With the inmate population dropping, the state is planning to close its third prison in 18 months if Gov. Dannel Malloy's "Plan B'' budget cuts are approved.
The Donald T. Bergin Correctional Institution in Storrs would be closed, and the inmates would be sent to other prisons around the state, said Michael P. Lawlor, Malloy's chief budget supervisor on prison and criminal justice issues. The measure is a cost-cutting move that is made possible because the state's prison population has fallen to its lowest level in 10 years.
"It's one of the cheaper-to-run prisons,'' Lawlor told Capitol Watch on Wednesday afternoon. "There are no cells in there. Half is like a college dormitory with big, open rooms and bunk beds. It's a minimum-security prison.''
Bergin is known as a Level 2 facility on a scale that ranges up to 5 for the maximum-security, Super Max prison in Somers that houses death-row inmates and other violent criminals.
By contrast, the prisoners at Bergin are often those convicted of multiple drunken driving offenses and those nearing the end of their sentences.
Bergin had 931 inmates on January 1 and 218 state employees to run the facility. It is on the site of the former Mansfield Training School, which was ordered closed by then-Gov. Lowell P. Weicker, Jr. Formerly known as the Northeast Correctional Institution, the prison held 500 criminals in 1999 and then 650 in 2001 following an expansion.
If the "Plan B'' budget cuts are enacted, Bergin would be the third prison to close in about 18 months. The state has already closed Webster in Cheshire, as ordered by Gov. M. Jodi Rell. Malloy has already ordered the closure of Gates prison in Niantic on June 1.