How America Converted Its 1980 Olympic Village into a Prison

One of the first buildings completed for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics was the Atlanta City Detention Center.[1] It was in preparation for arresting the homeless in bulk.[2]<p>[1]: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.atlantaga.gov&#x2F;index.aspx?page=201" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.atlantaga.gov&#x2F;index.aspx?page=201</a><p>[2]: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;1996&#x2F;07&#x2F;01&#x2F;us&#x2F;as-olympics-approach-homeless-are-not-feeling-at-home-in-atlanta.html?pagewanted=all" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;1996&#x2F;07&#x2F;01&#x2F;us&#x2F;as-olympics-approach-ho...</a>

<i>... The protest group STOP encouraged European countries to write letters of disapproval to the U.S. government. They also stressed the stark contrast between international models of criminal justice and the emerging American model—as Holland, Sweden, Japan, England, and others were reducing their use of prisons in favor of community sanctions, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons had doubled its number of prisons in the previous ten years.</i><p><i>As controversy peaked in 1979, Ramsey Clark, the former Attorney General under President Lyndon B. Johnson, testified that the controversy about the Lake Placid project wasn’t just about Lake Placid, or the symbolism of the Olympics—this would be a litmus test for the future of incarceration in America. “We are going to be masters of our destiny or the victim,” he told Congress. “It’s precisely the psychology of the prison, that once it is built you believe you have to fill them up.”</i><p>The people in opposition were right on this one.

Being as we&#x27;ve not only basically made mass incarceration into our national sport; but have racked up the gold, year after year in this &quot;sport&quot;, since then -- this actually seems a fitting and poetic tribute to our collective character, and what we stand for as a nation in the eyes of the world.

What do you do with 500 dorm rooms in the middle of nowhere?<p>Honestly this seems like the perfect use case. Theres not enough demand at lake placid to use them as apartments.

I live just a few miles from Lake Placid, and have for most of my life. It&#x27;s unfortunate, but this area still relies heavily on the correctional system for the local economy. Along with a majority of the manufacturing jobs up here, it too has begun to shrink, however, and it&#x27;s really turning the North Country (as we call it) into a rural slum.<p>I&#x27;m not opposed to downsizing the amount of incarcerated people, for sure, but the void isn&#x27;t being filled, and many of the communities up here are taking a turn for the worse.

Hmm, maybe we should have gone with something more useful...like a free vocational school w&#x2F;on-site free&#x2F;low cost daycare and perhaps a primary school? I&#x27;m finding the biggest issue with people changing careers is doing so while taking care of kids. Enough free space, and it&#x27;d seem like something society would go for...then again, say &quot;tax&quot; and 1&#x2F;2 the population turns off instantly.

Prisons in America is a massive scam and so tightly linked with war on drugs. American government is like the Mafia boss while the City officials acting like henchmen. The first time I read about &quot;civil forfeitures&quot; I felt like someone kicked me in the balls.<p>But here is my favorite &quot;Prison Project&quot; story.<p>Kaiser Steel started a mining project in California in 1942 or so called &quot;Eagle Mountain&quot;. A town was built for the workers (around 4k) and it was a very busy town until 1980s. Environment regulation killed the mining business and Kaiser left the place in ruins.<p>State of California then spend millions of dollars to convert the ghost town into a correctional facility in 1988. State could not budget it properly and one insane prison riot that got few people killed the prison was closed. This prison was privately operated and not sure how many people benefited by the whole scam.<p>CA then decided to convert the abandoned mine into a giant landfill (the mining was problematic for environment but somehow the landfill was not!) and after spending few more millions of our money the project of abandoned too or perhaps it is still being planned on paper.<p>The best part is however today the entire ghost town is closed and there are some people appointed just to make sure no one trace-passes over a town that no one wants to live into.<p>I am not even sure who owns the land, the buildings and who is spending the money to keep it fenced etc.

The core idea here was good. Re-purposing these villages after use.<p>Now if only we could do that in the modern day, with support from the IOC, and turn them into something positive. For example turn them into schools, homeless shelters, libraries, something along those lines.

I feel like part of the problem here is the IOC and trying to &quot;win&quot; having the Olympics.<p>A more sensible approach would be temporary housing, akin more to trailers and inexpensive pop up temporaries rather than plush living. These athletes don&#x27;t need to be treated like royalty. Heck, most of them are used to competing out of cars and cheap motels when on the road because they make so little money. (emphasis on most, not all). Basically something like a FEMA response with a little more class and forethought put into it.<p>Instead we have cities trying to show how grand and massive these buildings will be, rather than how practical and well put on the event can be. I was honestly thrilled when Chicago lost the bid for 2016 to Rio. That chaos the rest of the world is talking about now would be in my back yard, and potentially even worse given the density of our city, and the poor strength of our government.

Now if they could only put the crooks that run the IOC in prison...

What a practical solution. We hear story after story of how hosting the Olympics costs more than it&#x27;s worth and ruins neighborhoods. Here they found a place that already had many of the facilities needed, and found a way to pay for the cost of building new ones. And it even gave jobs and income to the local economy long afterwards. I really can not understand how anyone could be against this.<p>Of course we all wish the war on drugs would stop, that sentences would be reduced, etc. But until that happens we can&#x27;t just ignore the problem. Overcrowded prisons are awful and seriously harm the quality of life for the prisoners. Additionally, even with normal population growth, you would eventually need to build new prisons. And significantly reducing the prison population is actually really difficult, as demonstrated by this interactive: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.themarshallproject.org&#x2F;2015&#x2F;03&#x2F;04&#x2F;how-to-cut-the-prison-population-by-50-percent" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.themarshallproject.org&#x2F;2015&#x2F;03&#x2F;04&#x2F;how-to-cut-the...</a><p>Surely this new prison would have been built anyway. And if they had built it someplace else no one would have noticed or cared. Using it to reduce the cost of the Olympics was a very practical solution that didn&#x27;t change anything.

Hosting the Olympics where you already have facilities is ideal, but that&#x27;s much harder for the winter Olympics. Building athlete housing and spectator housing that can be moved would let you have an Olympic Village without it turning into a ghost town or a prison.<p>Kasita is an attempt at this: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;kasita.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;kasita.com&#x2F;</a><p>But even conventional mobile home manufacturers seem to have taken a hint from the Tiny House movement and are making trailer homes for hipsters: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.championhomes.com&#x2F;park-model-rv" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.championhomes.com&#x2F;park-model-rv</a>

sounds like a good idea to have some future use for olympic infrastructure instead of ending up with rotting hulks. <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.indiatimes.com&#x2F;culture&#x2F;who-we-are&#x2F;24-abandoned-olympic-venues-in-the-world-that-are-the-biggest-example-of-money-down-the-drain-259876.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.indiatimes.com&#x2F;culture&#x2F;who-we-are&#x2F;24-abandoned-ol...</a>

Same exact thing happened to the city of Los Angeles after the &#x27;84 summer games. Very few get out alive. Good food though.

Well, the headline says it all, doesn&#x27;t it?

May be Brazil can do the same

right on

Wait, 1980 Olympic games were in Moscow, USSR. It was Winter Olympic games that took place in Lake Placid in 1980.<p>I applaud, even the USSR did not built GULAG camps in Olympic villages. What an exciting time we are living in. Democracy, freedom, you know the drill.

Of all the things to convert it to...<p>It could have been a homeless village. But no we would rather expand space to continue to be the worlds largest incarcerator of non violent offenders.<p>Disgusting!