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OPINIONS
Editorial: On working prisoners, textbook costs and riverfront park
Students look for books at the Marshall University Book Store. According to a newspaper report, Ohio has struck a deal with textbook publishers to allow Ohio's college students to buy digital versions of textbooks at half the original price.
Purchase this photoWest Virginia officials are taking a new look at an old idea -- letting prison inmates work on-site for private firms for prevailing wages, with those wages being used to pay the cost of their prison upkeep.
According to an article in The Beckley Register-Herald, the Legislature's Oversight Committee on Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority is looking at the idea, but it is proceeding cautiously. There are questions of liability should an inmate be injured on the job at a prison or a regional jail. And there are questions about what sort of work should be allowed. Telemarketing or other jobs involving direct contact with people outside the jail should be prohibited.
On the positive side, however, prisoners or regional jail inmates could be earning money that could also be used for a nest egg to help when they are released.
There has been talk of using jail inmates to clean litter from roads or to perform other public service work. That sounds like a no-brainer. So does allowing inmates to work for pay and using some of that pay to recoup the cost of their keep. There are federal regulations to deal with, but West Virginia officials most definitely should pursue this idea.
Been in a college bookstore to price textbooks lately? Talk about sticker shock.
In Ohio, steps are being taken to reduce the price of textbooks by selling digital versions rather than printed ones.
A new partnership with textbook publishers will allow Ohio's college students to buy digital versions of textbooks for half of the original price, according to The Columbus Dispatch. The state's agreement with CourseSmart, a consortium of publishers, will offer the digital books to students enrolled in Ohio's public or private college or adult-learning programs.
Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland says the price of textbooks is often seen as a barrier to students seeking to enroll in the state's colleges and universities.
Ohio Board of Regents Chancellor Eric Fingerhut says CourseSmart offers nearly all of its more than 4,000 digital books at discounts of 50 to 55 percent off the new print price. Fingerhut says Ohio is the first university system to partner with the new venture, which will add more e-books over time.
There are many differences between reading a textbook on a computer screen and reading it on a printed page. You can't thumb through a digital publication the way you can a book. But money is money, and now Ohio students can save money if they so choose by going digital rather than using ink-and-paper books.
If this experiment succeeds, perhaps universities in West Virginia can take a similar approach.
Six men were arrested at Harris Riverfront Park last week and charged with public intoxication and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Along with them, a 16-year-old boy was arrested and charged with having a concealed deadly weapon and possession of marijuana.
The arrests occurred as an officer on bike patrol spotted the men and the boy shortly before 2 p.m. on a weekday afternoon.
It's been a long effort by the community to clean up the park. In this case, the Huntington police are doing their part to make the park a family-friendly place again. Police must continue the pressure to drive crime out of the park.
