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I live just a few miles from Lake Placid, and have for most of my life. It's unfortunate, but this area still relies heavily on the correctional system for the

I live just a few miles from Lake Placid, and have for most of my life. It's unfortunate, but this area still relies heavily on the correctional system for the local economy. Along with a majority of the manufacturing jobs up here, it too has begun to shrink, however, and it's really turning the North Country (as we call it) into a rural slum. I'm not opposed to downsizing the amount of incarcerated people, for sure, but the void isn't being filled, and many of the communities up here are taking a turn for the worse.

maxxxxx 10y ago
Maybe they could hand out cash directly. Using prisons to support a local economy is probably the most inefficient way to go about it.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  If you gave people money, they'd want to do something with it, like improve their home, and they would then run afoul of the various regulations up there. It's probably the most rural and isolated area on the east coast other than northern Maine. I87 had almost zero phone service north of Lake George due to cell tower siting regulations. That only changed because a Orthodox Jewish couple traveling from Montreal senselessly died of exposure after a minor car accident. That incident triggered a big uproar in the community in NYC and elsewhere and led to a change in the rules. All of Northern New York is a "park", and it's impossible to do anything. The State is mostly exempt from its own rules, so prisons are pretty much the only thing that you can build. As a another commenter said, it's a rural ghetto.
sangnoir 10y ago
> I'm not opposed to downsizing the amount of incarcerated people, for sure, but the void isn't being filled, and many of the communities up here are taking a turn for the worse. You've just humanized the police unions' "tough against crime" motivation and lobbying for me (only by a bit, I still find it despicable). Is it really a zero-sum game where one community (urban inner city) has to suffer so another one (correctional) doesn't? What is the exchange rate between job losses vs. number of people incarcerated?
- fluxquanta 10y ago
  I find myself fighting with the morality of it all. I grew up with a lot of friends whose parents were prison guards. My hometown of Malone, NY is the site of 4 separate facilities (a state supermax, two state medium security, and the county jail). Add an hour or so to the commute and there were a few more that have closed in recent years. I always thought it was kind of cool as a sheltered white kid (that is, except the one time when a state trooper held me at shotgun point and searched my car for an escaped convict, and the whole Clinton Correctional escape and manhunt that happened last year). Some friends went down the same path themselves. It's a good middle-income job, and you get to leave all your work at the office, so to speak. These are all bad, guilty criminals from cities far away, anyway, so it's not like they don't deserve it (or so I thought). Then, after growing older, going off to college, and meeting and becoming friends with people of color, I gained some perspective, and I have trouble accepting it as the cool, safe job it once appeared to be. But what are these prison guard friends I grew up with supposed to do? Fight against the system that puts food on their table so they can get laid off when the prison closes and have no other marketable skills? In the end, I have to fall on the side of what's right; better laws on crime should force the prisons to be downsized or closed. More families suffer because of the incarcerations than would due to the potential jobs lost. I just wish our elected officials would/could do more to spur job growth in other industries.

maxxxxx 10y ago

Maybe they could hand out cash directly. Using prisons to support a local economy is probably the most inefficient way to go about it.

Spooky23 10y ago
If you gave people money, they'd want to do something with it, like improve their home, and they would then run afoul of the various regulations up there. It's probably the most rural and isolated area on the east coast other than northern Maine. I87 had almost zero phone service north of Lake George due to cell tower siting regulations. That only changed because a Orthodox Jewish couple traveling from Montreal senselessly died of exposure after a minor car accident. That incident triggered a big uproar in the community in NYC and elsewhere and led to a change in the rules. All of Northern New York is a "park", and it's impossible to do anything. The State is mostly exempt from its own rules, so prisons are pretty much the only thing that you can build. As a another commenter said, it's a rural ghetto.

sangnoir 10y ago

> I'm not opposed to downsizing the amount of incarcerated people, for sure, but the void isn't being filled, and many of the communities up here are taking a turn for the worse. You've just humanized the police unions' "tough against crime" motivation and lobbying for me (only by a bit, I still find it despicable). Is it really a zero-sum game where one community (urban inner city) has to suffer so another one (correctional) doesn't? What is the exchange rate between job losses vs. number of people incarcerated?

fluxquanta 10y ago
I find myself fighting with the morality of it all. I grew up with a lot of friends whose parents were prison guards. My hometown of Malone, NY is the site of 4 separate facilities (a state supermax, two state medium security, and the county jail). Add an hour or so to the commute and there were a few more that have closed in recent years. I always thought it was kind of cool as a sheltered white kid (that is, except the one time when a state trooper held me at shotgun point and searched my car for an escaped convict, and the whole Clinton Correctional escape and manhunt that happened last year). Some friends went down the same path themselves. It's a good middle-income job, and you get to leave all your work at the office, so to speak. These are all bad, guilty criminals from cities far away, anyway, so it's not like they don't deserve it (or so I thought). Then, after growing older, going off to college, and meeting and becoming friends with people of color, I gained some perspective, and I have trouble accepting it as the cool, safe job it once appeared to be. But what are these prison guard friends I grew up with supposed to do? Fight against the system that puts food on their table so they can get laid off when the prison closes and have no other marketable skills? In the end, I have to fall on the side of what's right; better laws on crime should force the prisons to be downsized or closed. More families suffer because of the incarcerations than would due to the potential jobs lost. I just wish our elected officials would/could do more to spur job growth in other industries.