same building model. However, few people know that there is a floating type of jail. This is the case with the Vernon C. Bain Correction Center, which is anchored outside the Bronx in Long Island Sound, New York. Nicknamed “The Boat” by staff and prisoners, it is known as the largest operating prison ship in the world, according to the Guinness Book.

The vessel was built because of overcrowding in New York City prisons in 1980. It is no different from conventional prisons throughout the United States and has evolved over the decades to better accommodate the different types of detainees in the US Department of Corrections. City. His name is a tribute to the prison director, who died in a car accident.

The barge has been in operation since 1992 and could become a model for other such projects, becoming very common even all over the world if it were not for the exorbitant values ​​needed to build such a prison system (more or less). $ 161 million). However, many New Yorkers do not even know of the existence of this ship.

The facilities

The ship is over 190 meters long by just over 38 meters wide, weighing approximately 47, 326 tons, and was installed directly in the water. Only in 2002 did the Coast Guard accept the fact that it was actually a prison, not a boat, according to the barge's first captain, John Klumpp.

It is equipped with 16 dormitories, 100 prison cells and 800 beds. In addition, it has a large infrastructure and a complete leisure center, with basketball court, gyms and an outdoor recreation space. The vessel also features three religious chapels, a modern medical center and a library for exclusive use.

The Vernon Story

The New York Department of Corrections faced a serious problem in the late 1980s: the prison population was growing and there was no room for new penitentiaries to be built, as New York neighborhoods were densely populated and had no chance of construction of this type of institution in residential places.

The idea of ​​prison ships was conceived during the administration of Mayor Edward I. Koch, and in 1988 two ships were purchased to serve as an installation. Construction of the boat began in 1989, but was delivered 18 months late and $ 35 million over budget due to problems with the work - which has yielded several negative reviews.

The vessel was built in New Orleans, and on January 26, 1992, it was brought in by tug Michael Turecamo on a 1, 800-nautical-mile voyage. First, employees worked on an empty ship to learn the operations; the prisoners were brought only at the end of that year.

In 1995, the prison ship was closed because of the shrinking prison population in the city. It even had a possibility of reopening in 1996, due to a campaign aimed at the arrest of drug traffickers. The ship was not reopened even in 1998 by the Department of Juvenile Justice, which rented the space.

At the time, there were more than 5, 000 13- to 18-year-olds in detention in New York, and the vessel was ready to take prisoners, so the center was used to help solve the space problem. However, this only lasted until January 2000, when they were moved elsewhere.

Escape Attempts

The fact that the prison was a ship did not prevent several attempts to escape the place. The first time was in 1993, when a 38-year-old prisoner escaped while officials were cleaning the parking lot ice. The guard who was responsible for the detainee was suspended for cause precisely because of the incident.

Even a 30-meter wall of barbed wire was climbed in 2002. Guards failed to climb behind the fugitive and threw basketballs at the man. He became unbalanced and dropped into the water from where he was taken by a police vessel and taken back to the scene.

In 2004, somehow, an inmate's girlfriend managed to get a handcuff key from the boy. He was able to remove the object and tried to escape by clinging to the landing gear of a prisoner bus shuttle. He even succeeded, but was captured almost a month later. Six officers and one captain received administrative leave because of this.

The last escape occurred in early 2013, when a man accused of a petty theft was able to successfully disentangle his handcuffs as soon as he arrived at the detention center. He even tried to escape, but was captured by the security guards and then had no way: went to the cell with the other prisoners.