A year on the little-bit-of-everything beat

As 2025 closes out, Montana Free Press reporters are reflecting on the work they’ve done over the course of the year — and what they expect to be writing about heading into 2026.

I added about 20,000 miles to my odometer this year, many of them while traversing the state as a reporter for MTFP. 

Ironically, transportation was one beat I covered — though I reported more on planes and trains than cars and roads. (Montana Free Press’ Jacob Olness recently published a very topical piece for anyone planning to drive Montana’s highways around the holidays.) 

Another throughline was the overcrowding in Montana prisons. This year, the Legislature approved long-term prison expansion, began building additional housing for inmates and scouted locations for new correctional facilities. 

I wrote about the state starting construction on new housing units that will increase capacity by about 120 beds at the Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge. That’s room the state says it needs as about 600 incarcerated men are serving their time outside Montana, in either Arizona or Mississippi. Limited prison space also means other inmates are stuck in county jails while waiting for space.

The Montana Department of Corrections is also looking to build a new women’s facility in addition to the existing Montana Women’s Prison in Billings. In June and again in November, I wrote about some of the locations it is considering, along with plans to double the capacity of a women’s facility in Boulder. 

I also covered conditions in the state prison, like a major water line break that cut off service for drinkable water for days and created what inmates told me were crisis situations. And in September, male inmates shared with me how budgetary changes that severely limited a parenting program made it harder for them to connect with their families.

This summer, I spent about a month down the road from Deer Lodge in Anaconda, first reporting a story on the former company town’s economic future and, sadly, covering a mass shooting that shook the community and broader state in August.

WHAT’S ON THE HORIZON FOR 2026

In the coming year, I plan to follow the prison threads that I wrote about over the last 12 months. House Bill 5, the biennial bill lawmakers passed last spring, put $186 million toward new prison dorm units and updated facilities at MSP. I’ll be monitoring how that money is used.And though the exact timeline remains unclear, the Department of Corrections also plans to expand its women’s prison branch in Boulder. The agency also has funding for a new women’s facility via funding from the 2025 Legislature, though where they will put it remains unknown.