Prison director says no need for new facilities

The director of Iowa’s prison system says efforts to reduce overcrowdinghave worked and he won’t ask legislators and the Governor to build any newprison space in the next state budgeting year. Iowa Department ofCorrections Director “Kip” Kautzky says quicker parole for non-violentoffenders has turned around what had been a dramatic increase in Iowa’sprison population. That’s a huge turnaround from the year before when theprison population increased by 795. Kautzky says there won’t be a need fornew prison beds if the population continues to remain flat. Kautzky doesn’tforsee anything changing in the near future.The Iowa Board of Corrections is meeting today at the Oakdale prison to hearbudget presentations from state prison wardens.