Taconic Correctional Facility
Location
Taconic is located in Westchester County, approximately fifty miles north of New York City. It lies across the street from the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, a New York State maximum security women's prison. Despite having a Bedford Hills postal address, the prison lies just outside of the Bedford Hills census-designated place. Compared to most New York State prisons, Taconic and Bedford Hills are relatively accessible by public transportation: Metro North Railroad's Harlem line has station stops about 1.5 miles away, and the Westchester County bus system serves the area.
History
The facility opened in 1901 as the New York State Reformatory for Women for those ages 15 to 30. Its first director was Katherine Bement Davis, a progressive politician, prison reformer, and the first woman to earn a PhD in Economics/Political Science at the University of Chicago.
The Department of Corrections took over the administration of the reformatory in 1926, and in 1933 it was merged it with the newly opened Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women. For the next four decades, the reformatory operated as part of Bedford Hills, still the state's only maximum-security prison for females.
In 1973, Taconic began operations as an autonomous medium-security prison. During 1971 and 1972, Bedford Hills was a correctional facility with separate male and female units. In 1973 the male inmates were transferred before the unit closed in June; the unit reopened in December as the Taconic Correctional Facility.
A cemetery on the prison's grounds has been in use since the 1920s, with about 100 graves, most of them infants and women who died at the facility. The graveyard has marked areas for Christian, Jewish and Muslim decedents. The most recent burials, in the 2010s, were for men who died while incarcerated at prisons where the graveyards had no more space for burials.
