ID: the "das Boot" cure for prison overcrowding

I'm always proud when one of my fellow Idahoans makes it into Boing Boing:

Prison inmates to sleep in shifts?


Robert Geddes, Republican president of Idaho's State Senate, suggests that one way to deal with limited space in prisons would be to make inmates share beds by sleeping in shifts...

That's Idaho Republican leadership! Dummkopf: go rent some submariner movies, and spare us your penological insights. At least one professor warns that "courts have tended to frown on prisons that are crowding their inmates, whether they have a bed or not." And if Geddes had bothered to ask, the head of the Idaho Department of Correction would have told him, "prisons are not submarines."

Geddes sounds delighted that his bold idea is getting Idaho lots of worldwide attention. Unfortunately and as usual for my home state, it's not positive attention. Says one libertarian:

Dude, I’ve spent over a decade in the Army, and I can tell you that hot-bunking is a morale killer and is to be avoided whenever possible. People need their individual space. That is unless you wish to create a climate where inmates are more likely to riot...

Thanks, Senator, for that torpedo amidships to my nostalgia for Idaho.

Update: 43rd State Blues' take on the pride of Soda Springs - Geddes 'hot-racking' prisoners idea makes Drudge: Idaho looks even more stupid