CCA to Close 1,600-bed Minnesota Prison

APPLETON, Minn. — Corrections Corporation of America will shutter the 1,600-bed Prairie Correctional Facility due in February to a sharp decline in contracted beds at the Minnesota facility.

Most recently, the Prairie facility housed state prison offenders from Minnesota and Washington. However, both states are experiencing excess capacity in their prison systems and have moved to cut the number of inmates housed at the Prairie facility, which currently houses only 200 offenders, all from Minnesota, by the close of 2009.

“We are disappointed to make the decision to close the Prairie Correctional Facility,” says Damon Hininger, president and CEO of CCA. “Unfortunately, without an inmate population large enough to significantly utilize the facility, maintaining operations at the Prairie facility isn’t economically viable,”

Corrections officials in Washington have already recalled all offenders from the Prairie facility.