The U.S. senators from the Northeast are pushing the federal Bureau of Prisons to get back on schedule building a replacement prison for women in Danbury so they can be closer to their children and participate in drug rehabilitation and job training programs.
In November 2013, the new facility was scheduled to be completed in 18 months, but 10 months later there is still no ground breaking.
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said the delay is “unacceptable and inexplicable,” pointing to the dozens of inmates who are now housed in what are essentially holding cells in Brooklyn and Philadelphia .
The bureau projects it could take another 21 months to convert the current minimum security camp for women in Danbury to a low-level security facility and construct a new minimum security prison.
The bureau originally had announced in summer 2013 that it was closing the women’s facility and converting it to a low-security prison for men and moving the female inmates 1,100 miles away to Aliceville, Alabama.
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