STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Tuesday, 29 May 2012

[Demeter]

15. New York Has Some Prisons to Sell You

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/28/nyregion/closed-new-york-prisons-prove-hard-to-sell.html

One property, in the Hudson Valley, includes a 16-car garage, a piggery and hundreds of yards of lake frontage...Another offers 69 acres of waterfront land on the west shore of Staten Island, complete with a two-story gymnasium, a baseball diamond and an open-air pavilion...Those seeking seclusion have an option, too: 20 acres adjoining state forest land in rural Schoharie County, perfect for hunting, trapping and fishing. The property comes with its own wastewater- and sewage-treatment plants, as well as a chapel and a carpentry shop. The ideal buyer is someone who craves space to spread out, and who does not mind a property that has had thousands of guests over the years. And a fondness for “The Shawshank Redemption” would not hurt.

These real-estate listings come from an unpracticed seller, the State of New York. After cutting costs through traditional means like freezing wages of state workers and consolidating government offices, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is embarking on a less conventional effort: trying to sell New York’s old prisons. The state has a glut of vacant correctional facilities because of lower crime rates, new programs that allow early release for nonviolent offenders and the dismantling of its strict drug laws. The situation in New York reflects changing national attitudes toward criminal justice policy: the number of state prisoners nationwide declined in 2009 and 2010 for the first times in at least three decades, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Mr. Cuomo’s predecessor, Gov. David A. Paterson, closed three prisons as he confronted budget problems. Mr. Cuomo declared in his first address to the State Legislature that prisons were “not an employment program,” and proceeded to shut seven of the state’s remaining 67 correctional facilities, removing 3,800 beds. These closings reflect a sharp reversal. After New York adopted mandatory drug sentences in 1973, the state’s prison population soared from 13,437 to a peak of 71,472 in 1999, prompting a boom in prison construction, much of it during the tenure of Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, the current governor’s father. But since then, the number of inmates in state facilities has fallen nearly a quarter, to about 55,000, leaving thousands of empty beds.

The state has other real estate to offer as well, including a Romanesque armory in Poughkeepsie where soldiers drilled before the Spanish-American War and a one-time rehabilitation center for young women in the Finger Lakes region...

IF IT WEREN'T FOR NEW YORK'S HIGH PROPERTY TAXES, THIS WOULD BE VERY TEMPTING...ALL THAT SPACE AND INFRASTRUCTURE...A TOWN OF ONE'S OWN!