Montana Women's Prison

Montana's only women's prison and the women's reception point, in Billings, Yellowstone County — a multi-custody state facility that also operates the Riverside unit in Boulder.

Overview

Montana Women’s Prison (MWP), on South 27th Street in Billings, Yellowstone County, is a multi-custody state prison for women and the only women’s prison in the Montana DOC system. Because it is the sole women’s facility, it also serves as the women’s reception point: women newly sentenced to the state system are received, assessed, and classified here before placement. The facility holds women across custody levels and operates a separate lower-custody unit, Riverside, in Boulder.

What Makes Montana Women’s Prison Different

• It is the only women’s prison in the state, and the women’s reception point. All women entering the Montana DOC system are received and classified at Montana Women’s Prison; there is no separate women’s diagnostic facility.
• It operates the Riverside unit in Boulder. Riverside is a smaller, lower-custody women’s unit in Boulder, Jefferson County, managed by Montana Women’s Prison rather than run as a separate prison. It uses the same off-site TextBehind mail process as the main campus (see Mail, below). A person assigned to Riverside is not at the Billings campus, so confirm the current location on the ConWeb locator before traveling.

Visiting

The statewide MT DOC rules above — the approved visitor list, the dress code, ID, and item limits — apply at Montana Women’s Prison. The facility’s own arrangements:

The full approval process is in Visiting in Montana.

Getting There and Parking

The prison is on South 27th Street in Billings, in Yellowstone County in south-central Montana.

Distances are approximate, based on map routing. Visitor parking is on site.

Nearby Services

Billings is Montana’s largest city and has lodging, gas, and food throughout the area. Hospital emergency rooms are in Billings.

Mail

Incoming personal mail for people at Montana’s state prisons is not delivered on paper. Since May 1, 2024, the Montana Department of Corrections has routed personal mail through an off-site vendor, TextBehind, which scans each letter and delivers a digital copy to the person’s tablet. The original paper is not forwarded to the facility.

Address personal mail exactly as follows:

Montana Women’s Prison [Full first and last name], [AO Number] PO Box 247 Phoenix, MD 21131

Put the sender’s full name and return address in the top-left corner of the envelope. Mail that is not addressed this way, or that has no return address, is returned to sender.

Legal mail is handled differently: it goes directly to the facility, where it is opened by staff in the person’s presence rather than scanned off-site. Books and publications must be shipped directly from an approved vendor or retailer (such as Amazon) to the facility, and the sender must be an approved visitor. Checks and money orders are sent to the facility — not to the Maryland scanning address — and should not include a personal letter.

Verify the current mailing instructions and approved-vendor rules with the facility before sending anything.

Learn More

• Visiting — Montana’s approved-visitor application, scheduling, and the rules that apply at every facility.
• Mail — how Montana scans incoming personal mail off-site and how to address letters, legal mail, books, and money.
• Phone & Video — calls, tablet messaging, and video visits through ICSolutions and GettingOut.
• Money — how to put money on an account and the vendors Montana uses.
• Medical — how health care works in Montana’s prisons and how to raise a medical concern.
• Transfers — how people enter the system, reception and assessment, and how transfers between facilities work.