NEW PRISON: Staff Gets Virtual Look At Facility

Construction on Iowa’s new prison will be completed in a few months but staff and prisoners will have more than just new walls to get used to.

“The staff will be carrying around PDA’s that they can access our computer systems…open and close doors,” says John Baldwin with the Department of Corrections.

The new penitentiary at Fort Madison is a $130 million structure which will have 800 cells. It replaces the old prison build in 1839 — before Iowa was even a state. 

The new structure has areas which will allow inmates with good behavior to have more privileges.

Prison staff got a look at how everything would work through a virtual reality animation by Iowa State University’s C-6 center.

“We got to take staff into this C-6 Cyclone 3D model and we got to walk through in 3D terms what the prison would look like,” says Baldwin.

Once the penitentiary is completed, the staff will start training in the new complex.

Prisoners will be transferred sometime around January of 2014.