A recent editorial in Minot Daily News discussed the North Dakota prison plan that was settled on by an interrim legislative committee.  The committee has spent hours investigating the subject.  Their recommendation is to combine remodeling with new construction to update the state penitentiary–and it’s the same kind of recommenation that was debated so strongly in the past legislative session.

From the editorial:

We completely agree with decision by the six-member committee. The problem is, this is a decision that was basically made during the 2007 session until some lawmakers decided they knew more than the officials at the Department of Corrections and discussed the idea to death in the legislature. Ultimately, nothing in the way of construction was accomplished.

It seems a shame that so much time and money was spent on the same solution that was brought up during the past session.  If I remember right, this was an issue that had at least three or four bills offering different solutions to our overcrowded prison situation.  Ideas ranged from building a stronger rehabillitation program to one that would have scrapped our current penitentiary in favor of starting from scratch with a new location and entirely new facilities.

This plan is right in the middle.  While upgrading our prison system isn’t going to be cheap, this solution is comparitively fiscally conservative and socially conservative, too.  I think by and large North Dakotans are somewhat cautious.

But a conservative way of thinking, especially when the national economy is sluggish, just seems to be a smart way to handle things.  Apparently the prison committee thinks so, too.