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Show a q monday, I O december 12, 1977 BEEHIVE INTRODUCES NEW STANDARDS in the Audio Visual Field ELMO 16 CL Ms L-2- j 00 SPIRIT DUPLICATOR O L BEEHIVE AUDIO VISUAL PHOTOGRAPHIC CORP. Supplying Your Audio Visuol ond Photographic Needs 60 m m EAST by Chuck Akerlow The prevailing attitude in Utah toward offenders is to incarcerate them first and worry about their reform later. Thus, over the years, we have provided money annually to run the prison and make a modicum of improvements but little capital has been available in the already-too-tigstate budget for new penal facilities or for upgrading existing ones. As inmate populations have grown, corrections officials have turned to other alternatives such as community corrections, diagnostic centers, half-wa- y houses, etc. Although these programs have lofty goals, they serve the useful function of freeing up bed space at the Point of the Mountain. And for a few years we have been able to avoid responding to the pressing matter of new and additional maximum and medium security spaces in the prison, but now the reality has caught up with us. Some tough choices must be made. The Board of Corrections, of which I am a member, wisely requested an additional penal institution a ago. That request was not granted by the Legislature which accounts for the fact that it has been made again, this time by the Corrections Task Force. Some members of the Legislature have been quoted in the press as saying there is little chance the Legislature will look favorably upon requests for a new prison. Well, I think those members ought to look again. In case youre tempted to say Those guys at the Point of the Mountain got whats coming to them and they dont need any fancy new prison, you, too, should look again. For it is inevitable in a society preoccupied with the rights of homosexuals, lesbians, dope peddlers, abortionists and others that prisoners would also find some group ready to extend to them all the civil rights freely enjoyed by you and me. While I dont wish to argue the merits of whether prisoners should have civil rights, and if so, to what extent, I am prepared to say the courts have found that prisoners do have many rights among which are humane, decent and safe places in which to be incarcerated. At the moment, the Board of Corrections is being sued in class action by several prisoners citing everything wrong from bad food to no law library. The federal government, it appears, will enter the case in behalf of the court, but friendly to the The U.S. petitioners. Justice Department has conducted a multitude of investigations into our prison in preparation for the trial. The outlook is not promising. Should we lose the suit and fail to correct the situation at the prison, it is entirely possible the Justice Department will intervene to manage the prison under federal court order until the state of Utah corrects the situation. Imagine that! A federal government bureaucrat running our prison with the federal court directing how much money must be spent by the State to correct the problems noted in the lawsuit. I don t know about you, but I hope the day never comes. And it doesnt have to if we clean up the mess now. One member of the Legislature said in a meeting, upon hearing of the possibilities of federal intervention, that was enough for him to oppose the funding to correct any of the problems at the prison. It is that attitude which worries me. We do have problems which can be and should be corrected by us and not by some Justice Department official. To their credit the state Corrections officials have already begun exhaustive investigations of their own and have turned up almost 1,000 deficiencies noted by the Fire Marshal, the Board of Health, the State Agriculture Department, the State Building Board and the Industrial Commission. Prison officials have been working hard to improve the situation and alleviate the deficiencies. To completely remove them, especially before a trial date on the class action suit, wili take additional money from the Legislature. The people of Utah have a right to expect the Legislature will deal positively with the crisis and not bow its year-and-a-ha- o A The legislature and a new prison ht RONEO-VICKER-S 16mm SOUND PROJECTOR Open Account SO. TEMPLE r i SALT LAKE CITY. UTAH I" mmb S41 10 PHONE 531-147- 4 ;r. mum r ;smm 0 anm .. x v v.v rf ;gX2J V'VvyWW" i . A.'V iom Now every Sharp gives you both- - print and display. Some calculators provide a tape for record keeping and accurate double checking. Some provide a display for easier reading A few provide both. But every Sharp has both print and display. On every one of its CS models. The worlds electronic calculators. What s more, there s a wide variety of Sharps to fit your best-sellin- g office needs, and comfortably fit your budget. Chtxrse from a wide variety of or models. Print and Display. They're not a luxury any longer. Because now they're standard equipment on every Sharp CS desktop Calculator, Want more good reasons why Sharp CS Calculators arc n it only the but your best buy? Call us today for a demonstration without obligation. You'll be glad you did. 10-dig- best-selle- rs 12-di- lf No member of the Legislature would publicly advocate that we close the prison down and let the inmates home. Nor would any argue that we send them out to go our overcrowded county jails. There is no practical alternative to the Point of Mountain. the it a v, ; 'wunany uuurcss tnc there and correct them before we find yet another stateproblems function slip out of our hands and into the hands of the federal government for want of our decisiveness. |