Pubdate: Tue, 10 Aug 1999
Source: Rockford Register Star (IL)
Copyright: 1999 Rockford Register Star
Contact:  http://www.rrstar.com/
Author: M. Simon
Note: headline by author
Related: Additional articles on prisons and incarceration are available at
http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm

TAKE LONG-TERM VIEW

Editor,

The women's prison that we are trying so hard to get may end up a white
elephant in a few years. When the drug war is over and the incarceration
rates in America return to civilized rates (1/3 to 1/2 what they are now),
that coveted prison will become a white elephant on a prime piece of
commercial or residential property.

If we get it, I hope we get a decommissioning fund as well. Removing all
that steel and concrete when America is no longer the incarceration leader
of the world (we are ahead of China and may be #1 or #2 depending on what
Russia is doing) will be expensive.

M. Simon
 Rockford, Illinois
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