A fixture on Indianapolis' eastside since 1872, the Indiana Women's Prison is about to house male inmates for the first time in its history...and the neighbors are unhappy.
In a response to a lack of additional funding for prison construction in the recently passed state budget, the Department of Corrections intends to move more than 400 female offenders from the maximum security prison on East New York Street to a state juvenile facility on the Westside. Then up to 700 men from the Plainfield Re-Entry Education Facility will be housed at IWP.
"These guys are either coming from mediums or low security facilities," said DOC spokesman Doug Garrison. "These men who are going over there are men who have been in our system for a long time who have earned their way to a lesser level of supervision."
The male offenders will all be within the last couple years of their sentences and are preparing to be released. Garrison said while 80% of the population will remain at the prison 24/7, 20% will be on a work release program and return to the facility at night.
"Its soon to be a work release which means people coming in and out whereas before if they went in, they stayed in," said community organizer Chip Gibson. "Is it okay to make the near eastside, "Escape From New York" where all the folks who have had trouble with the law are over here and everybody else is in the rest of the city?"
Garrison said the DOC intends to complete the inmate transfer by the fall.
In a response to a lack of additional funding for prison construction in the recently passed state budget, the Department of Corrections intends to move more than 400 female offenders from the maximum security prison on East New York Street to a state juvenile facility on the Westside. Then up to 700 men from the Plainfield Re-Entry Education Facility will be housed at IWP.
"These guys are either coming from mediums or low security facilities," said DOC spokesman Doug Garrison. "These men who are going over there are men who have been in our system for a long time who have earned their way to a lesser level of supervision."
The male offenders will all be within the last couple years of their sentences and are preparing to be released. Garrison said while 80% of the population will remain at the prison 24/7, 20% will be on a work release program and return to the facility at night.
"Its soon to be a work release which means people coming in and out whereas before if they went in, they stayed in," said community organizer Chip Gibson. "Is it okay to make the near eastside, "Escape From New York" where all the folks who have had trouble with the law are over here and everybody else is in the rest of the city?"
Garrison said the DOC intends to complete the inmate transfer by the fall.
