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Union official: Mass. considering closing four prisons

E-mail|Link|Comments () September 10, 2009 04:18 PM

By Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff

The Patrick administration is considering closing four prison facilities to save as much as $98 million, according to the head of the union that represents about 4,500 correction officers, who met with the head of the prison system today.

Steve Kenneway, president of the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union, said that Harold W. Clarke, the commissioner of the Department of Correction, also informed him that the state is considering laying off 300 employees, which Kenneway assumed meant correction officers. The administration plans to make a decision on closings and layoffs after it gets a better handle on projected state revenues next month.

"Obviously, we're stunned that the fiscal situation is so egregious that we may be looking at the closure of several facilities in Massachusetts," said Kenneway. "We believe that public safety is a core mission for Massachusetts government. Period. We can't let bad people out on the street."

Kenneway said Clarke discussed the possible closings at the monthly meeting in Milford between the union's executive board and top prison managers. He said Clarke's comments came the day after Ronald Duval, a deputy commissioner, called him with other bad news: the state's fiscal crisis was forcing the department to cancel in-service training for correction officers and to delay indefinitely the training of a class of 150 correction officer recruits, which was supposed to start next month.

The prison system also plans to close the Massachusetts Alcohol and Substance Abuse Center in Bridgewater on Nov. 6 and transfer people civilly committed there by the courts to other state facilities, Diane Wiffin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Correction, said today.

The closing will mean that about 100 individuals who are undergoing detoxification and receiving counseling will go to facilities run by the state Department of Public Health, she said.

Wiffin said she did not know how much money the state will save by closing the center. But she said the prison system has no plans to close any prisons.

"We're looking at fiscal 2011 now, and it's too early to project what that could mean," she said.

Kenneway said his union was aware in July that the state planned to close the alcohol and substance abuse center.

He said he was so startled by Clarke's comments about possibly closing four facilities, that he was not sure whether the substance abuse center was among them or in addition to them.

He said Clarke told him the prison system expects the government to cut $35 million from its budget in fiscal 2010 and as much as $63 million more in fiscal 2011, depending on the revenue picture.

"Nothing is etched in stone," he said.

Kenneway's union has strongly opposed previous steps Clarke has taken to deal with a rising prison population, including double-bunking inmates at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley earlier this year. If four prisons closed, he said, that would result in either more double-bunking or the release of inmates onto the streets.

"There's no place left to put inmates," he said. "They're going to force-feed a reentry program that clearly wasn't supposed to be a reentry program."