Unionized prison guards are warning of inmate riots and other violence inside the state’s lockups if the government makes planned budget cuts.
Gov. Dannel Malloy has asked the Department of Correction to cut the equivalent of 1,019 positions and trim $62.9 million from its budget in this fiscal year and $78 million in the next.
The presidents of the three prison employee union locals told The Associated Press that the cuts pose an imminent safety threat.
The state plans to close the Bergin in Mansfield this summer and the Enfield Correctional Institution by October.
The Department of Correction has said the state can absorb the 1,300 inmates from Bergin and Enfield because the state prison population has declined by about 2,300 inmates to about 17,600 since 2008.
