Instead of asking tax payers to pony up $400 million for a jail we really don't need to spend $400 million on, and instead of lining the pockets of Sheriff Whetsel and his "public safety" cronies--why don't we just use Crossroads Mall instead?
I mean, it's practically the best location I've ever seen for a jail. Isolated from the rest of the city and cut off by a highway interchange, with a landfill towering over it, and the city's best collection of strip joints just a jailbreak away--it's the world's most perfect site for a new county jail. It's also conveniently located near a very high-crime part of the southside and has limited ingress/egress that could easily be watched--and of course, you would encircle it with a great wall.
That kills three birds with one stone. That way people can stop talking about how to revive Crossroads, we don't have to spend public resources to bulldoze it, and we have a new solution for the county jail.
What's the asking price anyway? Probably under $5 million, just a guess. So 1/80th of the cost to build Sheriff Whetsel's dream prison.
