To
an environmentalist, tourist or even the average New Yorker, Adirondacks means retreat, serenity and wilderness-an
inspiring example of a society strong and wise enough to leave its land alone.
But to those that served in its prisons and to their families, the Adirondacks
and upstate New York are tainted by the impacts of an antiquated
and reactionary law.
In
1973, New York began its own war on drugs. That year, Governor Nelson
Rockefeller pushed through the state legislature a bill that would set minimum sentences
for convicted drug dealers and users. Under Rockefeller, the state’s prison
population went from twenty thousand to a peak of seventy three thousand in the
‘90s. To meet this new demand, prisons were built in New York’s “Siberia”- the Adirondacks
and the towns around the blue line. These prisons needed staff and the locals
needed employment and New York’s Corrections Department soon became the region’s
largest sole employer. Towns quickly became dependent on this prison economy
for stable, middle-class employment-as has been the case across the country.
Not only was the morality of such economic programs abhorrent but also
environmentally destructive, directly counter to the purpose and preservation
of the park and largely forgotten in its history. Simply put, prisons should
not be employment programs and some should not be arrested and transplanted to
others can have jobs.
I
was not surprised to learn about the inmate surge. I saw Taxi Driver and I heard stories of New York City in the ‘70s. I
knew the national war on drugs had failed and I knew that America holds 25% of
the world’s prisoners. But what did surprise me was that, despite being a New
York native and enrolled in a course on the Adirondacks for half a semester, I
had never heard or really thought about the Adirondacks region as a prison
colony. I had always heard about people being sent “upstate” like how in movies
criminals are taken “downtown” but I certainly didn’t know that the Lake Placid
Olympic Center was constructed with the aid of these inmates.
As
with other booms, New York’s prison economy peaked and has since declined-resulting
in a reduction from seventy three thousand to around fifty five thousand
prisoners and with it the closing of many prisons. The loss of jobs that
followed the closures has done no favors to the towns’ locals, the environment,
and certainly none to those interned.
Map: http://cdn.adirondackexplorer.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/prison-map.jpg
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/28/nyregion/closed-new-york-prisons-prove-hard-to-sell.html?_r=0
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/09/17/3568232/the-united-states-had-even-more-prisoners-in-2013/
Liam, I agree that the economy of towns and people's livelihoods should not be entirely dependent on the incarceration of others. I think the issue that you point out highlights a problem with our prison system as a whole, but at the same time, our country values prisons as a humane form of punishment for criminal offenses, so unless that changes (which I don't think it will), we will need to have prisons to put people in. While we can argue all day over what offenses are worth jail time and which ones aren't, as long as we use the prison system, we will need people to staff the prisons, so some people will inevitably depend on them as a source of income.
ReplyDeleteThis thought had never even crossed my mind. I had not really considered the park as anything other than a natural resource of New York. A place where raw materials can be harvested or where people can retreat from the bustle of urban life. We are outsiders to this environment looking in. I would be curious to hear what some of the workers at these prisons have to say about the war on drugs and the institutions they work for. I feel as though interview locals would give us a better sense of what the park is to the modern inhabitant.
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