Site Near Prison Not fit for Campus
Pete E. Tafoya must be feeling vindicated. The Ventura County Community College District trustee was criticized some months back because, as a member of the university site selection committee, he raised concerns over one of the proposed Cal State University sites being located next to a youth prison near Camarillo.
Recently four inmates--two of them murderers--escaped from the youth prison in the latest of a number of breakouts from that facility. The search for the escapees, ironically, included the very property where a university campus may someday be located.
As a former employee of the county probation department, I am well aware that in recent years the inmates at this prison have become progressively hard-core, with a majority being convicted of murder, assault, rape and armed robbery.
I agree with Mr. Tafoya. Do we really want a university next to a prison?
Adam Baca
Oxnard
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