Glades Correctional Institution, Former state correctional facility near Belle Glade, Florida.
Glades Correctional Institution was a state prison on flat agricultural land between the towns of Belle Glade and Pahokee in South Florida, just south of Lake Okeechobee. The site included residential barracks, administrative buildings, and open fields where inmates took part in labor programs.
The facility opened in 1932 as an agricultural colony managed by the state of Florida and gradually grew into one of the state's main correctional institutions. It closed in 2011 and was later demolished in 2021.
The prison sat in the heart of sugarcane country, a landscape that has defined life around Lake Okeechobee for generations. The surrounding fields were worked by inmates as part of a labor program that tied the facility directly to the local agricultural economy.
The site no longer exists as a prison and is not open to visitors, since the buildings were torn down in 2021 and the land has since been converted for industrial use. Anyone interested in its history can look into local archives or records held by nearby communities.
In 1995, six inmates escaped by digging a tunnel under the prison walls while construction work was going on nearby. The noise and activity from the ongoing work helped cover their digging for long enough to complete the passage.
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