Officials Propose Bellows Falls Prison

News out of Bellows Falls as the talk that the town is that the it may house a correctional facility in its future.

According to the Rutland Herald, a meeting was held Tuesday to discuss transforming a current building to hold criminal detainees for up to 18 months.

Windham County Sheriff Keith Clark gave a presentation to the Rockingham Select Board and Bellows Falls trustees, proposing to renovate a building in downtown Bellows Falls and outfit it to detain both state and federal inmates.

One of the building’s main purposes would be to help inmates transition into and out of the criminal system, offering both training and education for doing so. Detainees would be issued ankle bracelets and would even be allowed to roam the town’s streets unsupervised.

Rockingham said no to implementing a prison in its town years ago. According to statistics from the Vermont Department of Corrections, Vermont averages around 2000 incarcerated prisoners each year.