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US Department of Agriculture needs to stay out of jail building business

I make an effort on this blog to track as comprehensively as possible all the various sources of expansion in incarceration capacity in Texas, from halfway houses and treatment centers to county jails, state prisons, federal lockups, immigration detention centers and privately run facilities. But the Texas Tribune's Julian Aguilar points to a source of incarceration funds being sought in South Texas that I'd never considered before: The US Department of Agriculture.Usually voters must approve debt for new jails, but a South Texas political family wants the federal Ag Department to loan money for jail building without voter approval, reports the Tribune ("USDA Approved: Jail Construction," Dec. 14):Some Texas sheriffs are looking to an unlikely source to get them out of the hole as private prisons win away federal contracts for inmates and put the financial squeeze on county jails...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on December 14, 2009 (boomark / email).