BOSTON – Massachusetts is planning to shutter MCI-Concord , the state’s oldest prison for men, as it continues to see a drop in the prison population statewide.
Closing the medium security facility, which opened in 1878, will save the state about $16 million a year according to a $58 billion budget plan Gov. Maura Healey unveiled Wednesday.
“It also reflects the fact that our prison population has declined. It’s at the lowest point it has been in 35 years,” Healey said. “It’s a matter of justice too.”
The prison is only at about half-capacity and would need extensive repairs if it were kept open, said state Sen. Jamie Eldridge, Democratic co-chair of the Joint Committee on the Judiciary. The approximately 400 prisoners still at the facility will be sent to other prisons.
The prison could be closed as early as June, said Eldridge, who credited the declining number of inmates in part to efforts by the state to reduce recidivism.