(Taking context-optional note of thought-provoking quotes)'We don't have enough water for a brewery, and IBM ain't exactly knocking at the door. What else were we gonna do?'
-- A small-town mayor on why his community wanted a prison built there, quoted in an op-ed by Eric J. Williams, Professor of Criminal Justice at California's Sonoma State University. The quote captures in a nutshell why Williams makes a prediction that contradicts claims of the Republican leadership. In Williams' view, if rural communities in the United States were asked to house persons now detained at Guantánamo, there'd be far more YIMBYs (Yes, In My Backyard) than NIMBYs. It's a question that my colleague at the University of California, Davis, School of Law, Professor Lisa R. Pruitt, has explored at her Legal Ruralism blog, a daily feature in our "connections" list at right. Her post's enticingly entitled "Are cowboys wimpy? Perhaps only when it comes to alleged terrorists."
(credit for photo of federal "Supermax" prison in Florence, Colorado)
