PRISON RECEPTION CENTER PROPOSED

A PRISON IS A PRISON

Submitted to Shelton Blog by Tom Davis Mason County Progressive

Washington State Department of Corrections Hearing
on Proposed Westside Prison Reception Center 5/6/11

In the race to the bottom Mason County may well beat out Bremerton and Thurston County in an effort to capitalize on the misery of other human beings.

If we become the chosen one, the proposed prison reception center will occupy between 35 to 50 acres of what might have been– with a bit more imagination - a trade school campus; a water conservation administration building; a community center; or maybe even a real live business that didn’t require the so called pillars of our community to go graveling on their knees like a bunch of beggars to a food fight. I have to say, I love this community, but some of our leaders disgust me.

The new Reception Center will require an EIS, the scope of which will be influenced by public comment submitted through the DOC website: http://www.doc.wa.gov/business/capitalprograms/prisonsiting/ or email directly to: receptioncentersiting@doc.wa.gov

But don’t let the word “Reception” fool you; this is a prison that will hold new inmates from across the state for up to 45 days, till they’re shipped off to other facilities, one of which will be right next door at our very own Corrections Center.

I’d give you all the gory details but to tell you the truth, what’s the difference, a prison is a prison; and that’s about all the imagination the EDC and our local officials are capable of exercising. For all the good it will do our community in the long term, we may as well build a nuclear reactor with a hole in it.

What follows is the comment I was going to read at the hearing but just couldn’t do it.

I am somewhat conflicted when it comes to bringing another big prison facility into our community. It’s as if someone is holding a family member hostage and the choices are not good.

Another prison does not fit into my vision of the county for several reasons, not the least of which is capitalizing on human misery which does little to uplift our image, or attract desirable employment opportunities for our young people. Few people dream of growing up to work in a prison, and even fewer parents have such dreams for their children.

I have gotten used to such prospects being paraded into our community as if they were something that should fill us with pride. But it has become apparent that those charged with economic reform have little else to offer, and even less incentive to do so.

But bear in mind that a recent study suggests that less than 20% of the jobs created from siting a state prison in a rural community go to local residents.

During the last two decades, the large-scale use of incarceration to solve social problems has combined with the fall-out of globalization to produce an ominous trend: prisons have become a "growth industry" in rural America. So I suppose some congratulations are in order.

But there is increasing evidence that by many measures prisons do not produce economic growth for local economies and can, over the long term, have detrimental effects on the social fabric of rural communities. Moreover, this massive penetration of prisons into rural America portends dramatic consequences for the entire nation as huge numbers of inmates from urban areas become rural residents for the purposes of census-based formulas used to allocate government dollars and political representation.

Still, I cannot bring myself to oppose another man’s hope of gainful employment when such opportunities carry with them no direct harm to my family.

So I reluctantly and shamefully support the proposal to bring another prison into our midst, but not as shamefully as those who would bring such a choice to us.

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