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PRISON: Staggering numbers

| December 14, 2018 12:00 AM

Idaho is a state with little population compared to other states, only just over a million people live here. Our criminal justice “corporation” sequentially numbers any person convicted of a serious crime. At the turn of the millennium, numbers were in the 55,000 range. That means since Idaho began incarceration of offenders, all the way up to the year 2000, only 55,000 people had been convicted and sentenced. This is where the picture gets frightening.

Since 2000, keep in mind that is less than 20 years, the population of the IDOC roster has reached 131,000. This would indicate that some 76,000 Idaho citizens since 2000 have been found guilty and were sentenced for serious crimes. That’s nearly one 10th of our state’s population without voting rights, weapon rights, or even civil rights for that matter.

Is it that people have all just broke bad in the last two decades or is Idaho’s economy so bad that human warehousing is our last resort? The only noteworthy occurrence that dates back to this massive human harvest is the addition of privately owned and for-profit prison facilities to our state’s prison system. That is correct, the only full to capacity detention facility in our state is owned by a private corporation.

I’m not placing blame, just reminding us that if overlooked, this will not fix itself. It is up to us to keep the greed in check before we can’t do anything about it.

JOHN HEYDEN

Hayden