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Buena Vista Correctional Facility

Low
Verified 28 May 2026
Fresh · 2d ago

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Background

The Buena Vista Correctional Facility, also known as Buena Vista Correctional Complex, is a state prison for men located in Buena Vista, Chaffee County, Colorado, owned and operated by the Colorado Department of Corrections. The facility opened as an adult prison in 1978, and houses 871 inmates at medium and close security levels, along with the 288-inmate Buena Vista Minimum Center, and another 100 minimum security inmates within the Colorado Correctional Alternative Program ("Boot Camp"). The Minimum security building is referred to as "The Mods" by the inmates, and the medium security facility is called "The Buildings." The prison is split into 6 Housing units A&O which is an Orientation unit that inmates are placed in when they first arrive to the prison. Segregation is the unit where inmates are placed for disciplinary actions, North Unit, Lower North Unit, East Unit and South Unit which houses the majority of the prisons active gang members and violent offenders. In the late 90s and Early 2000s "The Buildings was referred to as "Gladiator School" because most of Colorado's younger gang members were sent there.

Source: Wikipedia article lead, CC-BY-SA.

Capacity

Current population

Occupancy

Year opened

1892

Operational

Facility profile

Operator

Colorado Department of Corrections

Population held

Mixed/unknown

Opened

1892

Region

Security level

Death-row facility

No

Conditions

No conditions summary available yet.

Visiting

No visiting information available.

Mailing

No mailing information available.

Practical info

Contact the operator's website for inmate-specific procedures.

Known issues

No major issues documented in our database.

Contact & address

Conditions Risk Score

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Insufficient data
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Data completeness

24%

How many of our profile fields are populated. We surface this so families and researchers know the limits.

Sources