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| Study: Prisons Provide Few Economic Benefits |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 02/13/2003 |
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Prisons provide few long-term economic benefits to rural communities, according to new study by a group that supports alternatives to incarceration. The Sentencing Project analyzed income and state unemployment data for 14 rural counties in upstate New York over 25 years. Seven counties had prisons and seven did not. The study found similar per capita income increases - from about $5,000 in 1976 to $22,000 a quarter-century later - in both groups of counties. Unemployment trends in the groups were about the same. 'If a prison were having a positive effect on per capita income, we'd see an increasing divergence of prison and non-prison counties,' said Marc Mauer, assistant director of the Sentencing Project. 'Instead they remain almost identical.' The prison officers' union, with 22,000 correction officers and sergeants who oversee 67,000 inmates in New York, disputed the study's conclusions. 'Clearly, officers are benefiting the local economies they live and work in,' union president Richard Harcrow said. New York had 32 prisons for adults in 1982, but opened 38 more over the next 18 years, reflecting a national trend that saw the prison population triple. In recent years, the prison population has declined but there are no plans to close any prisons. The Sentencing Project examined counties and cited Missouri research that showed 68 percent of one prison's jobs were held by people who lived in other counties. 'Thus over two-thirds of tax revenue and other economic benefits leak out of the host county,' the study said. Construction, service and supply contracts for prison construction also often go to out-of-town bidders, the researchers said. Correctional officer jobs pay well - $32,432 after the first year of training - compared to the average per capita income in rural New York, but researchers said the prison system's seniority rules ensure that local hires don't get the jobs right away. |
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