Invest in people, not prisons
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Editor,
Today’s Valley Journal (May 7) mentioned “infrastructure investment at MT State Prison.” To my way of thinking an investment is something that gives you returns of some sort in the future. It might be money, it might be saving money, it might be preventing problems down the road. I think Montana would be much better off to invest in our kids’ futures. Early childhood education and mental health services can help keep people out of Deerlodge. I don’t know what it costs for a year or two of Head Start or public pre-kindergarten, but the info I found said it costs almost $40,000 per year to incarcerate someone in Deerlodge. Perhaps some of this infrastructure “investment” would not be needed if we kept people out of prison in the first place. Instead of looking to expand capacity we should be planning to need less capacity by preventing the issues that send people to prison.
Vicky Maclean
Ronan
