By Gary Smith
Concord Monitor
CONCORD, N.H. — What, exactly, will it take to get the state to recognize its obligation to properly fund our Department of Corrections?
We want our state to be tough on crime - but we don’t want to pay for it.
We want stiff sentencing laws - but we don’t stop to think about what that means.
Prisons in New Hampshire are running at 50 percent over capacity. Bunk beds are stacked in common areas, gymnasiums and anywhere else they will fit, so the Lakes Regional Facility can be closed and we won’t have to keep paying for it.
Corrections has 18 percent fewer security staff than five years ago, and it’s about to lay off even more officers.
We want criminals to be locked away - but we don’t want to think about what comes next. We don’t think about the fact that 97 percent of New Hampshire’s inmates are eventually released back into the community. We don’t focus on the programs behind the walls that help keep those inmates from re-offending when they’re released. We don’t want to pay for them.
What, exactly, will it take to wake us up?
We can’t stack inmates like cordwood, slash staffing and just expect everything to be okay. We shouldn’t sit back and watch the inmate death rate rise and just hope that everything will be okay.
A single incident, a single successful lawsuit, could cost this state far more money than what the state expects to save by slashing the Department of Corrections budget.
We are creating this situation. What, exactly, will it take to get us to take responsibility for it?
The writer is president of the State Employees’ Association.
Copyright 2009 Concord Monitor/Sunday Monitor