BOULDER — State and local officials on Tuesday surveyed a recently revamped prison facility for women, where the Montana Department of Corrections is eyeing its next phase of expansion.

While some communities have in recent months bristled at the suggestion of a new prison or mental health care development, Boulder has long been a "state facility town," Jefferson County Commissioner Chris Kirsch told the governor on Tuesday during a tour of the compound.

The changes here are signs of the state's broader prison shuffle while it cranks up expansion of prison capacity, an enterprise that's so far totaled more than half a billion dollars under Gov. Greg Gianforte's administration. Most of that effort has focused on the men's prison population; roughly 20% of male inmates are housed out of st

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