Vermont plans to send prisoners to Oklahoma

WATERBURY, Vt. (AP) -- Oklahoma will be holding some prison inmates from Vermont because the state does not have enough space to hold its burgeoning population.<br/><br/>A contract agreement has been reached

Monday, March 13th 2006, 1:36 pm

By: News On 6

WATERBURY, Vt. (AP) -- Oklahoma will be holding some prison inmates from Vermont because the state does not have enough space to hold its burgeoning population.

A contract agreement has been reached for Vermont to send as many as 240 of its inmates to the North Fork Correctional Facility in Sayre.

Some of the inmates will be shifted from a private prison in Kentucky, where 380 Vermont inmates are being held. Vermont also holds 80 prisoners in Tennessee.

The state's prisons remain at capacity, forcing the Corrections Department to find places out of state to hold inmates.

Vermont leads the nation in the percentage of its prisoners held outside the state at 20 percent.