The Montana Department of Corrections last week issued a request for communities across the state to say whether they are interested in hosting a new women’s prison after months of discussions over where the facility should be built.
After the 2025 Legislature budgeted $250 million to build the future of Montana’s prison system, including a new women’s prison, DOC officials have been trying to identify a site, as projections show there will be hundreds of additional female inmates in Montana in the coming decades. But they have received some pushback from locals in several areas of Montana who are hesitant to host such a facility.
The department’s Request for Information went out on Sept. 10 seeking feedback from local municipalities through Oct. 15 on whether they would like to commit to be an option to host the prison.
In a statement Tuesday, DOC Director Brian Gootkin called the effort to build out a new women’s prison a “generational opportunity” and said the Request for Information would let the department know where there is interest locally.
He told the interim public safety budget committee Tuesday the department had already started getting information back from local jurisdictions just days after the request went out.
The request makes clear that it is only for information gathering and will not result in a contract. It asks respondents if they feel the state has identified all of its needs for the project, what might be missing, potential risks for such a project and suggestions how to minimize them, and an estimated timeframe and price range if the project were to be built in any certain location. It also asks about the local workforce available and whether there is any land vacant for such a project.
According to the state’s prison facility dashboard, the Montana Women’s Prison in Billings was close to its 250-person capacity on Tuesday, at 242, and the new auxiliary 50-inmate Riverside Facility for women in Boulder, which might one day house multi-generation tiny homes for prisoners, was full. There were also 41 additional women in jail awaiting transfer to prison.
Gootkin said in March, while the money was still in the process of being appropriated, that the department was considering sites in Butte, Yellowstone County, Anaconda-Deer Lodge County and Jefferson County for the future prison.
By May, Butte officials were saying that it’s possible the DOC could utilize 25 acres of land the department already owns in Butte and pair it with 23 nearby acres being freed up by a Highlands College move to build the prison. But the department had made no formal commitments, and the Montana Standard reported opposition from local residents and some county commissioners to such a plan.
That same month, the department moved 50 inmates from the Montana Women’s Prison in Billings to a site in Boulder retrofitted through the same funding package legislators passed the future prison funding. Gov. Greg Gianforte and Gootkin toured that site last month, and Gootkin said the facility had the space to add another 50 beds for female inmates.
At least one Jefferson County commissioner told the Montana State News Bureau last month the town is happy with the prospect of adding more prison capacity there to bring more jobs into the area.
But Gootkin also said during the Boulder tour that prison officials expect to need another 300 beds for women in the future on top of those because they believe the female prison population in Montana will continue to rise. He has said drug-related convictions are large part of the reason for the projected increase.
A presentation given to the public safety budget interim committee Tuesday showed the actual female prison population has outpaced projections for the past two years.
Gootkin said during the same meeting that not all the $250 million is meant for the women’s prison, though that is a “huge part of it.” He said $4 million is going toward evaluating options for the state’s overall prison population, including hiring architects to evaluate sites and make design or renovation plans.
“We want to be transparent and we want to make it open to anyone, but it has to fit specific guidelines because obviously we don’t want to put [the prison] in a place where it’s going to fail,” Gootkin told lawmakers. “For instance, workforce, infrastructure are the things that we need in order for it to succeed.”
He also said the state hopes to house generations of female prisoners together at Riverside eventually to reduce generational trauma.
“We have over 200 acres where … we’re looking at building tiny houses and having the women reunited with their children before they’re released. Going through trauma, going through parenting classes, trying to set them up for success to break that generational curse,” he said. “So, again, that’s how important that campus is.”
Blair Miller is the editor for the Montana State News Bureau. Prior to that, he was a reporter at the Daily Montanan and a digital reporter, editor and photojournalist at TV news outlets in Denver, Albuquerque and mid-Missouri.
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