To: The Utah State House, The Utah State Senate, and Governor Gary R. Herbert
Stop the prison move
The Utah State Prison is just fine where it is. This is about developers and crony capitalists in the Utah legislature greedy for the land, and willing to trash a functioning public asset for their own short term bonanza. Instead, Utah should put the money into education, providing at risk kids the basics to succeed at lawful careers. And take advantage of the study of sentencing reform to keep the prison population from ballooning.
Why is this important?
The people were never asked if they wanted this prison move. We have, however, been asking for a better school system. Statistically, need for future prison beds can be calculated from the number of 4th graders who are not fully competent at the 3rd grade level. That is why people are always fussing about Kindergarten through 3rd grade as the first step to fixing our educational system. We could actually get that right instead of messing with a big prison project. Starving education while building prisons is called "building a pipeline to prison."
Draper built around the prison, and has an established network of experienced employees, volunteers, and vendors. Other communities are unprepared to adapt quickly, and are saying NIMBY. Obviously the price of an alternative site is going up rapidly with towns rejecting the idea rather than competing for it.
The prison study has a couple things right we should act on. They recommend reforming sentencing. Many have questioned the harshness and length of non-violent drug sentences, while other states decriminalize marijuana and tax and regulate it like alcohol. We need to stop the ballooning prison population.
The prison we have is more than we need if we straightened out our treatment of at risk school kids and pot smokers. We have room to build a taller building or two as needed--which is not now.
And on the other hand--once our land hungry legislature takes the federal lands, there ought to be a free place for a prison. What's the hurry?
Draper built around the prison, and has an established network of experienced employees, volunteers, and vendors. Other communities are unprepared to adapt quickly, and are saying NIMBY. Obviously the price of an alternative site is going up rapidly with towns rejecting the idea rather than competing for it.
The prison study has a couple things right we should act on. They recommend reforming sentencing. Many have questioned the harshness and length of non-violent drug sentences, while other states decriminalize marijuana and tax and regulate it like alcohol. We need to stop the ballooning prison population.
The prison we have is more than we need if we straightened out our treatment of at risk school kids and pot smokers. We have room to build a taller building or two as needed--which is not now.
And on the other hand--once our land hungry legislature takes the federal lands, there ought to be a free place for a prison. What's the hurry?