Minnesota officials are split over fix for crowded prisons

Minnesota is running out of places to put its prisoners.

With inmate ranks at the state’s 10 prisons already swollen beyond capacity, the Department of Corrections planned to seek $141 million this year to add space for 500 more prisoners at its Rush City facility. But Gov. Mark Dayton left the project out of his bonding proposal — effectively killing it, at least for now — and instead offered a more modest $8.5 million plan that would house less than a quarter of the roughly 560 inmate overflow.

Dayton said he wants to work with the department and lawmakers this year on a long-term strategy to reduce the state’s prison population, calling major building projects “a solution of the last resort.”

http://www.startribune.com/state-officials-split-over-fix-for-crowded-prisons/366645211/