Riverbend Maximum Security Institution

The Riverbend Maximum Security Institution (RMSI) is a prison in Nashville, Tennessee, operated by the Tennessee Department of Correction. The prison opened in 1989 and replaced its 100-year-old neighbor, the Tennessee State Penitentiary. RMSI, which is made up by 20 different buildings, sits on 132 acre located off Cockrill Bend Boulevard in Nashville. Riverbend's designated capacity is 714 offenders. Of that number, 480 are classified as high risk.

The prison's overall mission is to ensure the safety of the public, departmental employees and inmates by managing high-risk male offenders. The Warden oversees a staff of nearly 400 people, including administrative workers, correctional officers, unit managers and medical personnel.

Education programs at the prison include GED and Adult Basic Education. There are also vocational classes available for printing, commercial cleaning, industrial maintenance, cabinet making/millwork and computer information systems. TRICOR, the prison industry, also manages a data entry plant and print shop at the prison. Inmates not involved in academic vocation, or industry programs are required to work in support service roles throughout the facility.

Male death row prisoners live at Riverbend. The state's electric chair and lethal injection gurney are located at Riverbend.

Notable prisoners

 * Sedley Alley – rapist and murderer; executed by lethal injection June 28, 2006
 * Cory Lamont Batey – rapist in Vanderbilt rape case
 * Letalvis Cobbins – convicted of the 2007 murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom
 * Robert Glen Coe – child rapist and murderer; executed by lethal injection April 19, 2000
 * Lemaricus Davidson – sentenced to death October 30, 2009, for the 2007 kidnapping, rape, torture and murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom
 * Daryl Holton – child murderer; executed by electrocution September 12, 2007
 * Billy Ray Irick – child rapist and murderer; executed by lethal injection August 9, 2018
 * Bruce Mendenhall – murderer and suspected serial killer
 * Paul Dennis Reid – murderer
 * Nicholas Todd Sutton – serial killer; executed by electrocution February 20, 2020
 * Philip Workman – murderer executed May 9, 2007
 * Edmund Zagorski – murderer executed by electrocution November 1, 2018
 * George Hyatte - convicted for the murder of Tennessee corrections transport officer Wayne “Cotton” Morgan after he pleaded guilty to a robbery charge and his wife, Jennifer Forsyth Hyatte, fatally shot the corrections officer at the Kingston Courthouse in Roane County, Tennessee on August 9, 2005. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole on March 9, 2009.
 * William Newkirk - Convicted murderer in 2018 Hogwild Saloon shooting in Kingsport Tennessee, pled guilty to second degree murder, attempted first degree murder and employing a firearm in a dangerous felony, was sentenced to 19 years on April 19th, 2024.