February 22, 2001

Your recent editorial, "A funny way to show support for prison," concerns me.

As a member of Brush Valley Preservation Association, I can assure you there is no one more dedicated and hard-working than these people in trying to help our community. Economic development leaders in other areas who the group has spoken to cannot see why our political leaders and business people are not pursuing with vigor the plan BVPA is proposing.

If the group is "anti-prison," as the writer suggested, why would they have gone to all the trouble of looking for alternate sites and spending endless hours and days traveling to Wilkes-Barre, Hazleton, Pottsville, Harrisburg and Sunbury checking mining maps and talking to any number of people seeking information?

Going back about 10 years, we didn't have the prisons that we presently have, so consequently there was not the extensive research that there is today regarding the impact of prisons being built in a community.

Today, because of the research and networking being done on local and national levels plus the facts that are being released, one begins to have much concern about a federal prison being built here.

As more communities become acquainted through networking, people have become more vocal and (are) standing together to keep prisons from coming into their areas. It seems that prisons are not the panacea that some people expect them to be. Loss of Brush Valley may not be worth it for another prison, especially when other sites are available. BVPA does still endorse a prison on the Natalie East site which they have suggested.

After talking to some of these people and reading the research material, I personally have some reservations about a federal prison coming here. Some major concerns about prisons are the following facts we have learned:

In Columbia County, welfare, unemployment, crime rates and depression actually increased for the residents. A Department of Labor employee in the same county states that many wives and families of inmates come to the area and that is a problem facing them in jobs. It was also said that many prisoners stay in the area when they are released because their families have located in the area.

In California, a prisoner rights activist stated with certainty that 95 percent of the prisoners' families who will live in and around our community will not meet our moral standards.

A University of Florida criminologist, Charles Thomas, stated that although there will be a temporary employment increase, after the construction is finished and after the dust settles, there will be no further boom in the local community. The locals may receive 10-20 percent of the jobs, but Thomas says the majority of revenue obtained from the prisons will not be seen by the community.

At a job fair where 2,388 people applied for prison jobs, only 740 were from the local community. Forty percent of the 350 jobs will be in the management area and will not be filled by the people who applied at the job fair. Sixty percent of the 350 jobs will be filled by those who attended the fair but these (approximately) 200 jobs will be filled on a qualifications basis. The executive assistant of the federal institution stated it would be discriminatory to hire people on the basis of location.

I feel certain that if we get a prison in Brush Valley, the quality of life everyone could enjoy as a recreation area will be gone forever. Without recreation to offer industry to relocate here, we'll probably never see our area get decent-paying jobs for the average worker. I feel prisons will never attract industry, as they so far haven't, but a recreation site would.

If the powers-that-be in our area don't see that the prison, if it comes, is built at Natalie East, I doubt that our area will ever enjoy a good economy such as other areas enjoy.

I can understand why the editor made some of his comments in the editorial. In the beginning, our only concern was to save Brush Valley. We worked hard to find alternate sites and we did. However, as we continued researching and networking, we became aware of what other communities have found out about prisons which we were unaware of previously. As a good news reporter reports the facts as he or she finds them, this is all that we are doing. Facts will always be facts.

Eleanor Kuhns