“This closing will no doubt place our officers throughout the Commonwealth in grave danger,” the correction officers union warned.
Correction officers are urging Gov. Maura Healey to press pause on plans to close MCI-Concord, a move they say could strain the state’s other prisons and put officers and inmates at risk.
Healey’s administration announced earlier this week that MCI-Concord, Massachusetts’s oldest men’s prison, will close by this summer amid a decline in the state prison population. MCI-Concord is currently operating at 50% capacity with a population of about 300 inmates.
In a Wednesday press release, the state’s Department of Correction predicted that closing the prison will save nearly $16 million in operating costs and negate the need for $190 million in capital projects and deferred maintenance at the facility, which opened in 1878.
“The strategic consolidation of resources eliminates redundancies and empowers us to enhance efficiency and ensure a more effective and impactful correctional system for our incarcerated population, the people who work there, and the community,” DOC Commissioner Carol Mici said in a statement Wednesday.