The Montana Department of Corrections announced Wednesday it will close by Oct. 9 the Riverside Recovery and Reentry Program, where a trauma-informed rehabilitation program is currently available to incarcerated women, and convert the Riverside Correctional Facility in Boulder to a “special-needs unit” that will serve 21 sick male state prison inmates currently housed in the Lewistown Infirmary.
The DOC announced plans to close the Lewistown infirmary, which is a secure wing of the Montana Mental Health Nursing Care Center, in June.
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At the time, there were 23 inmates at the infirmary, 13 of whom were potentially eligible for medical parole. The department also said that three of the remaining inmates would complete their sentences and be discharged in the coming months. The remaining seven inmates were not eligible for parole and would be transferred to Montana State Prison, where staff in the Clinical Services Division would develop plans to meet the offenders’ medical and mental health needs.
In a press release issued Wednesday, however, the department said that it was “unable to find alternate placement for most of the (Lewistown) inmates.” The release did not elaborate about what barriers the department encountered in the process of moving the 21 inmates set to go to Boulder.
As for the women who will be displaced from Riverside, Judy Beck, the DOC’s director of communications, said Wednesday that where they go will be “based on their individual needs and risk assessments.”
Those who have “substantially completed their treatment at Riverside and are ready to be released” will go to a conditional release status or, if they were at Riverside as a probationer, will return to probation status, Beck said. Others will go to prerelease centers in the state. Before leaving Riverside, Beck said, a chemical dependency counselor will recommend aftercare with a community-based provider who will provide mental health treatment, chemical dependency treatment, or both.
According to Beck, those who “need residential in-patient treatment” will be referred to the Elkhorn Treatment Center, which is located virtually across the street from Riverside and which offers a nine-month treatment program as an alternative to incarceration for female offenders. Since the start of the year, Elkhorn has seen a steep decline in its resident population, suggesting it has capacity to accommodate women from Riverside.
In addition, Beck says, “there are a few (residents) who are very new” to the Riverside program who will be sent to the Passages Assessment, Sanction and Revocation Center in Billings where their needs will be re-assessed and they will be reassigned within the correctional system.
In a quote attributed to DOC Director Reginald D. Michael, the press release issued Wednesday said the “decision to close the Lewistown facility and repurpose our Riverside Correctional Facility was driven by our current budget deficit and operational needs.”
The department closed the Lewistown facility as part of absorbing a $10.7 million budget cut that came out of a special session of the Legislature last November. The closure was expected to save $2.7 million, with $2 million coming from ending a contract with the state health department, plus pharmaceutical and medical costs, plus another $670,727 in staff reductions.
The state cut more than $76 million across all agencies last fall as part of an anticipated $227 million hole in the budget caused by declining revenues and the most expensive fire season in Montana’s history.
In September, the state announced revenues came in higher than the most dire situation anticipated, and at a level sufficient to trigger a bill also passed during the special session that built back some agency funding.
As part of that restoration, the Department of Corrections received $2.4 million, with the funding set to go toward mitigating additional anticipated spending in the coming fiscal year. The money was directed toward administrative support services and the Clinical Services Division, though more detail on how it would be spent was not provided.
The secure Lewistown infirmary employed nine security personnel, while Riverside has 26 full-time employees. Three of Riverside's 26 positions will be eliminated as part of the restructuring. The other 23 employees will “be retained with possible position transfers to other correctional facilities,” according to Wednesday’s release.
