Legislative fiscal and corrections officials outline prison capacity shortfall; House Bill 5 includes multiple DOC building and repair requests

Legislative Fiscal Division analyst Walker Hopkins told the joint subcommittees that Montana has seen large increases in its offender population since the COVID dip and presented projections used to justify multiple construction and repair requests in House Bill 5. Hopkins said the department's budget and capital needs are driven primarily by the number of convicted offenders who require secure beds and that increases in violent convictions often mean longer sentences and more pressure on prison capacity.

Hopkins walked the committee through historical average daily population data and the MARA forecasting model the LFD used, noting that the secure population has rebounded quickly since COVID. He said the state currently contracts beds out of state and cited contracted capacity in Arizona and Mississippi; later presenters and the director of corrections said the department currently had hundreds of inmates housed out of state and hundreds more backlogged in county jails.

Director Brian Goodkin (Department of Corrections) told the committee that the system has been “stressed for decades” and said House Bill 5's proposed capital package is intended to…