A future without prisons?

The Plattsburgh Press-Republican has must-read editorial today, describing the history of the North Country’s prison system and predicting a murky future.

“We’re probably going to have to close prisons,” Sen. Betty Little, Stafford’s successor, admitted during an interview last week with the Press-Republican Editorial Board.

She suggests closing Sing Sing, which sits on valuable land on the Hudson River in Westchester County, because the land could be put to better use.

Nevertheless, a battle for survival is very likely going to be waged by Little and others as budgets and changing prison populations exert their weight.

The P-R’s editorial team urges local leaders to begin planning for a different (read: fewer prisons) future in the post-Rockefeller drug law era.

Camp Gabriels near Saranac Lake goes dark in July. So what do you think? Can our towns survive without all those Corrections Officer jobs?

Tags: adirondacks