Hawai'i prison inmates have been moved into a new prison in Eloy, Ariz., as part of an effort to consolidate nearly 2,000 Hawai'i convicts now held in four Mainland states.

The state plans to eventually place almost all of the Hawai'i inmates housed on the Mainland in three privately run Arizona prisons.

On Sept. 16, corrections officials moved the first 157 Hawai'i prisoners from the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Tutwiler, Miss., and the Diamondback Correctional Facility in Watonga, Okla., to the newly opened Red Rock Correctional Center in Eloy.

Another 30 Hawai'i inmates were transferred to Red Rock from the Florence Correctional Center in Florence, Ariz.

The state has agreed to rent 450 beds in Red Rock from prison operator Corrections Corporation of America, and Hawai'i Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Louise Kim McCoy said more Hawai'i inmates will be moved into those Red Rock beds over the next year.

The $82.5 million Red Rock prison opened in June, and can hold up to 1,596 inmates. Alaska officials have a contract to house about 1,000 convicts there.

CCA began construction in May on the 1,896-bed Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy, which will house both men and women inmates from Hawai'i when Saguaro opens next year.

When those transfers are complete, almost all of the Hawai'i inmates housed on the Mainland will be held at Red Rock, Saguaro and Florence.

The state now pays about $40 million a year to hold about 1,950 convicted Hawai'i felons in CCA prisons in Mississippi, Oklahoma, Arizona and Kentucky because there is no room to hold the inmates in prisons here.

State lawmakers this year set aside an additional $12 million to transfer 676 more inmates to the Mainland. When those transfers are complete, the state will have more inmates serving their sentences on the Mainland than in Hawai'i prisons.

Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com.