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Jones: North Country prisons won’t close

PLATTSBURGH — North Country prisons have been spared from the chopping block as the state will close two units elsewhere.

According to State Assemblyman Billy Jones, D-Chateaugay, Livingston Correctional Facility, a medium-security prison in western New York, and Lincoln Correctional Facility, a minimum security site in New York City, will be closed as part of a state cost-savings measure.

“We are happy that the commissioner and the executives at the Department of Corrections saw the value of all the correctional facilities in our district,” Jones said. “This will certainly be a relief to the many people who work at prisons in the district.”

Area officials were concerned that Altona Correctional Facility in northern Clinton County or one of the prisons in the Malone area in Franklin County could have been chosen for closure.

In recent months, Jones spoke often about the importance of prisons to the North Country economy and how the area has already been hit with numerous prison closures in recent years.

“This certainly is great news for not only the people who work in the prisons, but the families and businesses that rely on them,” he said. “We were fairly confident that we would be safe, and now it is confirmed, and it’s great news.”

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