Budget Cuts Force Return Of 248 Inmates

Thu., Jan. 29, 1998

From Staff And Wire Reports

Faced with a $1.5 million cut in its budget for housing inmates out of state and in county jails, the Idaho Department of Correction said Wednesday it will bring back 248 of the 448 Idaho inmates being held in Texas and Minnesota prisons.

Plans call for returning all 200 inmates from the Prairie Correctional Facility in Appleton, Minn., and 48 of the 248 inmates at the Frio County Detention Center in Pearsall, Texas, Correction Department spokesman Mark Carnopis said.

The transfers are expected to be completed by early March and will force the agency to begin filling up the newly opened 536-bed addition at the Idaho State Correctional Institution south of Boise. Carnopis said about 380 beds are still open at the new facility after most of the 159 Idaho inmates who were returned from a private prison in Louisiana recently were moved there.

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