One of the Republican candidates for governor says the legislature should immediately focus on the management of the state’s prisons rather than worry about constructing new facilities.
Congressman Jim Nussle has called for an independent review of the recent break-out at the state’s maximum security prison. “It appears that people have been fired because there were…management problems at the prison,” Nussle says. “Management problems don’t mean that you build new prisons.” Nussle says there are all sorts of questions that need to be asked.
Nussle says talk of building new prisons is “distraction” from the problems inside the Fort Madison prison. Many have said the prison, which was built in 1837, is outdated and a new maximum-security prison should be constructed. Nussle says that may not be the right thing to do. “To suggest that the reason why these two prisoners escaped was because the prison was built in 1837 is exactly not what the reports have shown thus far,” Nussle says. “What they’ve shown is that there’s been personnel or management failures at the prison.”