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Interesting review of closing penitentiaries due to the prison economy

By Douglas A. Berman

This weekend's Wall Street Journal includes this effective piece headlined "Lights Out at the Penitentiary: Strapped States are Shutting Prisons, But Moving 1,100 Inmates -- Beds and All -- Is a Trial."  Here is how it gets started: Jeffrey Woods, warden of the Hiawatha Correctional Facility here at the eastern end of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, was vacationing on Lake Huron when his cellphone rang on July 1.  The message from his boss: Hiawatha, which had been slated to shut down in October as part of a sweeping downsizing of the state's prison system, would now have to close by Aug. 7.  That meant he had just five weeks to ship out 1,100 inmates and 207 staff. "I stopped sleeping" after that, says Mr. Woods, who kept a to-do list by his bed and wrote down new tasks when he was jolted awake in the middle of the night...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on September 06, 2009 (boomark / email).