ATLANTA — Georgia’s prison system shed more than 1,500 jobs during the past two years, mostly through attrition, Georgia Department of Corrections Commissioner Brian Owens said Wednesday.
But many of those jobs were lost in the Milledgeville area, where the state closed two prisons that employed more than 500 people. The cuts, combined with other state cuts and problems in the community’s private sector, have hit Milledgeville’s economy hard, and it’s not over.
Two more state prisons — Men’s and Bostick — are scheduled to close in 2010 and 2011 under the budget proposals Gov. Sonny Perdue released late last week. Together, those facilities employ about 287 people, according to the Department of Corrections.
Owens, who presented his portion of the state budget to a joint legislative appropriations committee hearing Wednesday, did have some good news.
He told lawmakers that, after decades of skyrocketing growth, the state’s prison population has been leveling out. He said about 60,000 inmates are currently behind bars.
