L.A. Builds Expensive New Jail, Can't Afford to Use It

In a nice example of the Austrian economics analysis of long-term capital expenses that unravel into uselessness when expected economic conditions don't bear out, Los Angeles has spent $74 million on a new jail that it now can't afford to use. Details and links over at my California news and politics blog "City of Angles."

The Reason Foundation has its own advice to California's prison system for cost-cutting: try more public-private partnerships. Not arresting the nearly 19,000 (in 2008, last year for which I could find figures) in the state for strictly drug-related "crimes" would help a lot as well.

Comments

[MP]

I'm shocked, Shocked!, that the new super-cool prisoner facility was designed without labor efficiency in mind.

[Fist of Etiquette]

L.A. can't afford not to use that jail! You have to spend money to lose money! Come on, California, you know that.

[Warty]

Who Am I?

I am a womyn-with a Y- who has been pushed aside because of not having a vagina! A womyn who has been actively pro choice and believes in a right to choose, whether it be to continue a pregnancy or whom one has sex with.

A womyn not a female, never wanting to comply with the gender sex parallel, but living my life at the intersection-unapologetically- being male and a womyn. Forcing the separation of gender and sex!

I am the one who has and still conforms to the ideal gender stereotype of being feminine and being womanly. Having silicone injected in her in the backroom of an apartment with the fear of dying within ten minutes. Yet not caring because my need to fit in, to look normal, to be passable.

[Mister DNA]

Who am I?

Jackie Chan!

[Hugh Akston]

Womyn with a y? That shit is so third wave.

Now you need to be a wombn. With a womb bitches!

[wylie]

Just change the sign outside to "Public School", problem solved.

[Carston]

Just change the sign outside to "Public School", problem solved.

I would have laughed if it weren't so true. Ah the hours wasted staring out the window wishing I were somewhere else.

[skr]

Is that what they built on Main St. just south of the new Headquarters?

[Michael Ejercito]

What are the costs of running a jail?

[andy]

RTFA!