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January 22, 2009
NJ: Guard union fights prison closing with scare tactics
"The guards' union should be ashamed for distributing an atrocious flier depicting murderers, rapists and gang members breaking into homes and harming children after the prison closes. Needlessly scaring people isn't the way to save union jobs. Riverfront's inmates are going to be relocated, not released on to the streets of Camden."
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinio/20090121_Editorial__Camden.html
Posted on Wed, Jan. 21, 2009
Editorial: Camden
Another step forward
Philadelphia Inquirer
Finally, some good news for Camden. Riverfront State Prison, long a demoralizing presence on the city's waterfront, is to be closed, possibly this summer.
The razor-wire-enclosed compound occupies potential prime real estate just north of the Ben Franklin Bridge. The medium-security prison opened in 1985, when the struggling city became the dumping ground for facilities other communities did not want, including a sewage plant and garbage incinerator.
With development dreams slowly being realized on the waterfront south of the bridge, planners and North Camden residents have looked at the prison as an ugly obstacle to future growth, a monument to the failure to recognize the property's potential "best use."
Given the recession, this isn't a good time for development. But as the economy improves beyond the year or so it will take to tear down the prison and move its 800 inmates, the site will become attractive.
Already, stakeholders have a credible plan to remake North Camden offered by the grassroots Save Our Waterfront organization, which envisions a mix of residential and retail development for the 17-acre prison site. The plan would rehabilitate North Camden's core neighborhood and reconnect it to the waterfront that surrounds it on three sides.
With that plan in hand, once the economy does pick up, developers will be in position to move quickly, expanding cash-starved Camden's tax base and giving tenants in the new high-rises across the river another reason to pay for a view.
Gov. Corzine has promised to close the prison. Closing the facility now will save the state money when it is struggling to keep up with costs.
Removing the prison is opposed by its corrections officers and by local families of inmates who don't want to see their relatives moved to more distant lockups.
The guards' union should be ashamed for distributing an atrocious flier depicting murderers, rapists and gang members breaking into homes and harming children after the prison closes. Needlessly scaring people isn't the way to save union jobs. Riverfront's inmates are going to be relocated, not released on to the streets of Camden.
The state has been effectively using alternative incarceration programs to reduce prison populations. As a result, Camden's prison can finally be closed. Good riddance.
Posted by lois at January 22, 2009 06:53 PM