MOVE JEFFERSON CITY INMATES TO BONNE TERRE

Missouri's state budget woes are vividly on display in the case of our corrections system. First, the good news, especially for Southeast Missouri. The new prison under construction at Charleston will open more or less on schedule next spring, possibly sooner. Lawmakers appropriated $5.6 million for the current fiscal year to equip and open the 1,600-bed Charleston prison. Estimates are that it will cost approximately $20 million a year to operate.

The news for our neighbors to the north is much more grim. At the much larger Bonne Terre prison, planned since 1994, there isn't enough money to equip it or open the doors. The Bonne Terre facility, which will have approximately 2,700 beds, will cost $12 million to open and nearly $45 million to operate.

So the Bonne Terre facility sits idle, an embarrassing monument to poor planning on the budgetary side.

We have a question for state policy-makers, both in the legislative and executive branches: Why not close the ancient Jefferson City Correctional Center, which dates from the Civil War era, and move the inmates housed there to the new but dormant Bonne Terre facility?

The old facility in the state capital, one of the nation's oldest prisons, has been scheduled for closure for years. A new facility is planned nearby to replace it, but the beginning of construction may be years off, given the state's budget situation.

It would seem to make all kinds of sense for the state to make maximum use of the new Bonne Terre facility and close the old Jefferson City prison. What about it, Governor Holden?