{"id":1050,"date":"2012-03-02T16:30:14","date_gmt":"2012-03-02T21:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/03\/monticello-fl-prison-maybe-not-yet-closing-but-at-what-cost.html"},"modified":"2012-03-02T16:30:14","modified_gmt":"2012-03-02T21:30:14","slug":"monticello-fl-prison-maybe-not-yet-closing-but-at-what-cost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/03\/monticello-fl-prison-maybe-not-yet-closing-but-at-what-cost.html","title":{"rendered":"Monticello, FL prison maybe not yet closing, but at what cost?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/a>\nMonticello and Jefferson County, Florida, have become\ndependent on a prison that opened in 1990.\nWhy?\nAccording to\n\nRick Stone of WUSF 1 Feb 2012,<\/a>\n
\nLate in the 80s, with crime rising and prisons filling up, Florida\nneeded new prison sites but few counties wanted to be one. Jefferson\n
\nbecause of the state’s declining inmate population.\n<\/td><\/tr><\/table>\nCounty, just east of Tallahassee, was different. Then, as now,\nunderpopulated and desperately poor, it saw an opportunity and it\ndid something unusual.\n

\n“We welcomed them with open arms,” said Kirk Reams,\nJefferson County’s court clerk and chief financial officer.\n<\/blockquote>\nThat’s not our situation.\nCrime is as low as it has been since the 1960s,\nprison populations have peaked,\nand we do have other sources of employment.\nOr are we really that desperate?\n

\nJefferson County thinks it has lucked out again, but only at the expense\nof Florida taxpayers, and against the prison population trend.\n

\nJohn Kennedy wrote for the Palm Beach Post 8 February 2012,\n\nCondemned Florida prison gets second chance at life in House<\/a>,\n\n\n

\nAfter hearing pleas from residents and workers and getting some\nlast-minute lobbying from the widow of a former Florida Republican\nchairman, the House added $10.2 million to its budget Wednesday to\nspare a North Florida prison targeted for shutdown.\n

\nJefferson Correctional Institution near rural Monticello, was marked\nfor closure by the Florida Corrections Department, one of 11 prisons\nand work camps targeted because of the state’s declining inmate\npopulation.\n

\nBut in agreeing to reverse that decision, lawmakers said it was\nwrong to close Jefferson’s largest employer — a move local\nofficials said would cost close to 200 prison jobs and also send\nshockwaves through the 14,000-person county.\n<\/blockquote>\nIs that the state we want to be in?\nDepending on a prison for most of our jobs?\nRequiring the state to cough up extra tax dollars\nthat could be going to education?\n

\nAnd did you catch the most significant phrase?\n

\nbecause of the state’s declining inmate population.\n<\/blockquote>\nGeorgia’s prison population also has peaked.\nWe don’t need any more prisons.\nAnd we really don’t need a new private prison in Lowndes County,\nGeorgia, which would\n\nrisk closing<\/a> like others have elsewhere.\n

\nAnd JFI is a public prison.\nOurs would be a private prison, with your tax dollars supporting\n\nDamon Hininger’s\n$3 million CCA CEO salary.<\/a>\n

\nIf you don’t want a private prison,\nhere’s a \npetition you can sign.<\/a>\n

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