World Prisons
All prisons

United States

Deer Island Prison

Low
Verified 29 May 2026
Fresh · 1d ago

Data is aggregated from public sources and may be incomplete or out of date. Always verify with primary sources before acting on any figure. See data sources.

For families

How to send mail, money, and visit Deer Island Prison

Step-by-step guidance using the United States system — addresses, money services, visit booking, what to bring on your first visit.

Open toolkit
Photograph of Deer Island Prison

Gallery

From Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA where not otherwise stated).

  • 1883 DeerIsland prison Boston Nov3 FrankLesliesIllustratedNewspaper p165.png

    Photo by Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

  • 1884 DeerIsland1 Boston FrankLeslie SundayMagazine v15 no3.png

    Photo by Frank Leslie's Sunday Magazine via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

  • 1884 DeerIsland10 Boston FrankLeslie SundayMagazine v15 no3.png

    Photo by Frank Leslie's Sunday Magazine via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

  • 1884 DeerIsland2 Boston FrankLeslie SundayMagazine v15 no3.png

    Photo by Frank Leslie's Sunday Magazine via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

  • 1884 DeerIsland3 Boston FrankLeslie SundayMagazine v15 no3.png

    Photo by Frank Leslie's Sunday Magazine via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

  • 1884 DeerIsland4 Boston FrankLeslie SundayMagazine v15 no3.png

    Photo by Frank Leslie's Sunday Magazine via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

  • 1884 DeerIsland5 Boston FrankLeslie SundayMagazine v15 no3.png

    Photo by Frank Leslie's Sunday Magazine via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

  • 1884 DeerIsland6 Boston FrankLeslie SundayMagazine v15 no3.png

    Photo by Frank Leslie's Sunday Magazine via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

Background

The Deer Island Prison (c. 1880–1991) in Suffolk County, Massachusetts was located on Deer Island in Boston Harbor. Once known as the Deer Island House of Industry and later, House of Correction, it held people convicted of drunkenness, illegal possession of drugs, disorderly conduct, larceny, and other crimes subject to relatively short-term sentencing. When it closed in 1991, some 1,500 inmates were being held at Deer Island.

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

Capacity

—

Current population

—

Occupancy

—

Year opened

—

Operational

Facility profile

Operator

—

Population held

Mixed/unknown

Opened

—

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

No public contact details available.

Conditions Risk Score

Derived signal — not a judgement. How it's calculated

—
Insufficient data
We don't have enough public data on this facility to score it. Have something to add? Send us a correction.

Data completeness

16%

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

Sources