Montana inmates moved to Mississippi, families face costly visits

KC Betchie used to think visiting her brother in prison meant a long drive. Now, from Helena, it means flights, hotel rooms and a trip that can swallow several days, all because Trevor Case has been moved from Montana to Mississippi.

The Montana Department of Corrections said April 24 it completed the last of three transports and placed all 600 of its out-of-state inmates at the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Tutwiler, Mississippi. Before the transfer, 360 Montana inmates were at Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy, Arizona, and 240 were already in Mississippi. State officials say consolidating the out-of-state population in one Mississippi facility will save more than a million dollars and give the department more consistency, along with better access to jobs, programming and education.

For families, the distance has turned prison visits into a budget problem and a logistical barrier. Betchie said what once would have been a few hours on the road now requires air travel and hotel costs. She also said the family was not clearly informed before earlier transfers, a complaint that echoes what other relatives have raised in Helena and in hearings at the Capitol.

Case’s path shows how those moves stack up. After a 2021 encounter with police in Anaconda, he was convicted of felony assault on a peace officer and sentenced to 10 years with five years suspended. He was first sent to Crossroads Correctional Center near Shelby after being denied prerelease placement, then transferred more than 1,000 miles away to another CoreCivic facility before ending up in Mississippi.

The department says the moves are driven by overcrowding. Montana’s prison system has about 1,500 inmates placed among contracted secure facilities, and roughly 600 are housed out of state because state prisons are over capacity. As of April 22, Montana’s adult male prison population stood at 2,939.

Lawmakers and Gov. Greg Gianforte have already approved a larger fix that will take years to arrive. The 2023 and 2025 legislative sessions funded out-of-state adult male prison beds and set aside $306 million for five new units at Montana State Prison, expected to add more than 900 beds when they open in January 2029. In January 2025, Gianforte also asked for 500 more beds at Deer Lodge, and by March lawmakers were weighing a 512-bed expansion there plus a separate women’s prison proposal.

Until then, the state’s correctional strategy keeps pushing families farther from loved ones. DOC says staying connected with friends and family matters to rehabilitation and successful return to the community, but for many Montana families, that connection now runs through Mississippi.