On Sept. 17, the House Bill 5 Select Committee on Correctional System Capacity held its final meeting where it adopted its final report and recommendations. The report now goes to the Law and Justice Interim Committee and to the Governor for their consideration.
The Select Committee was created by the 2023 Legislature and directed to study capacity issues in the state’s Correctional System and provide recommendations to address problems.
Montana’s Correctional System is completely full with both state owned and contracted facilities operating at or above their designed capacity. To provide additional inmate space, the state entered into a contract with CoreCivic Corporation, a private company which operates prisons across the country, to house 240 inmates in a prison located near Eloy, Arizona. The effect of those inmate transfers was very short-lived as the number of convicted inmates sentenced to the Department of Corrections (DOC) has steadily increased. In addition, at any given time, there are between 450-500 inmates sentenced to DOC being held in county jails because there is no room in the State Prison System.
Although there was a minor downward turn in prison admissions during the covid-19 pandemic, the state’s inmate population has steadily increased since 2000 and by 2034, it is projected the state will need additional capacity for 500 more male and 100 more female inmates.
After reviewing a number of alternatives for adding capacity, the Select Committee recommended the construction of two more cell-blocks with a capacity for 512 inmates at Montana State Prison (MSP) in Deer Lodge. With the addition of a programming building and necessary water, sewer and electrical infrastructure, the proposed investment in MSP totals about $148 million and will create approximately 40 new jobs in Deer Lodge.
The women’s prison in Billings is now operating above capacity (i.e. 240 beds) and there is no realistic way of expanding the existing facility at its current site. A new women’s prison is needed but a stand-alone facility would cost between $311 and $450 million depending upon its size. In addition, finding a location for a new prison is difficult inasmuch as the citizenry, in general, opposes having correctional facilities in or near their neighborhoods.
Fortunately, Yellowstone County already has land for a new county detention center and the County and DOC have opened discussions regarding co-locating a new women’s prison on the same site. The concept envisions each party owning and operating their own housing units but sharing the cost of support facilities such as administrative offices and food and medical services.
The Select Committee recommended that the DOC negotiate a contract with Yellowstone County to accomplish the co-location concept and bring a final proposal to the 2025 Legislature.
The Committee also recommended that DOC work with CoreCivic and other interested parties to determine whether it would be feasible to construct a new women’s prison by contracting with a private entity to “build and lease” back a facility to the state, who would operate the prison. The “Build-Lease” approach has been successfully employed in other states and it appears to offer two distinct advantages over state construction.
First, it helps the state avoid the tremendous up-front cost of constructing a new women’s prison and, second, it offers the opportunity to build the facility in a faster and more timely way than would be the case if the project were constructed using the state’s procurement process.
The Department of Corrections is to bring one or more proposals of this type to the 2025 Legislature as well.
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