Issues in

Appalachia:

Prison Recruitment

as a Policy Tool of

Local Economic

Development

Exploring Prison

Siting in Rural

America

Presented By

The Settlement Library Project

Promoting an Eclectic Librarianship in Rural Appalachia

Serving People,Changing Perspectives,andSharing ResourcesinLibraries

Review

of a 2006 study

Exploring Prison Siting in Appalachia

and

Small Town America

Big House on the Rural Landscape:

Prison Recruitment as a Policy Tool of Local

Economic Development

Ernest J. Yanarella and Susan Blankenship

Ernest J. Yanarella is a professor of political science and holds an endowed professorship in the Chellgren Center for Undergraduate Excellence at the University of Kentucky. His work on prison recruitment is part of a larger research interest in industrial recruitment, local economic development, and urban sustainability.

Susan Blankenship is a former assistant professor of Criminology, Justice, and Policy Studies at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology. Besides prison recruitment and economic development, she is interested in U.S. prisoners’ unions.

The Relevance

“Like sports franchises and foreign auto plants that preceded them, state and local government are touting prisons as the latest means of economic miracle-making—particularly for chronically, economically depressed local communities. There are, however, many ways in which prisons are very unlike their predecessors. They are tied to the development of a just, fair, and rational criminal justice policy in a civil democratic society; and they have deeply troubling social and political consequences for these communities.

This study explores these consequences in light of the literature on prison siting, experiences of communities and prisoners, and relevant statistical data in the public domain.”

(Yanarella and Blankenship 2006, 110)

The Assertion

Prisons “were being touted as economic revitalization projects that would bring an abundance of high-paying, recession-proof jobs to the locale and serve as a major stimulus of each county’s small rural towns and communities.”

(Yanarella & Blankenship 2006, 112)

The Focus

“Personal narratives, survey responses, public documents, and journalistic news items allowed us to construct a portrait of a perceived economic asset, and to gauge emerging economic and other consequences of their operation, for the local and area economies of Martin and McCreary counties.”

(Yanarella & Blankenship 2006, 112)

The Issues

• Top-down globalization • Privatization of the public household • Rural communities bypassed for recovery • Erosion of the traditional base of rural local economies • Deindustrialization and economic restructuring • Business renewal and industrial recruitment programs designed to bring new businesses and

good-paying jobs into American rural communities • Increased federal and state public monies infused into prison construction• Imposed increase in the length of federal and state prison sentences • Federal financial rewards to states adopting “truth-in-sentencing” statutes• Prison building becoming a leading “growth industry” in the U.S.• Prisons marketed as “recession-proof” economic revitalization projects

(Yanarella & Blankenship 2006, 111-122)

The Study

• Examined recruitment and siting of prisons in two Kentucky counties, and small town, rural America

• Reviewed preliminary findings of fieldwork exploring prison recruitment • Reviewed national trends and findings from the mounting literature• Examined successive waves of local business development and economic recruitment• Examined prison building policies and economics as development strategies• Examined changes in the U.S. Justice system and the criminalization of behavior spawning

prison construction (Yanarella & Blankenship 2006, 111)

The Procedure

• Case studies, data and other evidence

• Site visits to communities most likely to be impacted by huge incarceration facilities

• Unstructured interviews in person or by telephone with stakeholders

(small business owners, a bank president, local politicians, state legislator)

• A review of primary documents available on site or through other sources

(internet, libraries, newspaper archives)

• Telephone survey

(75 local citizens randomly selected)

(Yanarella & Blankenship 2006, 112)

The Results

• The private prison industry is owned by “for-profit” corporations and banks which lack state oversight and legal safeguards

• Rural localities gain no direct tax benefit from construction and site locations

• Construction needs exceed the abilities of local companies due to the “design-build” strategy of the Bureau of Prisons (BOP)

• Prison service/supply contracts are awarded to large, geographically distant companies due to stringent standards and requirements of the federal BOP

• Most of the labor is drawn from state and national searches instead of locally

• Unpaid inmate labor often eliminates jobs from the local community

• Stop-and-go low-paying service jobs serve a transient worker demographic

• Prison siting tends to erode community spirit and social bonds

(Yanarella & Blankenship 2006, 125-130)

C C

The Findings

Prison recruitment as economic development produces “social fallout”:• Fearful citizens prone to punitive inclinations• Racial and other forms of stereotyping • Rigid incarceration practices without rehabilitation • Creating a society of alienated citizens lacking sociality• Compounds bad criminal justice with shortsighted economic policies• Symbolizes a failure of economic policy at the state and national level

(Yanarella & Blankenship 2006, 135)

The Contribution

Drawn from the research, the authors’ offer a realistic alternative framework, or model, for local economic development.

To create true rural economic development through community empowerment, the authors’ recommend that rural communities:

• Strengthen individual economic policy tools

• Preserve individual native resources

• Safeguard individual rural character

• Find local solutions and pathways for responding to globalization

The significance of this study’s findings illuminates the authors’ assertions, and

strengthens, and verifies collected literature concerning this issue.

(The authors’ note there are few studies in the literature offering opposition.)

(Yanarella & Blankenship 2006, 136)

RThe Reference

Yanarella, Ernest J., and Susan Blankenship. 2006. Big house on the rural landscape: Prison recruitment as a policy tool of local economic development. Journal of Appalachian Studies12, no. 2: 110-139.

The Images

Slide 1: Rethinking Prisons: Art, Activism, and Scholarship on Prisons and the Death Penalty“Solitary Confinement” by Kenneth Artez Henderson http://rethinkingprisons.wordpress.com

Slide 6: Illinois Prison www.zimbio.comSlide 7: Come sit by the hearth . . .

comesitbythehearth.blogspot.com/2011_05_01_archive.htmlSlide 8: Katherine Fontaine prisonphotography.orgSlide 9: Prison Bars City Paper Blogs

blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2012/04/denial-of-the-day/prison-bars/Slide 10: CA.gov www.cdcr.ca.gov/visitors/facilities_aerial_shots.htmlSlide 11: Activist Art prisonphotography.orgSlide 12: Private Prison Profits Skyrocket thinkprogress.orgSlide 13: Family Water Alliance www.familywateralliance.comSlide 14: Rethinking Prisons: Art, Activism, and Scholarship on Prisons and the Death Penalty

“Solitary Confinement” by Kenneth Artez Henderson http://rethinkingprisons.wordpress.com

The Settlement Library Project

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