Prison complex

More like prison complexities

“It was an immense and solid building, erected at vast expense. I could not help thinking, as we approached the gate, what an uproar would have been made in the country if any deluded man had proposed to spend one-half the money it had cost on the erection of an industrial school for the young, or a house of refuge for the deserving old.”

—David Copperfield, on approaching a prison

YES, WELL, Mr. Copperfield, as affecting as those thoughts are—and they certainly apply today—there are still many of us who think prisons are needed. Along with schools and houses of refuge. Because there are people out there that those in decent society aren’t just mad at, we’re scared of. No wonder the “prison abolition movement” hasn’t gained much traction. It sounds about as smart as defunding the police.

The fiscal session of the General Assembly of Arkansas is starting this week, and the governor of Arkansas wants a prison expansion project on the table.

“The first responsibility of government is public safety,” Asa Hutchinson said. “This is a big responsibility for our state, and it rides on my shoulders.”

As the state grows, and it does ‘most every year, the amount of space in prisons needs to grow, too. Or else the state not only gets into trouble with overcrowding, but trouble with the courts. Or worse, trouble on our streets.

According to this newspaper’s reporters on the Capitol beat, the governor wants to use surplus general revenue to expand the unit in Calico Rock by nearly 500 beds. It should cost anywhere from $60 million to $100 million.

(They are hundred-millioning us to death. How come everything that government builds, from prisons to schools, seems to cost $100 million?)

Gov. Hutchinson told the paper that the Department of Finance and Administration now estimates the state’s surplus will be $500 million this year. The money ought to be put to good use, and, sad to say about the human species, more prison space would be a good use. For proof, read the newspaper.

Last week, the governor also mentioned all those people that the state is paying counties to keep behind bars as they await state prison space: “This number is too high, and it does not give our local court system enough flexibility to arrest people on misdemeanor offenses and have adequate space in the county jail for other purposes, so we need to get that [jail] backup down.”

It’s the broken windows theory. If you allow the little criminal stuff to slide, it becomes worse criminal stuff.

The papers say the last time the state built a new prison was in 2003, when Mike Huckabee was governor. As the state grows, state needs like this grow.

Unfortunately, along with schools and houses of refuge for the deserving old, prison space is also an important government priority. Or should be. Because some of these people, we’re scared of.