By Seaborn Larson
Billings Gazette, Mont.
BILLINGS, Mont. — Montana will no longer send inmates to a private prison in Arizona, opting instead to consolidate all 600 out-of-state inmates to a facility in Mississippi operated by the same company.
Montana Department of Corrections Communications Director Carolynn Stocker said Monday the decision was made to “provide greater consistency for Montana inmates being held in out-of-state facilities relative to services and opportunities including jobs, programming, etc.”
She added the state would be better able to leverage its out-of-state contracts by concentrating inmates in one location. The decision was made earlier this month, Stocker said.
“In all, 600 inmates are in out-of-state prisons, 360 of which are in Saguaro and 240 in Tallahatchie,” Stocker said. “The use of out-of-state adult male prison beds is necessary due to severe overcrowding at secure facilities in Montana. The safety and security of our staff and the people under our care are a top priority for the DOC and contracting out-of-state beds was the most effective way to address this problem.”
Prison officials began sending inmates to the Saguaro Correctional Center in 2023 at the direction of the state Legislature as a relief valve to overcrowding that extended into county jails. The state’s contract with private prison operator CoreCivic, which also manages a 750-bed facility outside of Shelby, has grown several times, eventually to include the company’s Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Mississippi.
The Tallahatchie prison is a medium-security facility and houses inmates from Montana, Vermont, Wyoming and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The transfer of Arizona inmates to Mississippi has not yet begun. The DOC’s inmate population dashboard showed that, as of Sunday, 362 inmates remained at the Saguaro prison.
Stocker said the department does not comment on the timing of inmate transfers due to security reasons.
Nearly one-in-five male inmates in state custody are held in an out-of-state prison run by CoreCivic. Including the Crossroads Correctional Center outside of Shelby, about 45% of all male inmates are held at a CoreCivic prison.
Recently named DOC Director Eric Strauss earlier this month doubled down on the department’s plan to return all out-of-state inmates back to Montana.
The department is fully underway on a massive expansion project at Montana State Prison outside of Deer Lodge with construction of five units that will had 1,280 new beds to the 1,500-bed institution.
Construction at MSP is estimated for completion in January 2029.
Montana’s use of out-of-state beds does not extend to its female inmates, although overcrowding issues persist with that population, too. The department has been working to identify a location for a new women’s prison.
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