Rural Prison Studies, or Lack Thereof

The Waco Tribune had a guest columnist write about the beliefs of how the prison helps rural communities. Will Harrell repeats twice that “Research shows” little economic success when a prison is built in a rural community. But then he never backs up the claim by citing a source or giving a figure. While I agree with Harrell’s sentiment, I wanted to provide a little support to his claim.

Here is one from The Sentencing Project. It studied 14 rural communities, seven with and seven without prisons. Its conclusion was that the researchers could not conclude a significant economic difference between the communities.

Here is another one by Iowa St. professors. At one point the study concludes “prisons appear to provide few benefits to small town economies.”

Another book by Ruth Gilmore, a professor at USC, has also published a book about prisons called Golden Gulag. It tackles the rural prison issue as well.

Its not that I blame Harrell for leaving statistics out, but really few studies have tackled the issue. With the amount of money expected by rural areas when they want a prison, one would think to at least make sure that community will get the return expected. More studies need to be done, and more statistics cited, so columns like Harrell will have more weight and communities will be more informed.