John Nollson/The Holiday Prison Inn

...Some of our better departments of criminal sociology have been examining the corporate histories of Holiday Inn, Quality Courts, and the like...

...Similarly, we are learning that outmoded zoning regulations have placed an unnecessary crimp in the supply of prison housing...

...When administered as a condominium, the prison becomes a morale booster: To the satisfaction of building one's own cell with one's own hands there can be added the even deeper satisfaction of private ownership...

...By instituting a system of prison franchising, correctional administrations will thus save an awful lot of money...

...The plan here is to make the building of prisons an attractive investment for the private sector...

...The critics, of course, conveniently overlook the fact that it is impossible to open any of the windows, or that the sheets, thin as they are, cannot be fashioned into a usable rope, or that the bangers are bolted to the closets so they cannot be removed and fashioned into weapons, or that the pieces of soap are so small they could not possibly be carved into mock pistols...

...Labor costs are usually low, especially when the prisoners are organized into the work force that actually builds the facility...

...The sites are of two types...

...Predictably, a better class of people has started to move in...

...They allude to the fact that any building whose walls by John Nollson are so weak that you can put your fist through them cannot possibly restrain dangerous recidivists...

...The traditional system of paroling a prisoner with a twenty dollar bill and a new suit can now give way to starting him out with a capital gain...

...Traditionally, jurisdictions have been prejudiced against high-rise prisons...

...But beyond the simple fact that it is impossible to get out of one of these buildings if one decides to check in, there is the additional security factor of motel siting...

...Ingenious engineering ensures that one cannot leave the premises, except to face certain death in a busy street...

...Franchising has also shown itself to be a very useful tool...

...Withal, there is the ultimate security...

...Fortunately, there have been some positive signs, though this isn't yet a nationwide trend...

...And since the supply of prisoners is sure to rise, departing inmates will be able to sell their cells to the next tenant while turning a tidy profit...

...Will any of this work...

...After all, anyone who has ever tried to check out of one of these places in order to catch an airplane can testify that it is well-nigh impossible to leave the place, or even to find one's rented car in the garage...

...In this way, wardens need no longer contend with rent strikes...

...The fact is that the basic design of the contemporary hostelry is almost perfectly suited to the housing of criminal elements-right down to the smoke detector that doesn't work...

...And, if he's shrewd . enough to invest that gain in a new primary residence, his profits go untaxed...

...Life, after all, is filled with ironies, and it may well turn out that incarceration is the most effective way of getting the government off one's back...

...Or, the motel tends to be placed in the middle of nowhere, visible from the road, to be sure, yet inaccessible and, therefore, escape-proof...

...Some refer to the phenomenon as "gentrification," and, surely, the rising proportion of typical middle-class inmates in the prison population is an irrefutable statistic...

...This is bleak testimony to the baleful consequences of governmental interference in the workings of the free market, and not much is going to improve until the system of rent control for prisons is abolished...

...Yet, there is no particular reason why economies of scale ought not to be employed...

...Several states, noticing that their prisons as currently administered do not yield a proper return on the capital invested in them, have begun to encourage their conversions into condominiums, or, sometimes, into co-operatives...

...And it seems to be working...

...The principal factor is that prisoners, unlike tenants, cannot move out just because their building goes condp...

...Like everything new the trend toward remanding the construction of new prisons into the custody of the private sector has met with opposition from the statists...

...The critics note, further, that the bath-rubs are so loosely installed that it would be child's play to rip them off the floor and throw them out the window...

...When the warden announces that they will have an opportunity to buy their prison cells, they have no choice but to sign up...

...The first is close to busy boulevards in the vicinity of airports...

...Why build six five-story prisons, when a single thirtyrstory . structure will do...

...Hotel chains, in particular, have pioneered in the design and construction of escape-proof buildings...

...Not only are the prisons overcrowded, but, even worse, they are in disrepair and otherwise unattractive...

...It's hard to tell, but, so far as prisons are concerned, the movement toward condominium ownership has already led to a boom in the remodeling of older institutions...

...It's the kind of savings incentive the American economy so desperately needs...