Prison Jobs Coming Back To Walsenburg?

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO -- Colorado's Dept. of Corrections announced Wednesday that the shuttered private prison, the Huerfano Correctional Facility, in Walsenburg will be used as a short-term location for 250 additional prison beds.

In September, the state legislature approved spending $10.6 million to allow the DOC to add 250 beds to help ease prison crowding. The money also will pay for 70 new full-time workers.

According to CDOC, Colorado is anticipating an increase in the overall state inmate population and "the
beds are needed to safely address growing capacity concerns," according to a statement.

Private prison company CoreCivic owns the Huerfano site. They also operate the Bent County and Crowley County prisons. The prison jobs are valuable for locals, reported Dennis Darrow in the Pueblo Chieftan. Huerfano Co. has experienced some of the worst unemployment in the state of Colorado, at 4.2 percent, compared to the rest of the state at around 2 percent. In 2013, the Huerfano jobless rate swelled to 16.4 percent, Darrow reported.

Some Colorado politicians want to stop the state's reliance on private, for-profit prisons, saying they are not safe. In November an inmate eligible for parole was killed in a beat-down by other inmates at for-profit Cheyenne Mountain Re-Entry Center in Colorado Springs. Jefferson Co. Prosecutor Michael Dougherty, who's running for Attorney General has made Colorado's reliance on private prisons a campaign issue.

Huerfano initially housed 750 prisoners and employed 180 workers until it shut down in 2010, Darrow reported.

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(Photo By Joe Amon/The Denver Post via Getty Images)