corrente

I was never a big Martha Stewart fan, but that's just me. I lack the gene or whatever is required to make people care about, much less have any talent for, decorating and fashion and such. That said, the fact that she is headed for the Big House this week and Ken Lay is still walking around free as a bird really pisses me off.

And now this.

(via Newsday)

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Budget cuts and staffing shortages will make it difficult to protect Martha Stewart at the minimum security prison where she will serve five months for lying to federal investigators, the union representing correction officers there said Monday.

"During the day there is one officer for 550 inmates," said Kent Gilkerson, a correction officer at Alderson Federal Prison Camp in southeastern West Virginia and local president of the Council of Prison Locals. "At night there's two."

Gilkerson attributed the drop in staffing to federal budget cuts
The American Federation of Government Employees said staffing at 105 federal prisons is at its lowest levels in 14 years.

"The funny thing is, there was an outrage that at Abu Ghraib (the military prison in Iraq) one soldier was watching 500 inmates," national president of the Council of Prison Locals Phil Glover said. "They (the Bush administration) need to look at their own federal prison system."

Now this is not to predict that Martha is going to come out a hardened criminal, knife scars on face and a crystal meth habit. But for the "regular" people of somewhat lower social standing and public attention, just what do we think we're accomplishing by locking folks up in these conditions?