Nebraska wants to reduce its prison population by sending many inmates back to their home states.
The Nebraska corrections department is asking more than 600 inmates to step forward if they’d like to serve out the remainder of their sentences in their home states.
The department sent letters to the prisoners last week that completing all or part of their sentences in the other states would let some inmates be closer to family and friends.
Department chief of staff Laura Strimple says it would be up to the receiving states, some of which with overcrowding problems of their own, to approve any transfers.
A spokesman for the prisons department in Iowa says his department would consider whether transfers would be in the best interests of the requesting inmates, along with other considerations such as Iowa’s capacity and security concerns.
