By John Eason
Most of us would object to a prison in our backyard, but the economic situation has become so dire in some Southern towns that they fight over the right to build a prison. Forrest City, Arkansas, population 15,400, is one of those unfortunate places.
Forty years ago, there were 511 prison facilities in the United States. Since then we have embarked on an unparalleled expansion, constructing 1,152 new facilities. Before the boom, prison building was not as salient for rural locales because of the relative availability of other large-scale economic development opportunities like factories, mills, or even military bases. Following de-industrialization and the end of the Cold War, though, factories moved to Asia and Latin America as military bases closed.
Prisons are built where rural disadvantage is already concentrated, and prison towns are shaped by the same classic ghettoization processes that once shaped cities: white flight, increased public housing, and de-industrialization. In contrast to the commonly held belief among critics of the prison-industrial complex that prisons are built in small, overwhelmingly white communities with high unemployment, prison building is most likely to occur in larger rural southern towns with higher proportions of blacks and Latinos. The average rural southern town was 12 times more likely to receive a prison than a midwestern or northeastern town at the height of the prison building boom in the 1990s.
Without much hope for other kinds of large-scale economic development opportunities, some small towns changed their tune regarding prisons, from “not in my backyard” to “please in my backyard.” And that was the situation Forrest City faced. The Forrest City Federal Correctional Institute in Arkansas opened in 1995 after much lobbying from both wealthy elites (almost all white) and representatives of the African American community. Locals in the majority black town welcomed the prison in part because unemployment in Saint Francis County and Forrest City had reached record levels. The prison promised to generate 250 new jobs, with 65 percent of those positions going to locals. On a national level, a fair number of prison jobs go to people of color, with African Americans and Latinos respectively making up 22 percent and 7 percent of correctional officers in 2000.
Prisons are especially coveted in communities already stigmatized as rural ghettos, with significant minority populations living in areas where poverty is concentrated. In the case of Forrest City, the town’s reputation was further damaged by two key incidents. A strike at the local electronics plant was covered widely in statewide media, which exaggerated stories of worker violence. The town had also achieved national infamy thanks to a bizarre story reminiscent of the film Deliverance. One quiet spring evening in 1984, about a decade before breaking ground on the prison facility, the teenaged daughter of the county coroner was brutally raped at gunpoint. A Forrest City resident, Wayne Dumond, was accused of the crime and later castrated in a plot that allegedly involved the town’s sheriff. Former mayor Larry Bryant recalls how the reputation of Forrest City was described by his opponents in a heated battle for reelection in the 1990s: “They said the town was a filthy town, and we need to clean it up.”
The prison was, paradoxically, a way to repair the town’s reputation. Boosters at the Chambers of Commerce and leaders of the drive for a new prison used the movement to unify diverse town interests, appealing to the financial interests of the town’s elites and to the workers. Rural communities place pride and honor in work. No matter how terrible the job may be, there is more pride in working a job under poor conditions and pay than not working at all.
Despite its ongoing troubles, Forrest City did find a less stigmatized identity after the federal prison arrived and it became a prison town. Residents believe the prison has created well-paid, unionized positions with benefits. They also believe that certain ancillary businesses thrive because of the prison. Goods and services needed by prison employees provide another potential way for a prison to boost the local economy. And because prisons are often situated at a sizable distance from prisoners’ origins, de facto tourism industries sometimes spring up around prison towns.
Aside from the new identity, though, the benefits of the prison were limited for Forrest City residents, in keeping with national trends for prison towns. While new prisons tend to boost the economy of small towns, the boon doesn’t last long. The benefits of prisons built in the 1980s had already waned by the 1990s; those built in the 1990s had waned by 2000. By the mid to late 2000s, Forrest City residents tended to see the prison as benign overall. It hadn’t turned the fortunes of the town around, as some hoped when it was built, but it hadn’t had a negative effect on their daily lives, either.
These perceptions were largely correct, and represent what might be the most underreported story of towns like Forrest City. What the prison accomplished there, as in other prison towns, was to halt the brutal decline of rural economies, and to keep them from falling over a precipice into the economic abyss: a significant benefit.
Many states are considering closing prison facilities in light of recent budget shortfalls, and well intentioned advocates are pressing for prison abolition in the name of helping poor communities of color. But, given where prisons are built, and the number of people of color employed by them, cutting back on prisons may actually increase poverty and hurt those same communities of color.
