The Department of Corrections confirmed Tuesday that 280 Vermont inmates housed at private prisons located out of state have been transported to a prison in Michigan.
The news comes the day Vermont’s current contract with the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) is set to expire. It will be replaced by a new agreement with the GEO Group.
The 280 prisoners were transported by air in three groups. Twenty-eight inmates were transported from a higher security CCA facility in Arizona. The remainder had previously been housed at a prison in Beattyville, Kentucky.
All of Vermont’s out-of-state inmates will be housed in the same GEO Group prison in Baldwin, Michigan.
Earlier this month, the Michigan legislature approved a law to allow Vermont’s highest security prisoners to be held at the Lake County facility, which was originally constructed as a private prison in the 1990s to house the state’s violent juvenile offenders.
The new contract is for two years, with the option to extend it for two more. DOC Commissioner Andy Pallito previously said that he is optimistic that Vermont will be able to close the out-of-state program by the end of the GEO Group agreement.
