"Reverse Racial Reparations" Funding Rural Prison Communities

Paul Street, a writer and commentator on race, published a blog today that discussed the prison system, particularly the effects of the system on rural areas that build the prison and the urban areas that often supply the prison with inmates. He wrote it a few years back for a book, but did not like how it was edited.

The blog is definitely worth the read. It is highly researched and provides difficult numbers and statistics to find.

In the blog, Street brings an interesting concept up to the forefront by quoting Todd Clear. Clear, a criminologist, first talked about the concept of “reverse racial reparations.” Basically Clear concluded that each prisoner is worth $25,000 each in the community where the prison sits because of the job he/she provides and the funds the town receives.

This transfer of funds from the urban to the rural may be the most harmful effect of the prison industry. While the funds should go to the community the prisoner came from, in order to help stop future criminal activities with education and other social programs, the rural community receives the funds instead. The fund transfer or “reverse racial reparations,” only helps to increase the prison population and the pockets of the rural community, while the urban community continues to flounder in poverty. This is part of the reason why the prison population continues to grow, and maybe if it was not so profitable, changes would be made to reverse this growth trend.