Tomorrow's editorials: Bowling Brook reopens, and Americans drive less
Here are previews of some editorials we're working on. Let us know what you think. The best comments will run alongside the editorials in the print edition.
--Maryland juvenile justice officials insist they've learned the lesson of the death of a Baltimore boy held at the Bowling Brook Preparatory School: keep facilities small, and keep youths in lockups close to their home communities. But the reopening of the Bowling Brook campus by a for-profit, out-of-state company that specializes in large centers in the West takes the state in a dangerous direction. Gov. Martin O'Malley and members of his administration insist that the opening of Silver Oak Academy is just a temporary measure to help the state as it transitions to a reformed juvenile justice system, but the decision will make it all too easy for this administration or another to go back to the bad old days of sprawling, unmanageable youth lockups that were magnets for violence and abuse.
--Gas prices aren't anywhere near as high as they were at this time last year, but the nation's motorists are acting like they are. New federal figures show a 4 percent drop in the number of vehicle miles driven over the last year, the biggest year-over-year drop ever recorded. Whether it was $4 gas, the recession, growing environmentalism or some other factor, motorists' behavior changed more last year than it did during the oil crisis of the 1970s, when gas rationing was the rule. Time will tell whether this trend continues, but it could mark a fundamental change in Americans' relationship with the car, one promising a host of potential benefits to clean the air, lessen dependence on foreign oil and foster more sustainable communities.
Comments
Americans are addicted to big:big macs, big slurpies, big gas guzzling cars, big energy inefficient houses and now the big Silver Oak Academy to house and reform delinquent juveniles when it is clear such facilities are tinder boxes and nothing good can come of them. It tells you that the company from the West sold our politicians, including the Governor, a deceptively simple line that their large facilities are successful in Colorado and elsewhere. You must look into the track record of this company. We are in a recession and this is appalling. How much of the taxpayers' money has gone into building this temporary sprawling facility? It is obvious to me that Maryland wants to outsource the problem of its troubled and incarcerated youth to anyone who will come along and sing a sweet song of success with such juveniles elsewhere. The state is reluctant to confront this thorny issue head on. History, as usual, repeats itself because politicians refuse to learn its lessons.
Exhausted taxpayer
Posted by: Anonymous | July 6, 2009 2:03 PM
We are not driving more because we don't have any money in our pockets to spend when we get to our destinations. Many of us are not even driving to our jobs because we have been canned. Our houses are foreclosed, our credit cards are maxed out and we are pulling along with doddering cars that need resuscitation. And you revel that this could be a watershed event in the love affair Americans have had with their cars? I think it's a barometric measure of our recession.
Sick of recession
Posted by: Sick of recession | July 6, 2009 2:24 PM
Saying that Rite of Passage is only going to be a “temporary measure” until smaller facilities are built is like saying WalMart is moving into the neighborhood just until the Five & Dime can open.
Rite of Passage intends to be in Maryland to grow and to stay – any other intention would be bad business strategy, and ROP is a smart business.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 6, 2009 3:10 PM
Well Andy your boys in Annapolis are taxing the crap out of us!
[Not on gas! That's the only thing they didn't raise taxes on! //AAG]
Posted by: jay | July 6, 2009 3:30 PM
Keep it down Andy.
Don't want to give OMalley and his cronies any new ideas.
But we Maryland residents are getting taxed to the hilt just about everywhere else. Sure glad they passed slots!
Posted by: jay | July 6, 2009 6:33 PM