The Iowa Board of Corrections has released a proposal to help alleviate the overflow of inmates in Iowa’s prisons.

Unfortunately, their answer to Iowa’s prison overpopulation problem is a familiar one that fails to identify the real issue behind prison overpopulation.

Under the proposal, which will be sent to the Iowa Legislature and Gov. Terry Branstad, $81 million would be allocated for the construction of new facilities over a five-year period.

This funding would be utilized to build a super-maximum-security facility for 250 inmates at an undecided site. In addition to this $34.3 million project, a 50-bed prison infirmary would be constructed at Oakdale State Prison, as well as a 50-bed addition for the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women in Mitchellville.

It is amazing that the state would even consider using tax-payer money to finance the construction of new prisons without barely even considering ways to prevent people from being sent to jail in the first place.

While politicians and citizens rave on about “costly” crime prevention programs, they seem to be perfectly satisfied spending their money to house criminals. Where is the logic?

Hopefully, the Iowa Legislature and Gov. Branstad will realize the short-sightedness of this project, and begin to take steps to insure another proposal of this nature is not introduced ten years from now because no one has bothered to spend time figuring out how criminals are made to begin with.