By Tina Thurber
Concord Monitor
NEW HAMPSHIRE — It is my belief as a correctional officer that inmates need a place like the Lakes Region Facility to transition from prison to community life.
LRF gives inmates a sense of freedom a little bit at a time. Sending inmates right from prison to a halfway house or the community is a shock to the system and sets them up for failure. The idea of taking the Lakes Region Facility, that middle step, away and housing them in an enclosed facility such as a gymnasium is a step in the wrong direction.
This forced uprooting of both inmates and staff is a recipe for disaster. Crowding already crowded facilities and laying off corrections staff poses a serious safety risk to staff and inmates and a huge threat to society. Letting out inmates who are not mentally ready to be released in order to lower prison numbers is not the answer. Not punishing inmates who have clearly violated the terms of their parole to keep prison numbers down is definitely not the answer.
New Hampshire has paid over half a million dollars for studies on how to properly accommodate the growing male and female prison population. All of these studies are based upon using the facility in Laconia or at least the land. Why not put some of those plans into action?
To the governor and senators, I encourage you to take a tour of the facilities and see just how crowded they already are before you vote to put 200-plus more inmates into prisons already bursting at the seams.