OSP camp to reopen as female prison

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

The low-security satellite prison camp on the Ohio State Penitentiary grounds is tentatively scheduled to reopen July 1 to house up to 240 female offenders.

The camp will reopen as a female facility due to the increased number of women entering the state prison system, said Scott Flowers, deputy communications chief at the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

Women comprise more than 14 percent of Ohio’s nearly 52,000 state prison inmates.

The camp here housed male offenders before it closed two years ago and was left vacant to save the state about $1.5 million annually.

Female offenders will perform food service, grounds-keeping and maintenance within the camp, Flowers said.

Unlike the men who previously occupied the camp, however, the women won’t prepare food for OSP Supermax inmates or perform janitorial services in the Supermax main prison, he said.

That means probationers living at the Community Corrections Association halfway house in Youngstown can continue to cook for about 500 Supermax inmates and perform janitorial work in the top security facility as they have for the past two years, he said.