State Moves Convicts to New Eastside Site

By John Tuohy

The state safely moved 368 convicts today from Plainfield to a new location on the Near Eastside as part of the restructuring plan designed to increase space and save money. The inmates were sent from the Re-Entry Educational Facility to the site of the former Indiana Women’s Prison near Downtown Indianapolis.

It’s the third step in a reshuffling by the Indiana Department of Corrections that will add 2,100 beds while saving the state $200 million, according to an IDOC news release.

The first step was moving juvenile prisoners from the Indianapolis Juvenile Correctional Facility to a building in Madison. The second step was to shuffle 449 Indiana Women’s Prison inmate into the old juvenile faculty. Next, the IDOC will open the Short Term Offender Program on the grounds of the Plainfield re-entry facility. STOP is intended to address the needs of offenders who will serve less than a year in prison. The re-entry facility prepares inmates for release by placing them in an institution that allows more free movement.