Jun 08 2009
San Quentin State Prison for Sale: $2 Million
San Quentin State Prison in California is located in the San Francisco Bay Area. It has a beautiful ocean view and houses 5,300 of California’s toughest inmates. Because of the universities and number of volunteers in the area, the inmates have access to a variety of rehabilitation programs and are able to attend college.
Well, like many of California’s jails and prisons, San Quentin is over crowded. To complicate matters even more, the State of California is broke. So, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to sell the prison to anyone who wants to buy it for $2 million.
The plan is to spend $1 million to build a new prison. The state would then profit $1 million. This of course makes sense on paper. However, as anyone else in the world know, just because it looks good on paper doesn’t mean it’ll actually work in practice.
See the problem is that while they would be constructing a new prison, the 5,300 inmates that occupy the current one would be temporarily relocated to other already over crowded facilities. This would cause more violence and other issues in the other prisons.
I know times are tough, but selling a prison isn’t the answer. However, I do recall a story a while back where Mr. Schwarzenegger wanted to legalize marijuana to be able to tax it and collect revenue. Now, that would be a better idea.
