Montana’s Department of Corrections announced Thursday that it is exploring a major facility shift that would convert Pine Hills Correctional Facility in Miles City into a prison for adult women, as the state grapples with one of the highest female incarceration rates in the country.
The Proposal
Under the plan being studied by the DOC, adult female inmates currently held at the Riverside facility in Boulder would be relocated to Pine Hills, which presently holds a small number of juvenile male prisoners. Riverside would then be repurposed to house those juvenile males — a population that has dropped sharply over the past decade, falling from roughly 100 to about 30 over the last 12 years.
The capacity math underscores the urgency. Pine Hills offers 144 beds compared to Riverside’s 50, a significant expansion for a system that is straining at every seam. Montana Women’s Prison in Billings, with a stated capacity of 250, was at or above that limit as of Thursday. Another 66 adult women in county custody were awaiting transport to a state facility that afternoon — a backlog that places pressure on county jails across Montana.
The state holds the second-highest adult female incarceration rate in the nation, behind only Idaho, according to 2023 Department of Justice data. That ranking reflects years of corrections capacity failing to keep pace with the actual population behind bars.
Legislative Backing and the Governor’s Role
The exploration follows significant legislative investment in corrections infrastructure. Lawmakers during the 2025 session allocated $250 million through House Bill 833, sponsored by Rep. John Fitzpatrick, an Anaconda Republican, specifically for building or renovating a new women’s prison. The Pine Hills conversion would represent one path toward deploying those resources against an immediate capacity problem.
Governor Greg Gianforte toured the Riverside facility last year. At that time, the working plan was to expand Riverside’s capacity to approximately 100 beds for adult women. The new proposal represents a broader rethinking of how to use the state’s existing footprint rather than simply expanding in place.
DOC Director Eric Strauss framed the shift as a pragmatic use of what Montana already owns. “In recent years, Montana’s correctional capacity has not kept pace with our state’s needs,” Strauss said, noting the department will “be able to leverage our existing infrastructure.” He added that the legislative and executive investment is enabling flexibility: “We need to be nimble, and the investment by Governor Gianforte and the Montana Legislature in the department is allowing us to do that.”
The Broader Corrections Picture
The women’s facility question is one piece of a larger corrections overhaul playing out across Montana. Construction is underway at Montana State Prison outside Deer Lodge to add 900 beds for male inmates. Five new units at that facility are expected to come online in early 2029, with the full 900-bed expansion projected to be available in fiscal year 2031, which begins in July of that year.
In the meantime, the state is managing overflow by housing roughly 600 male prisoners out of state at the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Mississippi — a costly stopgap that state officials have long sought to wind down as in-state capacity grows.
The Pine Hills conversion, if finalized, would represent a parallel solution for women: using a facility whose original population has substantially declined to serve a population that has grown faster than the infrastructure built to hold it. The DOC described its current work as an “exploration,” meaning formal decisions on timeline, renovation scope, and funding allocation have not yet been announced.
Montana’s surge in drug-related arrests — particularly cocaine and methamphetamine seizures tracked by the Attorney General’s office — has added additional pressure to a corrections system already operating near its limits. The outcome of the Pine Hills review will likely shape the state’s incarceration strategy well into the next decade.
