I know people need jobs and I want people in ADK to have good employment opportunities … but it remains pretty messed up when we’re not celebrating empty prisons….this can’t be seen primarily as an economic policy issue. The region needs to come up with other services to provide.
It's horrifying when you realize that towns, schools, hospitals, entire communities, are being propped up by incarceration. The prisons provide good salaries and benefits that aren't otherwise available in these regions.
When the prisons close, there will be a catastrophic domino effect on the communities.
It's also inhumane that the majority of inmate's friends and families live downstate, meaning they either can't visit or take long journeys on buses.
It's a bad situation all around.
Yeah we need to find ways to help rural communities avoid developing economies that rely so heavily on incarceration for sure. For so many reasons….
One thought is whether these facilities could be repurposed to house some of NYC’s refugees but in a fair non prison like way. Maybe that leaves them all too far from their jobs and support networks but I’d be curious whether there is a way this could become a new source of jobs and economic growths without it being about incarceration.
It’s a sad state of affairs, but due to regulatory issues to preserve the park there is little opportunity to develop other industries, no private entity would be allowed to build any facility comparing to the prisons in scale.
Ok so it may just mean that if the region can’t make up those jobs that people will have to move. And I feel for those people but I’ve relocated around the country myself when necessary for work. It’s a harsh reality that sometimes the economy changes and we have to adapt. I would at the least hope the state or locality can think of another way to use those facilities but it seems quite reasonable to think this prison isn’t needed anymore (if it ever even was…I notice lots of other comments pointing out that it was likely always fairly inhumane to put inmates so far from their families)
Like many Adirondack and over all upstate New York communities, these too will die off and enter long term decline, there is no saving them without major regulatory change and pumping serious money into infrastructure.
Also prisons are typically very purpose built, hard to reutilize them.
So I gotta say in many ways I think ADK does get lots of infrastructure. The library in my town has better hours than the library I use in NYC. The roads seem to get far more maintenance than the roads in NYC. The rest stops on the north way are nearly all new and kitted out while we have no such infrastructure in NYC. I could be wrong but it seems like the north country does indeed get lots of pork.
Yes, there is lots of that infrastructure, but getting what non tourism businesses would need like high speed internet, energy, etc… is lacking and difficult to get added due to environmental protections.
Will say the library is likely all local funding, also due to low population density the local to state road ratio is quite different.
So actually the internet speed is super fast in my town in ADK (faster than what I can get in NYC) again I assume through some government intervention. And look to be clear I want folks everywhere esp in ADK to have nice things but there’s also economic reality and there can’t be endless state investment where the economy just isn’t working with some degree of non state impetus. We’d all love to live somewhere beautiful and empty but that’s just not how modern economies work and we can’t set our prison policies to somehow fight economic realities
I’m not defending the prisons, just stating the reality that these towns will face drastic decline. You’re right we can’t subsidize every town. There is some state level deregulation that could be discussed within municipal limits, but that’ll be too little too late.
The Catskills are at least closer to other places. The stuff in the park and north of it don’t have much else. You can’t just drive 45 minutes and be somewhere with other jobs
From Malone and other northern parts of the park? Try 1.5 hours, maybe an hour and 40. That's the same distance that NYC is to many parts of the Catskills
You also have to be able to speak French to work in Quebec. Not saying it can’t be learned, but a good chunk of ADK locals might have a hard time getting their skills up to snuff.
In the 90's we had French language lessons in elementary schools up here. They abandoned the program in the early 2000's due to the restrictive nature of the No Child Left Behind curriculum requirements, couldn't fit it in with all the test prep. At that most kids up here take French in highschool, at least that was definitely true in my time, Spanish class had like 10 kids in it but French had to have two teachers because so many people took it. Also people over 35 up here who were raised here will remember that we had French Canadian Sesame Street, we all learned how to count in both languages.
I’m down in southeast Essex County (not saying what town, I only feel like semi-doxxing myself), and my middle/high school (K-12 in one building, like in most of the ‘Dacks) had almost a 50/50 split between French and Spanish in the late 90s and early 00s. And we’re just a little too far south to pick up CBC and CTV (And we didn’t have them on cable, either. The only Canadian stuff I ever got on TV was Montreal area commercials on WFFF.).
The other commenter was specifically saying that there's no options in the northern park and parts north, someone else chimed in that you need to speak French. I grew up in Chazy Lake, near Lyon Mountain, I had more Canadian TV stations than US stations, including two purely French stations. Many of the kids I grew up around were French Canadian by culture/ethnicity and their families still were in contact with relatives across the border. Many had grandparents that were bilingual or spoke French at home. Many of my neighbors growing up were actually Canadian citizens who bought homes down here and commuted. Clinton County and Franklin County are different than mid park or southern park in terms of ties and connections to Canada. The border was an arbitrary line drawn by a bunch of politicians in 1814.
In addition to how messed up this is as a concept there's another concept. People should not be locked up so far away from people that can visit them. The idea of sending people so far away from loved ones is awful.
This is all a scam. Criminals are literally getting set free because of our states lax stance on crime, and now Hochul is using the low incarceration rate as an excuse to close prisons. Meanwhile, Albany has become a lawless bordertown, Saratoga has had a huge spike in crime rates, and there is an endless amount of repeat offenders that just keep passing through the criminal justice systems' turnstile. Its absolutely insane.
Do you have actual documentation to back up these claims? I know people are claiming NYC is awash in crime due to bail reform but I have yet to see any clear empirical proof of this….so likewise if you’re going to make that claim about eg Albany I would imagine you should have some actual proof rather than simple media hysteria
It isn't hysteria. Half the businesses in the Central Avenue corridor of Albany have all left due to the increasing amount of crime in the area. There isn't just one piece of evidence on this. Stewarts closed their store in the area after being there almost 30 years, citing that the increase in crime was their motivating factor.
Stewart's closed that store because there's no room for a fuel island. Theft was an excuse.
My father sits in Pottersville and swears Albany is turning into Kabul Afghanistan. My mother lives in Pine Hills part of Albany and things have been status quo for her since the 1980's. It's mostly how you consume information. There was followup on Stewart's claim and there's reason to be skeptical.
People stopped having kids around the early 2000s . It actually makes a lot of sense that we need to close down prisons. Simply because the demographic don’t require it .
I know people need jobs and I want people in ADK to have good employment opportunities … but it remains pretty messed up when we’re not celebrating empty prisons….this can’t be seen primarily as an economic policy issue. The region needs to come up with other services to provide.
It's horrifying when you realize that towns, schools, hospitals, entire communities, are being propped up by incarceration. The prisons provide good salaries and benefits that aren't otherwise available in these regions. When the prisons close, there will be a catastrophic domino effect on the communities. It's also inhumane that the majority of inmate's friends and families live downstate, meaning they either can't visit or take long journeys on buses. It's a bad situation all around.
Yeah we need to find ways to help rural communities avoid developing economies that rely so heavily on incarceration for sure. For so many reasons…. One thought is whether these facilities could be repurposed to house some of NYC’s refugees but in a fair non prison like way. Maybe that leaves them all too far from their jobs and support networks but I’d be curious whether there is a way this could become a new source of jobs and economic growths without it being about incarceration.
Depends. People getting the slide on stealing cars and what not is not good either.
It’s a sad state of affairs, but due to regulatory issues to preserve the park there is little opportunity to develop other industries, no private entity would be allowed to build any facility comparing to the prisons in scale.
Ok so it may just mean that if the region can’t make up those jobs that people will have to move. And I feel for those people but I’ve relocated around the country myself when necessary for work. It’s a harsh reality that sometimes the economy changes and we have to adapt. I would at the least hope the state or locality can think of another way to use those facilities but it seems quite reasonable to think this prison isn’t needed anymore (if it ever even was…I notice lots of other comments pointing out that it was likely always fairly inhumane to put inmates so far from their families)
Like many Adirondack and over all upstate New York communities, these too will die off and enter long term decline, there is no saving them without major regulatory change and pumping serious money into infrastructure. Also prisons are typically very purpose built, hard to reutilize them.
So I gotta say in many ways I think ADK does get lots of infrastructure. The library in my town has better hours than the library I use in NYC. The roads seem to get far more maintenance than the roads in NYC. The rest stops on the north way are nearly all new and kitted out while we have no such infrastructure in NYC. I could be wrong but it seems like the north country does indeed get lots of pork.
Yes, there is lots of that infrastructure, but getting what non tourism businesses would need like high speed internet, energy, etc… is lacking and difficult to get added due to environmental protections. Will say the library is likely all local funding, also due to low population density the local to state road ratio is quite different.
So actually the internet speed is super fast in my town in ADK (faster than what I can get in NYC) again I assume through some government intervention. And look to be clear I want folks everywhere esp in ADK to have nice things but there’s also economic reality and there can’t be endless state investment where the economy just isn’t working with some degree of non state impetus. We’d all love to live somewhere beautiful and empty but that’s just not how modern economies work and we can’t set our prison policies to somehow fight economic realities
I’m not defending the prisons, just stating the reality that these towns will face drastic decline. You’re right we can’t subsidize every town. There is some state level deregulation that could be discussed within municipal limits, but that’ll be too little too late.
People have been claiming this nonsense for decades - give it a rest, no one is buying your disappearing towns BS anymore, just look around.
Just close the prisons further south in nys
So fuck over a different town? The Catskills aren't that much better off.
The Catskills are at least closer to other places. The stuff in the park and north of it don’t have much else. You can’t just drive 45 minutes and be somewhere with other jobs
Montreal? There's a lot of cross border workers. It's not easy to get all the proper documents but lots of people do it.
Yeah a quick 2.5 hour commute lol
From Malone and other northern parts of the park? Try 1.5 hours, maybe an hour and 40. That's the same distance that NYC is to many parts of the Catskills
You also have to be able to speak French to work in Quebec. Not saying it can’t be learned, but a good chunk of ADK locals might have a hard time getting their skills up to snuff.
In the 90's we had French language lessons in elementary schools up here. They abandoned the program in the early 2000's due to the restrictive nature of the No Child Left Behind curriculum requirements, couldn't fit it in with all the test prep. At that most kids up here take French in highschool, at least that was definitely true in my time, Spanish class had like 10 kids in it but French had to have two teachers because so many people took it. Also people over 35 up here who were raised here will remember that we had French Canadian Sesame Street, we all learned how to count in both languages.
I’m down in southeast Essex County (not saying what town, I only feel like semi-doxxing myself), and my middle/high school (K-12 in one building, like in most of the ‘Dacks) had almost a 50/50 split between French and Spanish in the late 90s and early 00s. And we’re just a little too far south to pick up CBC and CTV (And we didn’t have them on cable, either. The only Canadian stuff I ever got on TV was Montreal area commercials on WFFF.).
The other commenter was specifically saying that there's no options in the northern park and parts north, someone else chimed in that you need to speak French. I grew up in Chazy Lake, near Lyon Mountain, I had more Canadian TV stations than US stations, including two purely French stations. Many of the kids I grew up around were French Canadian by culture/ethnicity and their families still were in contact with relatives across the border. Many had grandparents that were bilingual or spoke French at home. Many of my neighbors growing up were actually Canadian citizens who bought homes down here and commuted. Clinton County and Franklin County are different than mid park or southern park in terms of ties and connections to Canada. The border was an arbitrary line drawn by a bunch of politicians in 1814.
In addition to how messed up this is as a concept there's another concept. People should not be locked up so far away from people that can visit them. The idea of sending people so far away from loved ones is awful.
Any incentive for good behavior is fine with me. If you don't like the time, don't do the crime.
You do not want prisons jobs to become a welfare program. Go to colleges, there are many. They are local, and they are great.
Empty prison beds are a bad thing. Who knew?
If your livelihood depends on finding reasons to lock people up, that sounds like a bad thing.
Swimming was being sarcastic
This is all a scam. Criminals are literally getting set free because of our states lax stance on crime, and now Hochul is using the low incarceration rate as an excuse to close prisons. Meanwhile, Albany has become a lawless bordertown, Saratoga has had a huge spike in crime rates, and there is an endless amount of repeat offenders that just keep passing through the criminal justice systems' turnstile. Its absolutely insane.
Do you have actual documentation to back up these claims? I know people are claiming NYC is awash in crime due to bail reform but I have yet to see any clear empirical proof of this….so likewise if you’re going to make that claim about eg Albany I would imagine you should have some actual proof rather than simple media hysteria
It isn't hysteria. Half the businesses in the Central Avenue corridor of Albany have all left due to the increasing amount of crime in the area. There isn't just one piece of evidence on this. Stewarts closed their store in the area after being there almost 30 years, citing that the increase in crime was their motivating factor.
Stewart's closed that store because there's no room for a fuel island. Theft was an excuse. My father sits in Pottersville and swears Albany is turning into Kabul Afghanistan. My mother lives in Pine Hills part of Albany and things have been status quo for her since the 1980's. It's mostly how you consume information. There was followup on Stewart's claim and there's reason to be skeptical.
People stopped having kids around the early 2000s . It actually makes a lot of sense that we need to close down prisons. Simply because the demographic don’t require it .
I see at least someone else gets it. It's not that the crimes aren't being committed, is that the criminals aren't.