If your loved one is incarcerated in the Montana state prison system, there is a significant chance they are not in Montana at all. As of 2025, approximately 600 men — roughly 20 percent of Montana's adult male prison population — are housed in out-of-state private facilities operated by CoreCivic, a for-profit corrections company. These contracts, costing Montana about $19 million per year, exist because the state's own prisons are severely overcrowded and Montana lacks the capacity to house everyone sentenced under state law.
Where Montana Inmates Are Being Sent
Montana has contracted with CoreCivic for beds at two out-of-state facilities:
- Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility — Tutwiler, Mississippi (CoreCivic). As of early 2025, Montana announced it was consolidating all out-of-state placement to this Mississippi facility, phasing out its earlier contract with CoreCivic's Arizona prison.
- CoreCivic's Arizona facility — used through 2024-early 2025 before the Mississippi consolidation; Montana moved away from this contract as part of a housing strategy reorganization.
The Tallahatchie facility in Mississippi is approximately 1,700 miles from Helena — a drive of more than 24 hours. For families in rural Montana, visiting a loved one at Tallahatchie is not a practical option for most. The distance effectively eliminates in-person contact for the duration of the out-of-state placement.
Deaths at Out-of-State Facilities
The out-of-state placements have not been without tragedy. According to Montana DOC's in-custody death database, there were four deaths at out-of-state CoreCivic facilities in 2025 alone — two men at the Arizona facility and two at the Mississippi facility. All four deaths remained under investigation. In the same period, Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge recorded six deaths, four still under investigation. The out-of-state death rate — four deaths in a population of roughly 600 — is not dramatically different from Montana State Prison's rate in a population of roughly 1,500, but the deaths are happening far from families, attorneys, and Montana oversight mechanisms.
The Oversight Gap
When a Montana inmate is held at a CoreCivic facility in Mississippi, Montana DOC retains legal custody — the inmate is still a Montana prisoner serving a Montana sentence. But the day-to-day oversight and management of the facility is CoreCivic's. Montana DOC staff travel to the out-of-state facilities to conduct reviews and deliver programming (including the Integrated Correctional Programming Model), but the oversight is necessarily less continuous than at a state-run facility 20 miles from the capital.
The Montana Free Press, which has covered the out-of-state prison situation closely, reported in April 2026 that families were struggling to maintain contact with loved ones moved to Mississippi — citing phone cost barriers, time zone confusion, and the practical difficulty of navigating a private facility's visitor and communication policies from 1,700 miles away.
What Families of Out-of-State Montana Inmates Can Do
- Confirm current location: Use the Montana DOC offender search at offendersearch.mt.gov — it lists current facility even for out-of-state placements.
- Contact Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility directly: The facility is at 415 US-49, Tutwiler, MS 38963. Phone: (662) 345-8480. CoreCivic operates the visiting and phone systems there.
- Phone and money: Out-of-state CoreCivic facilities use their own communication vendors, which may differ from the vendors used for Montana's in-state facilities. Confirm with the facility which platform is in use.
- Advocate for return transfer: Montana inmates placed out of state can request transfer back to a Montana facility through their case manager when in-state bed space becomes available. Montana DOC processes these requests based on capacity.
Montana DOC headquarters: 5 South Last Chance Gulch, PO Box 201301, Helena, MT 59620. Phone: (406) 444-3930. Website: cor.mt.gov.