CONCORD – MCI-Concord , the oldest men’s prison in Massachusetts, is closing.
The Department of Correction said the medium-security prison currently has about 300 inmates and is operating at 50-percent capacity.
Correctional officers and inmates will be transferred to other prisons by this summer.
A department spokesperson said Massachusetts currently has its lowest prison population in 35 years.
State Senator Jamie Eldridge said the move will save Massachusetts about $15 million a year in operating costs. The senator said that’s the same amount the state saved last year when it closed MCI-Cedar Junction in Walpole.
“Given the declining number of incarcerated people in state prisons, the challenges of providing modern education, programming and re-entry support to incarcerated people in aging buildings, and the state’s fiscal challenges, this is a common sense decision that strikes yet another blow in the criminal justice reform movement to end mass incarceration,” Eldridge said in a statement .