The prison was established on 11 January 1967. At the beginning, it was working under one roof with the Detention Center of Yunlin District Court. On 12 July 1972, the first phase of construction was completed at the current address at Xinnan Li, Huwei Township. The prison had its own office at the new address and was to be separated from the court. The prison was appointed to be the exclusive prison for drug offenders and was designed for acceptance of 572 persons.

  From 1982 onward, there was an increasing number of drug offenders directly resulting from the prosperous economy in Taiwan. To solve the over crowded prisons, the Ministry of Justice approved a special budget to expand the prison . Construction was started on October 19, 1985 and completed on September 19, 1986.

  The area of the prison is 4.405 hectares with 3.0212 hectares within the enclosure wall. Under the command of the Ministry of Justice commencing November 1, 2003, the prison accepted mainly male recidivist or repeat offenders serving less than a 10 year imprisonment term. The prison was to ac-commodate no more than 1,057 persons.