Apparently VLCIA, or one of its expert consultants,
thought CCA was looking for a thriving county economy
in choosing a private prison location.
That doesn’t seem to be what happened.
The VLCIA has noted that Project Excel is considering other
locations. Below I provide a comparison of key economic indicators for
these alternative counties — Grady and Decatur.
Table 1. Characteristics of Selected Counties
Variable
Decatur
Grady
Lowndes
Population, 2008
28,823
25,115
104,583
% Pop w/ Bachelor’s degree
12.1%
10.6%
19.7%
Median HH Income, 2007
32,650
33,060
38,666
Persons below poverty, 2007
22.5%
22.2%
20.5%
Persons white non-Hispanic, 2008
54.8%
60.6%
60.0%
In closing, it appears that Project Excel is an excellent candidate for
location in Lowndes County.
The citizens of (Quitman) Brooks County Georgia and South Georgia are
extremely greatful for their support and outreach! They are indeed
the real patriots of our beloved republic by standing up for voting
rights.
The News Media seem to be taking a back seat to keeping citizens and voters
informed along the lines of fairness in the State of Georgia and beyond.
As a retired military veteran, I was extremely happy for the Press
Conference in support of the Quitman 10 as included in the links below. We
must not forget about the citizens and voters in Brooks County,
Willacoochee, Douglass-Coffee County Georgia (nooses) Tallahassee, Madison,
Florida and other rural areas acorss the nation.
Consider Finance Committee recommendation regarding acquisition
of Education Framework: Clinton Beeland made a motion that the
Chamber Board provide $30,000
towards the repayment of debt incurred by the Committee for a
Referendum on School System Unification with local business vendors.
In
return for this consideration, the Chamber is to receive the ownership
rights to and the future use of the professional publication entitled
“An Education Framework”. Carl Holley seconded. After a
thorough discussion, motion carried unanimously.
I wonder what was said in that “thorough discussion”?
Maybe which local vendors Chamber members’ dues are subsidizing by paying off
CUEE’s debts?
Maybe who owns those vendors, and what their relations might be to the CUEE or
Chamber boards?
How about as a first step the Chamber pledge an equivalent amount of
money it and its members have spent on CUEE to the Boards of Education
yearly, to be used as the teachers see fit?
I’m sure the two school boards could use $150,000 each for their teachers.
How about it, Chamber?
Want to show some leadership?
There are historical reasons for why we lock up so many people,
some going back a century or more, and some starting in 1980 and 2001.
Knowing what they are (and what they are not)
lets us see what we can do to end the epidemic of
incarceration that is damaging education and agriculture in Georgia.
More than half of all black men without a high-school diploma go
to prison at some time in their lives. Mass incarceration on a scale
almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country
today—perhaps the fundamental fact, as slavery was the
fundamental
fact of 1850. In truth, there are
more black men in the grip of the
criminal-justice system—in prison, on probation, or on
parole—than were in slavery then.
Over all, there are now more people under
“correctional supervision” in America—more than
six million—than
were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height. That city of
the confined and the controlled, Lockuptown, is now the second largest
in the United States.
The accelerating rate of incarceration over the past few decades is just
as startling as the number of people jailed: in 1980, there were about
two hundred and twenty people incarcerated for every hundred thousand
Americans; by 2010, the number had more than tripled, to seven hundred
and thirty-one. No other country even approaches that. In the past two
decades, the money that states spend on prisons has risen at six times
the rate of spending on higher education.
And we can’t afford that, especially not when we’re cutting school budgets.
That graph of education vs. incarceration spending is for California.
Somebody should do a similar graph for Georgia.
The article does get into why we lock up so many people:
Continue reading →
In corrections systems nationwide, officials are grappling with
decisions about geriatric units, hospices and medical parole as
elderly inmates – with their high rates of illness and infirmity –
make up an ever increasing share of the prison population.
At a time of tight state budgets, it’s a trend posing difficult
dilemmas for policymakers. They must address soaring medical costs
for these older inmates and ponder whether some can be safely
released before their sentences expire.
The latest available figures from 2010 show that 8 percent of the
prison population — 124,400 inmates — was 55 or older,
compared to 3
percent in 1995, according to a report being released Friday by
Human Rights Watch. This oldest segment grew at six times the rate
of the overall prison population between 1995 and 2010, the report
says.
“Prisons were never designed to be geriatric facilities,” said Jamie
Fellner, a Human Rights Watch special adviser who wrote the report.
“Yet U.S. corrections officials now operate old age homes behind
bars.”
No, they were designed to be profit centers for prison profiteers.
Just as prohibition of alcohol failed in the United States in the
1920s, the war on drugs has failed globally. Over the past 50 years,
more than $1 trillion has been spent fighting this battle, and all
we have to show for it is increased drug use, overflowing jails,
billions of pounds and dollars of taxpayers’ money wasted, and
thriving crime syndicates. It is time for a new approach.
Too many of our leaders worldwide are ignoring policy reforms that
could rapidly reduce violence and organised crime, cut down on
theft, improve public health and reduce the use of illicit drugs.
They are failing to act because the reforms that are needed centre
on decriminalising drug use and treating it as a health problem.
They are scared to take a stand that might seem “soft”.
But exploring ways to decriminalise drugs is anything but soft. It
would free up crime-fighting resources to go after violent organised
crime, and get more people the help they need to get off drugs. It’s
time to get tough on misguided policies and end the war on drugs.
Branson isn’t just a billionaire speaking his mind, he was also on the
Global Commission on Drug Policy that studied the problem
and recommended last summer that we end prohibition.
CCA inadvertently rehabilitated former prisoner Alex Friedmann
and gave him a new career, lobbying against prison privatization.
He says:
In my view, the worst thing
is that they have normalized the notion of incarcerating people for profit.
Basically commodifying people, seeing them
as nothing more than a revenue stream….
If you incarcerate more people and you put more people in
your private prisons you make more money.
Which provides perverse incentives against reforming our justice system.
And increasing the number of people we’re putting in prison,
whether they need to be there or not, just to generate corporate profit.
I think that’s incredibly immoral and unethical,
I think that’s the worst aspect of our private prison industry.
In a refreshing changes from “jobs, jobs, jobs” as everything,
Andrea Schruijer,
Executive Director of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),
told the Lowndes County Democratic Party meeting, 5 December 2011,
that it wasn’t her job to create jobs, jobs, jobs; it was her job
to create an environment that let jobs be created.
Towards that end, she announced several new jobs at VLCIA,
including a PR and marketing position.
VLCIA Chairman Roy Copeland also spoke and helped answer questions
from the audience, including about
wages,
workers, and
green industries.
Perhaps not shown is her answer to my question about what does
VLCIA do to promote new local industry.
I believe she said VLCIA looks to the Chamber of Commerce for incubation,
and helps once local businesses are established.
My job: create environment for jobs —Andrea Schruijer of VLCIA @ LCDP 5 Dec 2011
Andrea Schruijer Executive Director of VLCIA,
Monthly Meeting, Lowndes County Democratic Party (LCDP),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 5 December 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman.
issue another Executive Order and STOP the jail deaths in the Valdosta,
Lowndes County Jail. (30 Jail deaths from 1994-2009) Today the general
public is told that the public does not have a right to know under
the law.
In
this video
George goes into many years of evidence regarding jail violations.
