The Role of Prisons In Rural Development: Do They Contribute to Local Economies?

For the past two decades, distressed rural communities throughout the United States have been turning to prisons as a rural development strategy. In many cases, communities have competed fiercely for correctional facilities and have provided costly incentives in the way of tax abatements and infrastructure development. As financially strapped local governments are finding it difficult to fund local infrastructure (physical, fiscal and social), rural stakeholders question the role prisons play in stimulating local economic development. A review of the research suggests that earlier studies assumed or projected economic development but that more recent work focuses on specific economic impacts. Researchers approached the problem from both case study and data driven research designs. Both techniques are producing similar conclusions. Prisons generally appear to have a negligible, or perhaps negative, impact on economic development in rural communities.