Prometheus 6

“What happens the next time — and there will be a next time — we have a crack epidemic?” asked Senator Michael F. Nozzolio of Seneca Falls, who is chairman of a committee that oversees crime and prisons, according to The Adirondack Daily Enterprise.

What the fuck, you planning another one? Got C.I.A. connections? The meth epidemic isn't enough for you?

Let me tell you, Black folks did not invent crack. More, if the goddamn federal government hadn't supported the mass importation of cheap cocaine by allowing it on the Iran/Contra return flights there would have BEEN no crack epidemic. Crystal meth was made from cough syrup.

I hope you see the connections.

This week, the Legislature and the governor agreed to keep the four unneeded prisons open at a cost of $33.5 million next year. If they are kept open much beyond that, they will need $30 million in capital repairs to keep them in shape, according to the corrections department.

And who's paying for that shit? And how is this functionally different than welfare?

Less Crime: No Reason to Shut Prisons
By JIM DWYER

For nearly a decade, one of New York City’s major exports — criminals — has been in decline, a result of less crime. In the alternative universe of state government, this is the textbook definition of catastrophe. A steady supply of criminals is the foundation of the economy of large swaths of New York State, which has 70 prisons that employ about 20,000 people as correction officers.

The prisons are also a source of political power to upstate Republicans because the inmates are counted as permanent residents when legislative districts are drawn — even though they cannot vote and their actual homes may be hundreds of miles away.

In January, the State Department of Correctional Services said that because the state had 9,000 fewer inmates than it did in 1999, it would close four prisons that had space for 1,346. Another agency said the state should close five mostly unused juvenile facilities because even empty beds cost $140,000 to $200,000 each to maintain with staff and other services.

These proposals drew roars across vast reaches of New York. Two weeks ago, the state’s leading Republicans led a rally of prison guards on the steps of the Capitol. It amounted to a declaration of their confidence that evil would endure, a faith in human weakness that is perhaps warranted and inarguably useful.

“What happens the next time — and there will be a next time — we have a crack epidemic?” asked Senator Michael F. Nozzolio of Seneca Falls, who is chairman of a committee that oversees crime and prisons, according to The Adirondack Daily Enterprise. “They’ll be double-bunked, they’ll be stuffed into the medians, and we’ll have another prison riot on our hands.”