Eau Claire L-T: Northern Center prison plan OK
Opposition is surfacing in the Chippewa Falls area to a special-needs prison proposal that would use a building at the endangered Northern Wisconsin Center for the Developmentally Disabled.
The opposition is misguided.
The state Department of Corrections wants to put 300 prisoners with special needs in the Northern Center building. Space is available there because developmentally disabled people have been leaving for placement in community-based, non-institutional care.
In fact, the great possibility that the Northern Center may close due to a declining population drove some legislators and local officials to persuade the state to look at opening the prison in Chippewa Falls.
The state also needs to find a unique environment to house prisoners who don't fit well into the general inmate population. Under the current proposal, the prison would take the frail elderly who need 24-hour nursing care, inmates who are ambulatory but have limited mobility, and able-bodied inmates who will work at the institution.
Some of the opposition has to do with affecting the quality of life in the Chippewa Falls area.
"I think prisons affect the quality of community life," one opponent said. "You are dealing with a dehumanizing situation with prisons. It permeates a community and affects a community."
You would have trouble going to places with prisons, like Black River Falls, and find a lot of people who want them out. Escapes are very rare. They essentially keep to themselves, like the neighbor you hardly ever see or hear.
Prisons also are economic engines. A lot of supplies are bought locally, and employees, even if they come from outside the area, still need places to live.
Another knock against the proposed prison is the fear it wouldn't hire all the employees displaced at the Northern Center. Guards, for example, have to meet specific requirements and have training that could exclude a number of Northern Center workers.
State Rep. Tom Sykora, R-Chippewa Falls, who is pushing the prison plan, conceded "there is no assurance any person at Northern Center will get one of the new prison jobs." But, Sykora said, his office is working with the Corrections Department "to try to give them first choices" for some of the estimated 312 jobs that would be created. About 147 of the positions would be guards.
There also are concerns the prison would be expanded, and statistics seem to encourage this notion. State prisons hold 1,140 inmates who are 50 and older now, and the number is expected to rise to 4,615 by 2009.
"Once a prison is in place, it is easier and more likely the state will expand it," an opponent said. Sykora said that's possible.
But so what? As stated before, prisons make good neighbors. What's the issue if a good neighbor becomes a bigger neighbor?
No one in Wisconsin wants to spend any more money than necessary on prisons. The state is on a prison-building binge, thanks to tougher laws passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Tommy Thompson that are putting more and more people in prison.
But in this case, it makes sense for the state to look for facilities that could be used for prisons. Northern Center certainly seems to fit the need well.
Jobs will be lost at the Northern Center. It seems only a matter of time before the state pulls the plug. It's essential for people in the Chippewa Falls area to join their legislators in supporting the special-needs prison.
-- Doug Mell, managing editor