Appleton prison may reopen in 2012
November 5, 2010 at 7:00 pm in West Central Tribune
APPLETON The Prairie Correctional Facility at Appleton may reopen in 2012 and house prisoners from California, the owner of the vacant 1,600-bed prison an-nounced Friday.
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Are they nuts? California has not only the worst gang problem in the country, but some of the most dangerous inmates as well. I understand the concept of needing inmates to operate the private sector but correctional officers starting pay in California is around 55 to 60 thousand a year, and those officers earn every bit of that money. I strongly doubt that the governor of California is going to allow inmates to leave the state, especially when California has the biggest budget in the US for the management of inmates. I believe that CCA should sell the prison to the DOC and just be done with it. I don’t see many employees of the prison waiting for the place to open by some magic wave of a wand or some repeated what if’s as they try and hunt down contracts. The place is doomed mainly due to the location. Some former employees have already started work elsewhere or are in school. With the economic down turn and governor Palwenty’s cut backs, resulting in the DOC pulling their inmates out of Appelton, it was only a matter of time. The best and only option is sell the prison to the DOC which in turn will provide jobs and bring some economic relief to the town. I don’t know why they thought the DOC was going to continue housing inmates with Appleton when empty beds becamre available? Fabian wanted all their inmates returned and I don’t blame them. All I can say is many of us were glad to get out of there when we did. CCA belongs down south to begin with. They are anti-union, and pay officers half of what the DOC pays. Of course the town isn’t concerned with that, or neither does our politicians, to them its just jobs and we should all be lucky to be working. I guess when you put it that way, maybe we all should be happy to be working, For most employees there unemployment has run out, or is about to, and the president knows better then to ask for anymore extentions.
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Bringing in CA inmates… and housing them at PCF, surrounding by new CO’s would not be good. I do agree – thee aren’t many experienced CO’s that will return… not enough to ensure seasoned staff is on hand and keeping the facility secure. The communities surrounding Appleton (and Appleton citizens, as well) may have been brurned too many times by CCA and may no longer be willign to return to those jobs.
And – as I said on a different related article – I wish CCA would not make these kinds of announcements – about “maybe’s”… I wish they would WAIT until they have a signed contract in their hands before getting up any hopes.
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Cripes, it’s Monday… my typing sucks – sorry!
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