In our backyard.

• Author: Cutler, Debbie
• Position: From the Editor - Neeser Construction Inc. is constructing aprison in joint venture with Alaska. Department of Corrections and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough - Brief article

Remember Gov. Murkowski? Remember his jet? Remember how he was going to use it to send an overabundance of Alaska inmates down to an Arizona prison? Remember the hoopla?

Well, under former Gov. Sarah Palin's leadership, most inmates will stay in Alaska in a new medium-security correctional center that will open in 2012 at Point MacKenzie on 330 acres. The 1,536-bed Goose Creek Correctional Center is for long-term male felony offenders and part of its goal is rehabilitation. Some inmates will even be trained to work on the proposed gas line.

The center will be a work-release program. According to Richard Schmitz, special assistant for communications for the Department of Corrections, the inmates will rise early, shower, brush their teeth, eat and then head to work or school. They'll get a noon lunch break and at the close of business they will go home, wash up and sit down to dinner, followed with a little down time before lights out.

The goal, he said, is to get inmates trained, educated and prepared to reintegrate into society.

The 430,000-square-foot, $240 million building is under construction by Neeser...