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Yesterday, a report "Commissioned by the Governor" was released outlining 14 actions the state should take to address West Virginia's exploding prison population. Months ago, I blogged about this issue and what seemed to be a very powerful push to build yet another prison in West Virginia.
The Rev. Dennis Sparks, Executive Director, WV Council of Churches:
"The tough on crime methodology of the last 20 years has failed," Sparks said. "We're locking up people and they're coming out as better criminals. We have to move into preventive and treatment mode."
Sparks isn't sold on the commission's recommendation for a new prison. He said he was in the minority when members discussed the issue.
"If we start building a new prison today, that'll be $200 or $300 million, not counting the costs to run it," Sparks said. "That's more money not used for innovative treatment programs."
Sparks contends a vast number of inmates are low-risk offenders while he acknowledges the need for dangerous criminals to remain locked up.
He also said he was concerned the public would pay more attention to the recommendation for a new prison rather than the other ideas.
I would agree with Rev. Sparks that people are more likely to pay attention to the new prison aspect as opposed to anything else in the report.
The Rev. Matthew Watts also makes a good point when talking about what was missing in the report:
Watts said he was disappointed that the report didn't include more measures to prevent juveniles from becoming caught up in the criminal justice system.
"I think we're failing to realize that all of these adult offenders were children, and [many] were adjudicated juvenile offenders," he said. "You can't fix the problem unless you fix the pipeline."
I'll second that. It seems as if the report itself may be a way to try and legitimize a bad idea (building a new prison.) There are a litany of reasons that building a new prison will have minimal if any impact in addressing overcrowding.
First of all, 200 million dollars spent on a building a new prison is 200 million that cannot be spent on crime prevention programs or community corrections programs or even drug treatment programs, all of which would significantly reduce the overcrowding problem.
Secondly, our overcrowding problems are now, not later. This prison will take four years to build. Who knows how badly the problem will have gotten by then. Those against prison construction as economic development had better gird themselves, because we officially have a fight on our hands.
Today saw a major development in the debate over what to do about West Virginia's prison overcrowding problem. The Gazette's Phil Kabler reports:
With overcrowding in state prisons and regional jails reaching critical levels, the West Virginia Supreme Court has appointed a seven-member panel to come up with ways to alleviate the problem, the court's administrative director said Wednesday.
"Our hope is to work with the Legislature and the executive branch to do the best we can to resolve a growing problem," Steve Canterbury said of the Sams v. Kirby Compliance Commission.
The Sams v. Kirby case involved a state inmate whom the court ruled was being denied access to Division of Corrections training and rehabilitation programs while being housed in a regional jail because of overcrowding in state prisons. The court told state officials to come up with a solution.
We have been following the chatter in the statewide MSM that insinuates building a new prison is the only thing that can be done to remedy our very serious prison overcrowding issue.
To be sure, if the state only built a new prison, it wouldn't do anything at all to remedy the problem. What WV needs is a comprehensive approach. We need to demand answers to some very serious questions.
First and foremost, why does a state with zero population growth have such an exploding prison population?
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