HARRISBURG, Pa., Dec. 22 (UPI) -- Pennsylvania plans to relieve prison overcrowding by sending 2,000 inmates to Virginia and Michigan officials say.
The state Department of Corrections announced the plan Monday, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. Officials said 1,000 inmates will be transferred to the now-empty Muskegon Prison in Michigan and 1,000 to the Green Rock Prison in Chatham, Va., in February.
The cost of the transfer is estimated at $124,000 a day for three years or $135 million. But Susan McNaughton, a Corrections spokeswoman, said housing the inmates in Pennsylvania would cost roughly the same.
Inmates to be transferred will have at least three years left on their sentences and have no major health problems, physical or mental, McNaughton said. The department also plans to select prisoners who get few or no visitors.
Don McNany, president of the State Corrections Officers Association, said the system will still be 6,000 inmates beyond its capacity after the transfer, which he called a Band-Aid.
Pennsylvania plans to build four prisons in the next few years. It has already reopened a Pittsburgh prison that had been closed and may reopen another one in Greene County in the state's southwest corner.
