Inmates from Hawai'i are being moved out of a private prison in Mississippi, and several hundred California maximum-security prisoners soon could be moving in.

"We expect to have all of them out of the facility within the next month," said Louise Grant, a vice president with Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America, which operates Tallahatchie County Correctional Center in Tutwiler and two other private prisons in Mississippi.

The 450 Hawai'i inmates are being moved to a private prison in Arizona that will exclusively house only felons from the Islands. The medium-security prison in Eloy, south of Casa Grande, holds 1,896 beds and is also operated by CCA.

The prison will observe Island holidays and even serve Hawaiian food.

In July 2005, a riot at the Tallahatchie prison, a maximum security facility, left two prisoners hospitalized. There also have been incidents involving Hawai'i inmates at the Red Rock prison in Arizona.

Grant said recently that the company could have the first California inmate in the Tutwiler facility within two months if everything is worked out on California's end.

California pays CCA $63 per day per inmate for housing its inmates at private prisons; Hawai'i pays CCA $58.43 per inmate per day.

California prison officials announced recently that they would begin involuntary transfer of inmates to prisons in other states to ease prison crowding. The involuntary transfers are expected to begin in 60 to 90 days. Potentially, up to 5,000 inmates could be moved to prisons in Mississippi, Arizona and Oklahoma, California officials said.

California officials have said the inmates transferred out of state won't be extremely high security.

"We are severely overcrowded, and the need for more space is absolutely critical," California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Secretary James Tilton said in a written statement. "These transfers allow us to improve the safety of inmates and correctional officers while avoiding the potential of being unable to accept new inmates. This decision is being made to protect public safety."

In December, a federal judge in California warned he would start releasing inmates early or prohibit convicts from being sent to state prisons from county jails unless the state acted immediately to ease crowding, according to published reports.

The 1,104-bed Tallahatchie prison is adding 360 beds this year and an additional $17 million, 360-bed expansion is planned for completion in 2008.

Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps said his office will send a monitor to make sure security classifications are correctly followed for California inmates housed at Tallahatchie.

"The 2.9 million citizens of Mississippi can be assured that safety will be maintained for California inmates," Epps said.