The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

The work crews are inmates from the nearby Camp Pharsalia, a minimum-security state prison tucked into a hillside a dozen miles outside town. For the city of Norwich, like other rural Upstate New York communities, the 110-inmate Pharsalia and other prison camps have become something of an economic lifeline, for decades providing not just manpower, but also jobs, in a region where work is hard to come by.

But with most governors and legislatures grappling with crushing budget deficits, what's good for rural economies is often proving bad for states.

New York is facing a $13 billion deficit, and a falling inmate population, and Gov. David A Paterson (D) has proposed saving about $26 million by shuttering four of the state's prison facilities, including Camp Pharsalia and nearby Camp Georgetown. Faced with the prospect of losing a big part of their economic base, these small, distressed towns and cities are banding together with a common cry: "Save Our Prison!"

"This is a major impact on a small community," said Paul Lashway, a Norwich resident and prison guard at Camp Pharsalia for the past 10 years. He is also a steward for the local corrections officers' union. "I thought we were trying to save jobs," he said. "Here, they're trying to take 'em." The prison union is leading an effort that includes lobbying the legislature, direct mailing and targeted radio ads in the affected communities.

It's a conflict being played out across the country. The number of inmates boomed in the 1980s and 1990s, in part because of high crime rates and stiff mandatory-sentencing laws that particularly targeted drug offenders. States rushed to build additional prisons to keep up with what appeared to be a growth industry. And many struggling, mostly rural, communities came to see prisons as a substitute for the family farms and the small manufacturing plants that were vanishing.

"Prison growth was a lot about economic development," said Tracy Huling, who produced a documentary about the phenomenon, titled "Yes, In My Backyard."

"It started in the '80s, when the farm crisis exploded across rural America," she said. "Agribusiness drove out family farms, and the economic base of a lot of rural communities just collapsed. In the absence of a real recovery strategy to address that, you have a lot of prisons."

The United States has the dubious distinction of being the country with the highest percentage of its citizens behind bars, more than one in a hundred, or 2.3 million people, according to the Pew Center on the States.

But a confluence of events has forced a fundamental rethinking. Crime rates have dropped sharply over the past two decades, and almost all states are facing budget deficits. Study after study has shown that giving nonviolent drug offenders treatment, instead of jail time, is far more effective at preventing repeat abuses. And it costs much more to keep a person incarcerated than to supervise him or her on probation.

As crime has receded as a major issue among voters, many state legislatures, including here in New York, are looking at rolling back mandatory drug sentencing laws. Some states, such as New Jersey, are experimenting with special "drug courts" for first-time offenders. Others, such as Rhode Island, have expanded "good time" early release programs or are allowing some prisoners to serve a portion of their sentences at home.

Some involved in the prison industry, as well as some in law enforcement, say this is the wrong time to be rolling back sentencing laws and closing prisons. "You know what happens in a recession," Lashway said. "Crime goes up."

And what is heralded by most as good news -- declining prison populations -- is being greeted with a sense of foreboding in places where prisons have become big business.

Norwich Mayor Joseph P. Maiurano has calculated the cost, for his city, and for surrounding Chenango County, one of New York's poorest: Fifty-nine corrections officers, and their family members, may have to leave the area for jobs in other facilities. About 40 local businesses will lose procurement funds. More than 50 local organizations benefit from the work the inmates provide.

The prison is a major employer, but it also has a direct impact on other services, such as postal services. The local post office is largely supported by the huge volume of inmate mail. With the loss of the prison, residents fear the post office could close, too.

Despite rural communities' attachment to their prisons, many experts dispute whether correctional facilities serve a long-term economic benefit.

Gregory M. Hooks, a sociology professor at Washington State University, who analyzed the economies of prisons, said that among other problems, the pool of free inmate labor eliminates the pool of low-paid manual labor jobs, further depressing local economies. Prisons make communities dependent but without much return to the community, because the jobs are secured for life. And, he said, a local prison may make an area less attractive to other types of businesses, particularly those catering to tourists.

"On average, prisons don't do much of anything," Hooks said. "If you look at the poorest counties, the impact is negative. If you put a prison in a struggling county, they get worse, not better."

The Pharsalia inmates -- the vast majority of them from New York City -- perform a variety of duties, including maintaining horse and ski trails, working in the public parks and thinning the forests. Maiurano estimated that for the city alone, he would need to hire four additional workers to make up for the loss of the free inmate labor.

"Where are we going to get another $100,000-plus dollars?" Maiurano asked in an interview in his office. "We don't have the income -- the growth isn't here."

One of those who has benefited is the Rev. Bruce W. Braswell, pastor of the Springvale Church in Norwich. He said the inmates painted and refurbished the 100-year-old church. "There's no way the church could have been rehabilitated," Braswell said. "It would have cost us a couple thousand dollars to do the same work."

He said Norwich is being unfairly targeted for a prison closing because Chenango County, with 50,000 people, is small and poor, far from any major population center and in the forgotten middle of the state. "Out of sight, out of mind," he said.

Lashway is mainly worried about his job.

Lashway, 41, is the single father of a 17-year-old boy, and it took him nine years of trying to get a job at Camp Pharsalia. After four years escorting the work crews, Lashway is a weapons trainer with a decade of experience, making $55,000 a year. If Pharsalia closes, he will be offered a job at another prison, but that might mean driving at least 1 1/2 hours each way.

In a region where jobs are scarce, he may not have any other choice.

"I'm trying not to think about that," Lashway said.

Paterson won't be the first governor to try to close prisons. George E. Pataki and Eliot Spitzer proposed closing some prisons while they were governors, including Pharsalia, but retreated in the face of widespread local protests.

The difference this time around is the deteriorating financial situation. "It costs a lot of money to keep it open," Eric Kriss, a spokesman for the State Department of Correctional Services, said of Camp Pharsalia.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/22/AR2009032202747.html