DaytonDailyNews.com

DAYTON — Inmates in Dayton's two prisons are about to get something they've never had: roommates.

State prison officials plan to add 250 inmates to Dayton Correctional Institution and 200 to Montgomery Education and Pre-Release Center, bringing both prisons to at least 150 percent of their capacity. In both prisons, about half the cells will go to double bunks to accommodate the new prisoners.

The move breaches a "gentleman's agreement" that the late state Rep. C.J. McLin struck with prison officials in the 1980s to keep DCI's population within its bed capacity of 480, said his daughter, Dayton Mayor Rhine McLin. But city officials aren't worried the changes will weaken security. "We took a good long look at it and we feel there won't be any negative impact" on the surrounding neighborhood, said Jane Howington, assistant city manager for operations.

Terry Collins, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, said the increases will bring the West Dayton prisons in line with crowding levels at comparable state facilities. The changes are necessary, he said, to deal with a statewide prison population boom that finds nearly 50,000 inmates in 32 prisons designed for only 37,610.

"Dayton Correctional Institution we've held as an ideal prison," Collins said. "We didn't want people to forget what an ideal prison would look like, but unfortunately I'm not under ideal circumstances anymore."

Collins notified city officials of the changes in November. The new inmates will begin arriving within a month and be similar to those already housed there: mostly non-violent offenders in the two lowest security levels. "It'll be a slow, methodical process," Collins said. "I'm not going to dump 200 inmates in there in a week." A "minimal" number of new staff will be added to oversee the additional inmates, he said.

After neighborhood opposition rose up against the building of DCI at 4104 Germantown St. in 1987, prison officials agreed not to overcrowd the prison. But McLin said city officials have researched the issue and "no one has been able to come up with any document, state or city, that says 'one man, one cell.' " Montgomery Education and Pre-Release Center, built for 350, was opened on the DCI grounds in 1994.

McLin said the neighborhood has come to accept the prisons. With the statewide prison population crisis, she said, "it's hard to justify (remaining at capacity) and causing impact in other parts of the state."