The prison system of the United States is locking up more people than any other nation on earth. New York State spends $60,000 per year on each inmate it houses. In the Hudson Valley, the city of Newburgh is a community in distress: a high rate of unemployment, poverty and high-school dropouts mar its image. Social services are seen as placing their unwanted clients there and offering little support for the rest of the city, effectively abandoning it. In response, we propose to reallocate certain resources from the prison system into Newburgh and other cities facing similar circumstances in the region, such as Middletown and Poughkeepsie.
