The decline of the prison economy

Although prisons are expensive, one benefit of building prisons is theoretically that it creates localized economic growth. Of course the fundamental wisdom of running a such a harmful policy just so we can spend government money to make jobs is fairly myopic, but we’ll leave that for later. In any case, per an article at the excellent Atlantic Cities site, the decline in the prison population is causing pretty severe problems for these prison towns.

Littlefield, Texas, may be the best example of this exodus. In July of 2011, the town auctioned off the recently-built Bill Clayton Detention Center for half the price it paid for the initial construction rather than risk defaulting on their loan. They also raised property taxes, increased utility fees across the board, and laid off city employees while their bond rating collapsed.

Other towns such as Walsenburg, Colorado, McFarland, California, Baldwin, Michigan, and Boydton, Virginia, have suffered similar fates. Without prisoners, they’re left with empty, foreboding complexes that cost the town millions to build only a few years prior.

Unfortunately there’s not a lot to be done here. Walsenberg can’t go back and unbuild its prison. It’s stuck with a big pile of bricks that used to be good for holding inmates but isn’t good for much anymore.

The upshot of this is probably a plea for honesty from state officials and from independent contractors that operate the prisons. It’s one thing for towns to do certain things in reliance on a state program. That’s inevitable, and people are going to move where some jobs are created. That said, the state is asking for a lot more than reliance. They’re asking for subsidies out and out in the form of free land, utilities breaks and other sorts of money to aid with the cost of construction.

That’s not reliance, that’s out and out cost-shifting from the state (which has money) to the localities (which don’t). If the legislature wants to send people to prison it should pay for that itself, not dupe struggling rural communities.