The Massachusetts Department of Correction announced on Jan. 24 its plans to close the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Concord, a medium-security men’s prison, by summer 2024, falling in line with Gov. Maura Healey’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget recommendation.
Officials cited the state’s lowest prison population in the past 35 years and potential savings of over $200 million in operating, maintenance and capital project costs as reasons for the closure, per a press release. MCI-Concord — Massachusetts’ oldest men’s correctional facility — currently holds about 300 men, operating at just 50% capacity.
Those statistics made the closure far from a shock to Mass. Rep. Simon Cataldo, whose district includes MCI-Concord.
“This was a smart move on a fiscal level and in terms of managing our population of inmates in Massachusetts, and I hope that we see more closures in the future as incarceration rates continue to go down,” Cataldo said.
But capacity and costs are likely not the only reasons behind the shutdown.