The facility first opened in 1992, has a mix of security levels including community, minimum, medium, and close, and has a capacity of 1427 inmates.

[1] The Columbia Annex opened in October 2004 and holds another 1,566 inmates at the same security levels.

In March 2012 a Columbia correctional officer sergeant named Ruben Thomas was stabbed to death by an inmate.

[3] In April 2016 a correctional officer received stab wounds from a prisoner, and the next morning a schizophrenic inmate being held in protective custody was found dead.

[4] In 2016 Florida state representative David Richardson came to tour the prison, visiting initially on November 23 of that year.