Families and friends of the 1,800 people incarcerated at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem will soon have only four days per week to visit inmates as part of a reduction in visitation hours the state’s prison system announced Thursday, March 5. The statewide cost-saving measure will affect hours for nearly all the prisons in the Oregon Department of Corrections system, including the three in Salem. New schedules will begin at the state penitentiary and other Salem prisons on April 1. The move is intended to save money by reducing overtime hours for correctional employees who staff visitations, Department of Corrections spokeswoman Amber Campbell said. The state penitentiary, Oregon’s only maximum-security prison, will have visitation available 26 hours per week under the new schedule, Saturday through Tuesday. That’s down from seven days per week and 45 hours for people in the general population sector of the prison.Oregon State Correctional Institution, a medium-security prison, will offer six fewer hours per week. Santiam Correctional Institution, a minimum security prison will offer 9 fewer. At OSCI, that means visitors will only be allowed Saturday through Wednesday. At Santiam, they’ll be restricted to the weekend. A full schedule of the new visitation hours is here.  Around 3,100 people are incarcerated in Salem’s three prisons. Campbell didn’t immediately have information available about how many visitors those facilities currently receive. Nationwide, about a third of people incarcerated in state facilities get a visitor in a given month.  The change is part of a broader set of cost-cutting measures the corrections department began after Gov. Tina Kotek directed state agencies to come up with budget reductions in September 2025.In a March newsletter update, ODOC explained that like other state agencies, the department is facing “serious budget challenges.”  The corrections department’s budget is about $2.8 billion dollars for the 2025-27 biennium, according to that update. “DOC is facing rising healthcare expenses, deferred maintenance costs, higher operating costs and overtime exceeding budgeted levels,” Campbell said in an email. “The majority of DOC’s budget supports employee staffing, 24/7, 365 days a year. Overtime remains a major cost driver, particularly due to increased protected leave usage and medical and hospital trips, both of which are largely outside of our direct control.” The department employs about 4,500 people, half of whom are security staff. Campbell said reductions in visiting hours will allow prisons to maintain yard and day room time as well as educational programming for incarcerated people. ODOC wrote that the reductions in visiting hours are part of a broader budget saving effort.  Campbell said the department has also delayed hiring and restricted travel, among other measures.  The department does not have a projection for how much the visitation reductions will save, Campbell said. It also doesn’t have a specific savings target.The reductions are supposed to be temporary, and will be reevaluated by ODOC after six months. Campbell said that would include reviewing the number of visits on weekends versus weekdays. In its release, the department also stated the importance of visits in facilitating the wellbeing of people who are incarcerated and their capacity for successful reentry.Family contact while incarcerated has been linked to better outcomes for incarcerated people post-release.  “Upcoming adjustments to visiting are a temporary, fiscally responsible response to current budget constraints, not a change in our values,” Campbell said. “DOC is committed to restoring visiting opportunities as financial conditions improve.” Contact reporter Skeet Starr: [email protected]. LOCAL NEWS DELIVERED TO YOU: Subscribe to Salem Reporter and get all the fact-based Salem news that matters to you. Fair, accurate, trusted – SUBSCRIBE The post Oregon prisons will cut visitation hours to curb overtime costs, DOC says appeared first on Salem Reporter. ...read more read less