But the reorganization won’t find more room for maximum-security prisoners — the fastest-growing segment of Indiana’s prison population. Indiana prisons have 26 beds left for the worst offenders.

Corrections department officials thought their maximum-security problem would be alleviated when Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels proposed expanding two prisons to add 1,200 beds. But Democrats who control the Indiana House objected, and Daniels later dropped the idea.

Buss said the department also didn’t get a funding increase it had hoped for in the state budget approved June 30.

If Indiana gets more maximum-security prisoners, officials could house some of those inmates at medium-security facilities in a move that Buss said could threaten public safety.

“We are at a crisis stage today,” he said.