DOC recommends closing Webster Correctional Institution

Following Gov. M. Jodi Rell's request to consider a consolidation plan for the prisons, the state Department of Correction has recommended closing the Noah Daniel Webster Correctional Institution in Cheshire.

Webster is a level-2, minimum-security facility that was opened in 1990 and houses sentenced male inmates approaching discharge into the community. The closure will take about 8 to 10 weeks and result in the transfer of approximately 220 inmates.

Over the course of the past year, DOC has closed two of the four housing units at Webster; the plan recommended to the governor calls for closing the remainder of the facility except for the stand-alone building known as the Webster Annex and redeploying the DOC staff.

Because of the decline in the inmate population, from 19,900 in February 2008 to 18,300 right now, as a result of the agency’s success with a number of post-release programs, Rell asked the DOC about a month ago to find savings and efficiencies in state government and examine the feasibility of closing a prison. The DOC released its recommendations to the governor on Monday. 

Rell thinks the cost-cutting measure will save taxpayers about $3.4 million a year.

"Any decision such as this must always be made with public safety foremost in our minds," Rell said. "The recommendation from DOC notes that closing a minimum security facility is easier to accomplish because any inmates that need to be moved can be shifted to higher-security locations if necessary. The closure can also be accomplished without laying off any of the dedicated DOC staff, who perform one of the most dangerous — yet most necessary — tasks in state government."

Rell and Acting DOC Commissioner Brian K. Murphy have both said that any prison closure would be reversed should the need arise.