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May 21, 2005
Scott Peterson May Have To Find A New Home
Yahoo! News: "Amid warm spring sunshine at San Quentin village just north of San Francisco, several women lay in bikinis along the bayshore beach. A dog fetched a ball in the sea and several kids played in sand.A few hundred feet away from the relaxed waterfront scene, a din rose from the 5,500 prisoners locked inside California's oldest prison, San Quentin, a death row facility lined by palm trees in a spectacular setting.
Two political opponents visited the prison on Friday and called for its sale and dismantling, saying the 432-acre (175-hectare) facility was too costly and dangerous to keep operating.
'This is a bipartisan effort to basically sell this whole prison off,' said state Sen. Jeff Denham, a Republican sponsoring legislation to sell it for what some estimate could be $750 million. 'There are better places to utilize taxpayers dollars in this state.'
Assemblyman Joe Nation, a Democrat who represents the Marin County region around San Quentin, shared the sentiment.
'This is about $25 million per year more expensive to operate than a comparable facility,' he said. 'If you add those up over some reasonable period of time, say 50 years, the life of a prison, it's over a billion dollars.'
Unlike Alcatraz, a scenic prison on the San Francisco Bay that closed in 1963, San Quentin has fought back its critics.
In 2002, state officials said San Quentin's aging buildings, winding corridors and outdated layout created a serious security risk and they planned to move its death row. Then they changed their minds.
Officials now say they have nowhere else to put the 5,500 inmates, who range from petty thieves to killers such as Scott Peterson, sentenced to death in March for killing his wife and unborn child."
Posted by Loyd at May 21, 2005 10:19 AM
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