Hickenlooper’s administration said the closure of a prison in a rural community would have serious repercussions. (RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post)
Re: Colorado budget talks stumble after $3 million request for rural prison, April 15 news story.
According to your article, lawmakers recently gave Gov. John Hickenlooper s administration the authority to spend $3 million to avoid closure of a private prison in Burlington.
Colorado s prison population has been declining since 2009. The Kit Carson Correctional Center, which is owned by Corrections Corporation of America, should be closed, not subsidized, and inmates should be relocated. Spend the $3 million subsidy on retraining the employees for new jobs and helping them find other work or start their own businesses.
This is the second bailout for CCA for the same prison. Do not use those funds to shore up a failed venture. In addition to ending the bailout, let s cease to support for-profit prisons. The business model is designed to increase the number of incarcerated and has nothing to do with corrections. It is a mockery of capitalism to subsidize, and it is in defiance of humanitarian ideals that the business model exists at all.
Angel Horvath, Castle Rock
This letter was published in the April 16 edition.
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