The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

State lawmakers and local elected officials predict the $200 million, 2,000-bed facility will create more than 600 jobs -- and untold economic opportunities -- by the time of its projected opening in German Township four years from now. The new prison, announced Thursday, is one of two planned by the state Department of Corrections to ease rapid overpopulation in existing facilities.

"Those are recession-proof jobs at a good, family-sustaining wage level," said Fayette County Commission Chairman Vincent Vicites. "We sought the prison because this could mean several hundred more good-paying jobs for the county."

Prisons have become a growth industry in rural America, where communities suffering from decades of decline in farming, mining and manufacturing jobs are grateful for solid employment opportunities. Although many state and local officials boast about the positive impact prisons have on their host counties, public policy analysts and criminal justice experts argue that other than creating jobs, correctional institutions do little to boost local economies.

Critics contend that prisons strain aging water, sewage and highway systems; burden local police and courts; and fail to stimulate new business and housing ventures.

"The idea that prisons create secondary industries, like hotels and entertainment complexes, is wrong. None of that happens," said Ryan King, a policy analyst with The Sentencing Project, a prison reform advocacy group based in Washington.

"It has been shown time and again."

Job security

In addition to 600 institutional employee positions, the proposed prison will create another 600 "spinoff" jobs in the community, according to state Rep. Bill DeWeese, D-Greene County, whose 50th District will include three prisons when the new facility opens. He estimated that 1,000 more union jobs will be associated with its construction.

"Jobs, jobs, jobs -- it doesn't get much more important than that simple four-letter word," DeWeese said.

Keli Kishbaugh, spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections, said the annual starting salary for a corrections officer was $29,815 under the most recent union contract. A contract that goes into effect this year includes a 3 percent increase in the starting wage, she said, adding that the average salary for corrections officers -- from trainees to the rank of major -- is $59,317.

Pennsylvania's two proposed prisons -- its 27th and 28th correctional institutions -- are the state's latest ripple on a national tidal wave of expansion that began in the early 1990s after mandatory sentencing laws sent inmate populations skyrocketing. Since 1988, the state Department of Corrections opened 15 adult lockups and a military-styled, motivational boot camp.

Earlier this year, the Pew Center for the States reported that more than 1 in 100 adults are confined in America's jails and prisons.

Pennsylvania's prison population -- nearly 47,000 -- has increased by almost 40,000 inmates since 1980, according to Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard. Although Beard said proposed legislative initiatives may slow the influx of inmates, he expects the population will grow.

As inmate counts escalated, prison numbers rose in every state from 1979 to 2000, going from 600 to more than 1,000, according to a 2004 report by the Urban Institute's Justice Policy Center. A survey of states showed that Texas led the nation in expansion by increasing its prisons from 17 to 137 between 1979 and 2000.

The survey showed that nine other states experienced significant growth: Florida, which went from 39 to 84 prisons; California, from 30 to 83; New York, from 30 to 65; Michigan, from 25 to 60; Georgia, from 18 to 42; Illinois, from 12 to 40; Ohio, from 10 to 35, Colorado, from 7 to 32; and Missouri, from 7 to 26.

Slight impact

Most of the facilities built in Pennsylvania in recent years are in rural counties, including SCI Albion in Albion, Erie County; SCI Fayette in LaBelle, Fayette County; SCI Greene in Waynesburg, Greene County; and SCI Forest in Marienville, Forest County.

The Center for Rural PA used a 2006 Edinboro University of Pennsylvania study to examine the relationship between four prisons -- Albion, Cambridge Springs, Houtzdale and Dallas -- and surrounding communities. Researchers determined that state corrections personnel and government officials should be realistic in their claims regarding the potential benefits of prisons because "any economic impact emanating from the prison, whether positive or negative, was not obvious to many community residents."

Erie County Planning Director Jake Welsh said that when state officials decided to build a prison in Albion in the mid-1990s, residents expected a spinoff in businesses and new housing. More than a decade later, he hasn't seen it.

"It's a very rural area. I don't know that there's been a great amount of new development occurring adjacent to the facility," Welsh said. "But I assume the employees are patronizing local businesses."

King said people who promote prison construction as a catalyst for economic development don't understand how state contracts are awarded and how institutions are managed.

In 2003, he co-authored a study that found most employees don't live in the county where the prison is located. "Big Prisons, Small Towns: Prison Economics in Rural America" showed that local residents often are ineligible for or unable to compete for employment because they lack necessary skills or are subject to restrictive hiring requirements within the prison system.

Retired Luzerne Township Supervisor Ron DeSalvo, whose efforts helped convince state officials to build SCI Fayette in his municipality, conceded that many of its 600 jobs were filled at first with employees from other prisons, including those who transferred from Allegheny County when Western Penitentiary closed in 2005. Resignations, retirements and the 2007 reopening of the North Side facility resulted in jobs for more local residents, he said.

"I think that most people who wanted a job at the prison got one," DeSalvo added. "They make good money, they have good benefits and, in 10 years, they're vested for a pension."

Local concerns

The Sentencing Project report indicated that large institutions often overburden aging road, water and sewage treatment systems. Finally, it found that local businesses seldom get contracts with nearby prisons, which require goods and services often unavailable in the host county.

Greg Hemmis, an industrial-equipment salesman who serves as vice president of Albion's borough council, said he hasn't seen a huge economic boom there or near the institutions at Cambridge Springs in Crawford County and Mercer in Mercer County.

Hemmis, however, said borough officials are facing a $3 million project within 18 months to offset the strain that the Albion facility has placed on wastewater and drinking-water systems. Most of the cost will be borne by the local taxpayers, he said.

When the first prison was built in Fayette County, it required improvements to nearby roads and upgrades to several water and sewage systems, according to Vicites, who said the projects were necessary for any hope of new housing. In German Township, supervisors hope the proposed prison will lessen the taxpayers' share of a $25 million public sewage project.

But in some cases, prisons increase taxpayer responsibilities.

Tracy Hulling, public policy analyst and author of the report, "Building a Prison Economy in Rural America," suggested that hidden costs of prison business, such as added financial responsibilities for local police and court systems, often strain small communities. Hulling wrote that small towns with prisons, but few other amenities, may appear unattractive to businesses and industries.

Mike Krajovic, president and chief executive officer of the Fay-Penn Economic Development Council, was unable to list any new businesses or identify any residential growth that resulted from the construction of SCI Fayette, which opened in 2003.

"You're not going to build a town around a prison. It's a positive contribution to the local economy, but not the solution to economic development," Krajovic said.

Still, DeSalvo insists, the construction of SCI Fayette is the best thing that ever happened for Luzerne Township. He said the prison created hundreds of jobs, increased tax revenue and launched at least one new business -- Fayette Thermal Supply, which supplies heating and air conditioning services for the facility.

"Prisons are good for a community," DeSalvo said. "You'll have people moving in, buying houses, shopping at local businesses."
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