One of three state prisons in Malone is set to close next spring. The NYS Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) announced on Tuesday that Bare Hill Correctional Facility will close in March 2026.
In a statement, DOCCS said Bare Hill was chosen after it "carefully conducted a thorough review of operations at its 42 correctional facilities."
Opened in 1988, the medium security prison in Malone currently houses 709 incarcerated men, which represents about 49% of the facility's capacity.
All 293 staff employed at Bare Hill will be offered jobs at other state prisons. According to DOCCS, there are more than 650 vacant staff positions at nearby state prisons in Franklin, Clinton, and Essex Counties.
Bare Hill is located adjacent to Upstate Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison, and Franklin Correctional Facility, a medium-security prison.
Once it closes in March, Bare Hill will be the fifth state prison to close in the North Country in the last five years. The state has shuttered Great Meadow, Ogdensburg, Moriah Shock, and Watertown Correctional since 2021, as well as the Clinton Annex in Dannemora.
Since 2009, the state has closed nine correctional facilities around the region, shrinking the North Country's role in New York's prison landscape.