When Riverview Women's Prison Closes, Volunteer Program Will Live On

The faith-based rehabilitation program at the soon-to-be-closed women's prison in Riverview will live on, TBO.com reports.

The volunteer program, which features mentorships, job training and counseling, will be offered at Lowell Correctional Institution in Marion County, where many of the female inmates at Hillsborough Correctional Institute are to be transferred when the Riverview prison .

Transfers have already begun, TBO.com reports, citing Dean LeBoeuf, the attorney representing a handful of inmates who had filed emergency petitions to stop the closure.

The shutdown of the 36-year-old prison, at 11150 County Road 672, will save the Department of Corrections more than $8 million a year. Local volunteers with the faith- and character-based program, the only one of its kind for female inmates in Florida, .

But since state law requires such programs be offered to both male and female inmates, a circuit judge in Tallahassee has ruled the program must be set up at Lowell, TBO.com reports.

Read more in TBO.com's full story.