Prison Jobs
Prison Reform: Kicking The "Can" On Down The Road
Copyright (c) 2011 Stan Moody
When I began this journey over a year ago, advocating for reform of our prisons, I never dreamed that so arcane and bizarre a subject could become a source of amusement. Despite being a former legislator, I had forgotten the inherent lack of courage on the part of legislators, driving their propensity to tweaking rather than replacing or repairing broken systems.
Having moved from prison chaplain to self-declared watchdog of corrections, there isn't a day that goes by that I don't burst out laughing over the foolishness that evolves from this broken mess. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," has morphed into "Now that it's broke, poke it with a stick to see if it squawks!"
Anybody want to buy a prison? NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo has several for sale.
A great January 27, 2011, piece by NPR, titled "NY Gov. Threatens to Mothball More Prisons", has put the US prison culture and its satellite industries squarely in the crosshairs.
Faced with an $11 billion budget deficit, Gov. Cuomo promised and delivered on closing Lyon Mountain Prison, positioned just south of the US-Canada border, in a region already hit with over 10% unemployment. The driver behind this move was a plummeting drop in crime rate over the past 10 years, a 20% drop in incarceration and new legislation to ease drug sentencing in favor of drug rehabilitation and mental health counseling.
The article leads with an aerial photo of a prison known as Camp Gabriels in Brighton, NY, closed in 2009. This is not a camp to which you might have liked to send your child for the summer, but it may well have been a camp you might have wanted to send someone else's child in order to retain jobs in the community.
As it stands - barely, in fact, Camp Gabriels is falling apart. There are no takers at any price. Even its 92 acres are tainted by prospective demolition costs compounded by black mold.
Lyon Mountain, a former mining town, is in the State Senate District represented by Sen. Betty Little, boasting 13 state prisons. "We built an economy around these facilities," she said, "and they should stay right where they are. There's absolutely nothing to replace those jobs."
Lyon Mountain resident, Karen Linney, promised a fight to keep the prison open. "There's no jobs anywhere," she said. Prison guard, Chad Stickney, of Ogdensburg, NY, fights to keep its 2 state prisons open. "We need to unite as every jail above Albany," he says, "because that is where all these jails closures are coming from are above Albany. We need to rally as a whole" - needed translation: "Unite and fight Albany!"
That is not to say, of course, that some of those jobs were not humanitarian in nature.
Gov. Cuomo answered these responses with, "An incarceration program is not an employment program. If people need jobs, let's get people jobs. Don't put other people in prison to give some people jobs," a novel suggestion in this dream world of politicians promising to create jobs while never having personally met a payroll.
Lyon Mountain Prison closed in early January, 2011, despite the clamor.
Maine Gov. Paul LePage has flirted with locating a private prison in Milo, ME, where a private gambling center is presently under construction, ostensibly to create further demand for the prison. It occurs that one of the major problems with private prisons is not that they are less abusive than government prisons, that being nearly impossible, but that they are under government contract, making their closing legally difficult without high exposure to compensatory damages.
As economic development initiatives turn toward such growth industries as corrections and gambling, you have to wonder if we have plumbed the depths of inanity. Should we legalize prostitution to create jobs laundering linens, arranging flowers and treating sexually-transmitted diseases? How about methadone dens?
To the people of NY State who have pinned their economic hopes on the ever-increasing wages of sin, take a lesson from 50 years of mill closings in New England. The way to create jobs is to bring the community together in creative mode, as they were forced to do recently when the paper mill in Millinocket, ME closed.
Let's hear less about government job-creating dreams and nightmares and more about entrepreneurship encouraged by public/private partnerships.
The nanny state has fully matured when its economy boasts corrections as its fastest-growing industry.
About the Author
Author Stan Moody has served in the Maine Legislature, was a prison chaplain and has written scores of articles on prison reform. He is a board member of Solitary Watch and has received the ACLU-ME Civil Liberties Baldwin Award for outstanding efforts to defend civil liberties in Maine. Stan's articles can be read at
http://www.scribd.com/stanmoody
and
https://moodyreport.wordpress.com
.
Do you think Obamas job creation for Prison inmates angers law abiding citizens with no jobs?
Obama has job creation all right! To have prison inmates build solar panels in prison and they GET PAID! How do the homeless like that one? Prisoners get a bed- food- now jobs! WOW! I guess the homeless can break the law- go to prison to get work now! Should we pat Obama on the back?
old habits.
criminals make up the majority of his voting pool. he's only doing what politicians do. cater to his constituents.
Prison Jobs
Prison Economy Spirals As Price Of Pack Of Cigarettes Surpasses Two Hand Jobs
Giving Gravity To A Situation With Prison Doctors For Prisoners
The one way of making money that you have never given a thought to is providing medical services part time in a prison. This arrangement is quite profitable. Once a week he goes to a prison but he is actually working as an emergency physician for the rest of the week.
He almost quit after the first month on work. He was shouted at by an inmate who he had just finished treating. Being double board certified he dint need to take this. The doctor was offered some advice from another inmate who had seen everything. Two packs of cigarettes were at stake to get a lower bunk bed for the patient and he had tried to trick the doctor in to telling him to take the lower bunk bed by telling him that he had a back ache.
His approach towards them was changed. His son doesn't get all he wants just because he is respected. This is the exact approach that the prisoners need he thinks. No matter how much they try, he will only give them whatever they need and not waste time giving them what they want.
Once he was called in to check on one man's seizure. But, the seizure didn't look authentic to the internist and emergency physician. He ensured that he would not get hurt when he fell by picking a nice spot. The most suspicious parts were the eyelid and the saccadic movements. The prisoner had wanted a single cell in the maximum security prison and hence had tried the drama but the doctor got a confirmation from a neurologist which confirmed his suspicions.
The oncologist from Peoria, IL is more than willing to help all those HIV infected prisoners who have malignant lumps. Soon after he finished with his first three weeks at the prison he started doling out 20 hours of primary care every week there. A lot of X rays and blood smears have to be studied in oncology he said. HIV, asthma, diabetes, and hypertension are all taken care of in the prison.
The medical director of a 2,000 inmate super jail in Salt Lake City thinks that there is nothing more interesting than pathology of the inmates. Neurocysticercosis and leprosy were the last known big cases dealt with. The other common sight here is advanced stage cancer. Medical care is a complete bonus in prison. The engineering of the technologies attracts doctors to work at prisons.
Telemedicine capabilities are something that an emergency physician is working on to be able to make medical services at its secure best to 80 correctional facilities in Texas. The medical director of Salt Lake City super jail says that they have the best electronic medical records possible. It was confirmed by the president of the Society of Correctional Physicians and former medical director of the Colorado Department of Corrections that doctors sometimes had no jobs and hence came to work here.
About the Author
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