Corrections officials said they were converting the release center, which has a capacity of 410, to a prison because of the state’s increasing inmate population — up 1.5 percent since 2005 and currently 205 inmates over its limit. The site was originally intended to be a low-level prison, officials said, but was converted to a release center when inmate numbers were not as high.

The release center in Kansas City is one of two in the state. The other is in St. Louis. In general, the centers take in people on parole or probation who do not have a feasible housing option. Typically, the Kansas City center takes former prisoners from the west side of the state, and St. Louis takes those from the east side. Business leaders in St. Louis have expressed concern that their city’s center, with a capacity of 550, would have to take on more people because of the closing in Kansas City.

A spokeswoman for Francis G. Slay, the mayor of St. Louis, said the corrections commissioner had told city officials that the St. Louis release center, which houses 397 men, would not have to shoulder a greater share of the state’s parolees and probationers.

In Kansas City, several residents of the center said they were pleased to be moving on because staff members were rude and disrespectful. They also described the support services as lax.

One time after he returned from his construction job at 10:30 p.m., Jamie Killian said, a staff member put him on overnight cleanup duty even though he had to go to work the next morning. Mr. Killian, who has been here since April off a 10-year sentence on multiple drug charges, said he expected to leave soon because his plan to live in an apartment in suburban Kansas City had been approved.

“We’re in a good mood all day long until we start walking down that bridge,” he said, pointing toward a bend that leads to the release center. The corrections officers, he added, “talk to you like you’re a piece of. …” He finished the sentence with an expletive, but then thought better of it, saying, “like we’re dirt.”