PRISONS AND PAYCHECKS

Gov. Ernie Fletcher's administration has set itself the daunting task
of changing how the nation sees Kentucky through a coordinated
"branding" campaign.

Even more daunting, though, will be the task of changing how Kentucky
sees itself - changing its short-sighted propensity to subsist as an
economic bottom feeder.

A good example is the battle the Governor is now in over whether to
open a new prison the state has built in Elliott County and, if so,
for what purpose.

There are many serious issues involved: the social wisdom of the
state's corrections policies and practices; the financial impact of
spending ever higher sums to incarcerate ever more inmates; the
relative merits of private versus public management of prisons; the
potential benefits and drawbacks of starting to take in other states'
prisoners.

This being Kentucky, however, those issues are being upstaged by a
fierce fight over what usually counts here: state jobs for the small
(6,900 population), poor (26 percent in poverty) and unemployed (14
percent jobless rate) county.

In fact, House Majority Leader Rocky Adkins, who is from there, has
gone so far as to claim that the state "has something of a commitment
to the people here to open this place and run it" so as to provide the
government jobs, salaries and benefits originally anticipated.

Gov. Fletcher is right to dispute this stunted view of "economic
development" and to insist: "I just don't want this state to have the
reputation of being a state that builds its economy on building
prisons and incarcerating its citizens."

The fate of the new facility should be determined by serious debate
over Kentucky's criminal justice policies and its many competing
financial priorities - not by calculations that equate prisons to paychecks.

If that happens, something deeper than Kentucky's national image will
have changed.