Corrections1 Staff
SACRAMENTO — The Associated Press is reporting that a drop in the number of California minimum-security inmates is allowing officials to end contracts with the companies that operate three private prisons.
The move will save the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation about $15 million a year. The private prisons in Baker, Bakersfield and McFarland once housed a total of 822 inmates.
“We just don’t have enough inmates to fill these kinds of beds,” said Dept of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman Terry Thornton in an interview with The Bakersfield Californian.
According to Monday’s announcement, California’s 13 community correctional facilities have more than 5,900 beds. But 1,200 of them are not currently used.
Much of the cause can be traced to recent parole reforms that have reduced the state’s on-parole population and, as a result, reduced the number of people who violate parole and are sent back to prison, Thornton said.
Inmates in both facilities will be moved to existing minimum-security state facilities.
Closing the three facilities will save the state $12.7 million in closed contracts and an additional $2.5 million in salaries of the 22 state workers who will be transferred or laid off because of the move, according to the announcement from the Department of Corrections.