Monday, November 13, 2006
Editorial: Grayson prison won't be so bad
Lawmakers keep driving up demand for prisons, and the Grayson site won't hurt the New River.
From the RoundTable blog
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Yet another prison is in the works for Southwest Virginia, and neighbors are pushing against the bars in Grayson County.
The gut reaction to oppose a prison in one's neighborhood is understandable, but the selected site does not sound as terrible as opponents make it out to be. Even if the prison goes somewhere else, though, the underlying problem of ever-increasing sentences for criminals will continue to place demands on the corrections system.
The chief concern with the medium-security facility is that it would be located along the New River. Nearby residents argue that a prison along a scenic recreation corridor could turn off potential tourists.
No doubt massive walls and barbed wire looming over the waterway would do just that, but planners hired by the state point out that the site is in a depression. Boaters and people fishing on the river will not even know it is there.
Meanwhile, prisons can provide an upside for a locality. They boost the economy by creating hundreds of jobs and contribute to community coffers.
In the Grayson case, additional infrastructure built to serve the prison also will help offset utility costs and reduce traffic for local residents.
Fighting one prison site does not get at the root cause of the prison boom in Virginia. The number of incarcerated people in the commonwealth has exploded over the last decade to about 36,000 inmates this year. Officials project that number will continue growing to about 42,000 by 2012. Yet crime rates are decreasing.
If neighbors want to point fingers, they should not level them at corrections officials, who are simply building prisons to meet demand. Rather, the blame belongs with lawmakers who, in a never-ending quest to appear tough on crime, keep jacking up penalties.
If Virginia is going to lock up more people for longer periods, it will need more prison space, and those prisons must go somewhere. As potential sites go, the one in Grayson County suffices.
