Could the Billings Gazette Building House Criminals?

I saw an article in the Gazette this morning talking about the disproportionally high number of supervised criminals in our area.

I've heard from many folks through the years about what the paper called "a bus ticket to Billings". This is when people in other towns don't want a certain type of people in their towns, they just buy them a bus ticket to Billings, Montana. What was their problem is now ours?

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I don't know if that's exactly how it works. But the fact is that we've got more violent crime in our area than before. Taxpayers, myself included, don't want to foot another bill for a new or even updated jail.

How about this? How about we make the Billings Gazette building into a holding facility for the lowest-risk criminals?

The jails can still house the hard care criminals. But if we remodeled the Gazette building, we kill two birds with one stone. Yes, I realize that all of this would cost money and it will never happen. But just play along with me.

If you had "inmates" living in the Gazette building, you could reward good behavior. Been a good boy for a month, you get to run across to Hardy's. Plus, none of the inmates will have cars. So we have more parking for law enforcement. Then you wouldn't have the police department and sheriff's office having to stuff cars in every nook and cranny in their neighborhood.

Problems Solved: