These states’ prisons are so full that they have to ship inmates thousands of miles away
By this time next year, the tiny village of Baldwin, Michigan (population 1,200) could more than double in size, thanks to people moving in from other states.
But the town is not attracting outsiders with a North Dakota-style economic boom. It is, in fact, one of the poorest municipalities in the state of Michigan. Rather, the new arrivals will be coming from Vermont and Washington, after both states reached an unprecedented agreement to ship inmates from those states to a private prison, located just outside the town.
The North Lake Correctional Facility, which will reopen at the end of June after being closed for four years, will strictly house inmates from other states, as Michigan will send none of its own to the facility. It’s the latest development in the controversial practice of how some states send local prisoners thousands of miles away from home to serve their sentences.
States argue that it’s cheaper to send prisoners far away to private prisons than building and managing new facilities on the taxpayers’ dime. But advocates say the practice brings its own problems.
http://fusion.net/story/146671/these-states-prisons-are-so-full-they-have-to-ship-inmates-thousands-of-miles-away/
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This is a problem within large states like California and New York. Pelican Bay is located all the way up by the Oregon border, over 600 miles from SoCal, where two-thirds of the inmates come from. And most of NY State's prisons are upstate, again, hundreds of miles from NYC and vicinity.
Factoid: The phrase "up the river" comes from Sing Sing, in Ossining about 50 miles up the Hudson River from NYC.
