The following report is by National Reviewer via Yahoo! News:
What’s Happening
Alabama is building a new supersize prison that will cost over $1 billion – the most expensive incarceration facility in U.S. history.
The Alabama Corrections Institution Finance Authority late last month approved a final price of $1.08 billion for the 4,000-bed prison now under construction in Elmore County.
And Alabama isn’t the only state moving forward with plans for larger, pricier prisons, with proponents of such facilities citing the need to address issues of overcrowding, poor sanitation conditions and a lack of mental health resources in the current facilities.
Nebraska is building a new $350 million, 1,500-bed prison to replace the Nebraska State Penitentiary. Supporters say it will alleviate the overflow of inmates in the state’s prisons, which hold about 50% more people than they were designed for.
“This investment is a key part of our community,” Rob Jeffreys, director of the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services, told CBS affiliate KOLN. “It [provides the] ability to keep people safe.”
In Georgia, officials have been tasked by the Fulton County Board of Commissioners to find the funds for a $1.69 billion facility with 4,500 beds to replace the current Fulton County Jail — known to locals by its address, Rice Street — which many advocates say is beyond repair.
“It’s an obligation that we have,” Commissioner Bob Ellis told Atlanta News First.
Why There’s Debate
Supporters of the prisons say the new facilities will relieve issues that have long plagued jails, making them more susceptible to homicides, virus outbreaks and abusive conditions that, in the most extreme instances, have prompted the Department of Justice to step in.
The new prison facilities being built in Alabama are critically important to public safety, to our criminal justice system and to Alabama as a whole.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement.
However, prison reform advocates say building newer prisons without addressing the underlying causes of the problems that plagued the old facilities will only put a temporary Band-Aid on an issue that needs a long-term solution.
“No experts have said that newer jails will solve our prison crisis,” Charlotte Morrison, a senior attorney at the Equal Justice Initiative, a Montgomery, Ala.-based nonprofit that works to end mass incarceration, excessive punishment and racial injustice, told Yahoo News.
Morrison and other advocates also argue that the lack of meaningful rehabilitation in many prisons is a contributing factor to the overall decline of conditions inside. They suggest that other reforms aimed at speeding up processing times for inmates and reducing the number of people incarcerated for minor infractions could also help ease overcrowding.
If you have a football team that’s losing year after year, a new stadium doesn’t make it better. You need new leadership.
Morrison said.
Bianca Tylek, executive director of Worth Rises, a nonprofit dedicated to dismantling the prison industry, believes “the more beds there are, the more people will be put in them.”
The issue is not the building. It’s the system and the system actors in it.
Tylek told Yahoo News.
Tylek, one of the nation’s foremost experts on the prison industry, adds that a lack of transparency from jails on inmate deaths and other serious uprisings conflated with a system that disproportionately locks up people of color and poor people is reason enough to take a harder look at the underlying issues.
Other critics have balked at Alabama lawmakers’ willingness to spend $1 billion on a prison when 1 out of 4 children in the state — one of the poorest in the country — and 17% of adults there struggle with food insecurity.
“Many in Alabama don’t have access to food, running water, and health care,” Alabama Rep. Terri Sewell posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, in September.
It is unconscionable that state leaders would spend over $1 billion to construct the most expensive super-prison in the nation. This should outrage everyone!
Sewell’s post continued.
Some have also raised questions about who will pay for the prisons in Alabama, Nebraska and Georgia, with opponents objecting to making taxpayers foot the bill.
What’s Next
The Alabama prison is expected to be completed in May 2026, according to the contract terms. In Nebraska, construction is expected to begin in the fall of 2024. The expected opening date for the Georgia prison, once plans are approved, is 2029.
At the same time, plans for additional prison construction projects, including a new jail to replace New York City’s notorious Rikers Island, are also beginning to take shape.
Perspectives
Real prison reform requires comprehensive change
“Make no mistake about it, the primary purpose of this prison construction plan is not to efficiently build prisons that will solve the litany of issues that currently plague our prison system. If that were the goal, the plan being discussed today would be a hybrid, comprehensive plan that involved renovations of current facilities, new construction and upgrades to medical, mental health and job training facilities.” — Josh Moon, Alabama Political Reporter
New prisons will be better for those living — and working — inside them
“This is about not just creating a safer environment for the inmates. This is about a safer environment for our corrections officers to work in.” — State Rep. Rex Reynolds, chairman of the Alabama House General Fund Budget Committee, to the Associated Press
The Alabama project has been “cloaked in secrecy”
“From the beginning, this project has been cloaked in secrecy. The state and the firms it has hired have denied public information requests that could reveal what exactly tax money is buying or who is getting paid. They have refused to show so much as what this prison would look like, citing security issues. … What seems clear now is that no one ever really knew how much this was going to cost.” — Kyle Whitmire, AL.com
Jailing people in the current facilities is “inhumane”
“At a certain point, we have an ailing correctional facility in the penitentiary. And it becomes inhumane to incarcerate people in that facility.” — Sen. Anna Wishart, a member of the Appropriations Committee, to Nebraska Public Media
New prisons fail to address the real issues
“Let’s begin with the key question: Why is the jail overcrowded in the first place?” — Fulton County Commission Chair Robb Pitts, the Georgia Sun
Meaningful change should focus on rehabilitation
“Normalizing prison environments with evidence-based programming, including cognitive behavioral therapy, education and personal development, will help incarcerated individuals lead successful lives in the community as family members, employees and community residents.” — Christy Visher and John Eason, Brookings
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
Make a chain: for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence.
Ezekiel 7:23
It is only natural to see supersize prisons to be constructed when exploding crime rates run parallel, along with an ever-growing surveillance and police state, via state and federal governments and big brother.
It is inevitable in my view that martial law is coming to the United States and elsewhere, and a lot of people are going to be imprisoned, justly and unjustly…
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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This nation is full of criminals, so more prisons seem like a good idea. I also think that allowing the death penalty more freely in cases where murder is done outside of self defense and the evidence is overwhelming confirmed would help with the overcrowding and the crime rate.
Another thing would be to just let the citizens go to town on these rioters if the state is too chicken to do it. Of course we all know why the state is too much of a coward to act…but still.
Also, a note about the reform thing. Yes, they are people in prison who can be reformed, but one has to be very careful about it. Some will take to it, others will pretend to take to the reform program just for some benefit, especially if it’s an early release. And a lot are better off just rotting in the prison cell.
Kurotron, Any excuse to incarcerate people will do! Always remember…anyone who dissents on any level is “a criminal”. Christians, patriots, veterans, pro-lifers, people with common sense and sound reasoning are all “criminals”. There actual executive orders in the USA that state this!
Sadly, the real criminals run the show; the inmates now govern the insane asylum. If the people had any guts, they’d rise up and put the real criminals in jail. Better yet… simply save money and execute them.
Prisons in Canada are not about reform or rehabilitation, as the public has been duped into believing. Twenty-some years ago, I read a letter to Corrections Services of Canada that proved this. It was written by a leading psychiatrist at the time, who was telling CSC what they could do and could not do to prevent rehabilitation! Why? I quote word-for word, “Doing such things will ensure jobs for mental health care professionals for generations to come.”
I won’t list the various ways here, but suffice it to say…that letter was taken seriously, and his suggestions are put into practice. Society is experiencing the fall-out from them now. Corrections works on the same principle the military industrial complex uses: create the problem(s) to justify your existence. Criminality is the excuse they’re going to use to round up dissenters. They could save a lot of money by forcing MAiD upon all of us. Satan is doing his finest work right now, while using Israel’s situation as a distraction.
One thing I noted about the prisons of this nation was how they became gladiator schools for the truly corrupt & wicked who finally end up there, more often than not let off & walking free by activist judges as a useful gangster class & distraction on the streets, as expendable foot soldiers, pushers & ‘influencers’ distracting from the real source of wickedness in this nation; and a cheap worker supplier for godless corporatists & their investors with their illicit drug pushing for demoralization & money laundering, dark op funding etc…… & then reap the use & merchandising of non-violent ‘useful’ prisoners; and creating jobs programs for layer after layer of state-paid psych-sorcerers, ‘teachers’, counselors and legal drug pushers & experimenters who love to wipe their mouths & say they’ve done no wrong, nor allied themselves with wrong, taking the high moral ground of self-righteous nicolaitanism & stirring the self-righteous indignation of a populace like unto those who attended & cheered on the burning of the saints & the true word of God seeking to obey the Lord & to free them indeed.
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Another sad realization recognizing the disappearance of maps & growing reliance upon, & blind faith in, ‘turn here, turn there….google maps’…..is how close we are to the sort of repeated Dark Age ignorance in which people didn’t venture far from home because there were no maps & there was a real fear & danger of not being able to find their way back for the non-crony classes…those cronies whose privilege & ‘education’/’certification’ came of their kowtowing to Rome & their antichrist system, then as now: breaking both of the greatest commandments: transferring love of & service to the Lord & his way to the way of the antichrist popes & system, and exploiting their fellow man rather than loving them as themselves.
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Given another ‘State emergency’ & tuning into FEMA & ‘official’ channels….most folks today are only too likely to drive right to the prisons not designed for criminals so much, as for merchandised & managed ‘cattle’, and those always found amongst the ‘collateral damage’ of every tyrannical power grab & covert or open war: the people of the Book & any other ‘resisters’, those clinging to Bible-order family & economy, or heretics embarrassing & convicting by truth & the word, the foolishness of preaching.
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They’ll heedlessly & meticulously follow the direction of the false and illegit authority & their avoidance of stress & ‘anxiety’ mental health direction, without proving anything by the word, or even taking note of their surroundings, the direction in which they are being directed & manipulated, herded, etc.
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One thinks of the Lord’s cry through the prophets, and later when he came as the suffering servant & sacrificial Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world, & breaking the power of sin and the grave for whosoever would receive it….and the sober warning given through the Apostle Paul.
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Hosea 6:4-11 ¶ O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away.
Ho 6:5 Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth: and thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth.
Ho 6:6 For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
Ho 6:7 But they like men have transgressed the covenant: there have they dealt treacherously against me.
Ho 6:8 Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity, and is polluted with blood.
Ho 6:9 And as troops of robbers wait for a man, so the company of priests murder in the way by consent: for they commit lewdness.
Ho 6:10 I have seen an horrible thing in the house of Israel: there is the whoredom of Ephraim, Israel is defiled.
Ho 6:11 Also, O Judah, he hath set an harvest for thee, when I returned the captivity of my people.
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Matthew 23:37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!
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Romans 11:17-36 And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree;
Ro 11:18 Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.
Ro 11:19 Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in.
Ro 11:20 Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear:
Ro 11:21 For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.
Ro 11:22 Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.
Ro 11:23 And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again.
Ro 11:24 For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree?
Ro 11:25 For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.
Ro 11:26 And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:
Ro 11:27 For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.
Ro 11:28 As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes.
Ro 11:29 For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.
Ro 11:30 For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief:
Ro 11:31 Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.
Ro 11:32 For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.
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Ro 11:33 ¶ O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
Ro 11:34 For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counseller?
Ro 11:35 Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?
Ro 11:36 For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.
AMEN! God bless you for your sage insights! Spot on! Maranatha!
I agree that it is in a bad state of affairs, pile the criminals in like cord wood, if ya can’t do the time…
If the laws were like is written in the Bible, there would be more graves than prison cells
David, “If the laws were like is written in the Bible…” there’d be much less crime.
I believe the prison industrial complex is also for profit for big corporations. Typically you’ll never see most of the big fish behind bars. And barely any of the small fish who goes in and gets out actually gets rehabilitated. Many soon re-offend and go back inside.
Could also be for jailing Christians before, and saints after the catching away, as well as to serve as debtor prisons for the vast majority of people who are in debt with the nice houses and vehicles.
Lance, you are absolutely correct! Sadly, the real criminals run the show; the inmates now govern the insane asylum. If the people had any guts, they’d rise up and put the real criminals in jail. Better yet… simply save money and execute them.
Prisons in Canada are not about reform or rehabilitation, and haven’t been for many years! The public has been duped into believing that lie. Twenty-some years ago, I read a letter to Corrections Services of Canada that proved this. It was written by a leading psychiatrist at the time, who was telling CSC what they could do and could not do to prevent rehabilitation! Why? I quote word-for word, “Doing such things will ensure jobs for mental health care professionals for generations to come.”
I won’t list the various ways here, but suffice it to say…that letter was taken seriously, and his suggestions are put into practice. Society is experiencing the fall-out from them now. Corrections works on the same principle the military industrial complex uses: create the problem(s) to justify your existence. Criminality is the excuse they’re going to use to round up Christians & dissenters. They could save a lot of money by forcing MAiD upon all of us. Satan is doing his finest work right now, while using Israel’s situation as a distraction.
Any excuse to incarcerate people will do! Always remember…anyone who dissents on any level is “a criminal”. Christians, patriots, veterans, pro-lifers, people with common sense and sound reasoning are all “criminals”. There actual executive orders in the USA that state this!
They should do as our corrupt traitors have done here, in Kanadastan: create MAiD, and then make up all kinds of reasons for killing your own people! The most recent excuse is: drug addiction. Yep! Give the druggies all the drugs they want, then use drug addiction as an excuse for offing them with MAiD! Pretty clever! Everybody is at the mercy of their government. Thank God, Jesus is coming for His own…SOON!
https://youtu.be/IFWHy4pxzn8