Wyoming
Basic Facts About Prison and Wyoming
June 1, 2005 - 3:57pm| Number of Prisons | 4 prisons including an Honor Farm, a Boot Camp, and one women's prison holding just over 100 women. |
| Number of Prisoners | Wyoming reported 1,923 prisoners to the Bureau of Justice Statistics for its mid-year 2004 report. (Link goes directly to a PDF file on the BJS site.) |
| Women Prisoners | Number not available |
| State Population | 501,000 (based on latest figures from the US Census) |
| DOC Budget | Not reported on their website or through BJS |
| DOC website | http://doc.state.wy.us/corrections.asp There is very little statistical info or budget info, and no visiting info except for addresses of prisons. |
| Newspapers | The main newspaper that covers stories related to prisons and corrections policy is the Billings Gazette (MT). You can see a fairly complete list of Wyoming newspapers here. |
| WY stats | The University of Wyoming's Wyoming Survey and Analysis Center conducts some criminal justice research. |
WY: Smoke-free Prisons by July 1st
May 22, 2006 - 10:41am Nobody will be smoking in Wyoming prisons on July 1. The Department of Corrections adopted new rules for the men’s prisons (the women’s prison has been smoke-free for at least 5 years) that ban smoking by both prisoners and corrections officers in all prisons, offices, and transportation vehicles. “We’ve got a lot of grouchy, grumpy people at work, I’ll tell you, and it’s not just the inmates, either,” said one corrections officer at Wyoming State Penitentiary.
WY: Fourth Fastest Growing Prison Population – Why?
February 9, 2006 - 1:48pm Wyoming incarcerates a smaller number of people, (1,832 in 2003 including federal prisoners) than most states, but the state ranks fourth in the country for the fastest growing prison population. Wyoming’s prison population grew 7.8% between the end of 2002 and the end of 2003. Wyoming’s women’s prison population grew by 4.8% over the same period of time. During 2002 and 2003, the number of arrests decreased.
WY: Prison Budget Swelling
February 8, 2006 - 3:01pm In a recent hearing on the Wyoming Department of Corrections (DOC) budget, Wyoming Senator Jim Anderson asked DOC Director Bob Lampert about the letters he and other senators receive from incarcerated people describing lack of access to needed medicine. Lampert’s reply? “Our population tends to be drug seeking.”
The Joint Appropriations Committee is considering a $228.7 million request for the Wyoming Department of Corrections for the 2007-2008 biennium.
WY: What’s on your plate? Prison labor?
January 19, 2006 - 2:28pm The next bite of fish or mushroom you take might have been grown in a prison. Part of the multi-million dollar expansion of the women’s prison in Lusk, Wyoming, includes the construction of a fish farming facility that will grow tilapia. Live fish will be exported from the prison to Colorado for processing. Sixteen women and two guards will be employed by the project.
