(C) Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural This story was originally published by Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Advocates Call for a Research-Based Approach to Closing Rural Prisons [1] ['Taylor Sisk', 'The Daily Yonder', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Where Img', 'Height Auto Max-Width', 'Vertical-Align Bottom .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar'] Date: 2024-06-12 In 1970, the U.S. – state governments, primarily, set out on a 30-year prison-building spree. At that time, according to the Urban Institute at Brown University, there were 525 prisons across the country. By the turn of the century, 1,100 more had been constructed, more than half of which were placed in rural, predominantly Black and Latine communities with high poverty rates, few educational opportunities, and limited access to capital and other resources. John Eason, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute who has done extensive research on the patterns and trends of mass incarceration, calls the construction of these prisons the largest public works project since the New Deal. He estimates approximately one in five residents of rural America live in a town with a prison. In a paper titled “Reducing Prisons in Rural Communities of Color,” Eason and his colleagues write that, “Many of the places where America’s prisons were built were experiencing economic decline. Carceral facilities have helped revitalize these communities – often dubbed ‘prison towns’ – serving as a source of economic stability by providing stable jobs, tax relief, social connection, and increased revenue through state and federal funding.” Prisons can also stimulate other sectors of the community, the researchers write, such as construction and retail. Eason acknowledges it may sound as if he’s a proponent of building more prisons – and that this would seem a notably incongruous position to hold given that he’s African American and Black and Latine people are incarcerated at significantly higher rates than white people. He is not a proponent of building more prisons. “Putting humans in cages is not a winning strategy,” he attests. But, he stresses, the incentives for an economically challenged community to welcome a prison must be acknowledged. Eason has written that “neither entirely pariah nor panacea, the prison functions as a state-sponsored public works program for disadvantaged rural communities but also supports perverse economic incentives for prison proliferation.” What must further be acknowledged is that while some states continue to build prisons – Alabama will soon be home to two more – nationwide, more prisons have been closed than opened since 2000. Consequently, Eason said, rural community leaders need assistance in identifying alternatives to prisons, and he’s enlisted his Brown University students in doing so. Among the alternatives they propose are green energy and tourism. Community-Engaged The Urban Institute’s Reducing Prisons in Rural Communities of Color project is designed to “better understand the prison boom, how it affects communities, and what it would take to responsibly curb demand for prisons and decrease their numbers.” The initiative aims to both reduce mass incarceration and address the adverse economic outcomes of prison closures. The institute hosts a community-engaged methods lab, whereby researchers use a variety of methods to get communities to buy into the research process. “‘Community engaged’ means that often communities are driving the research or asking the questions,” Eason said. Blythe, California, is among the towns Eason and his faculty colleagues and students are assisting. Blythe is in the Palo Verde Valley, 225 miles east of Los Angeles and 150 west of Phoenix. It’s home to just over 18,000 residents, 60% of whom identify as Hispanic or Latine. “We’re like a little hidden gem,” said Kati Cusick, who until recently served as president of the chamber of commerce. But there’s a sense of being a very long way from the state capital, Sacramento – a figurative distance far greater than the 600 actual miles. “We’re out here on our own,” said Mallory Crecelius, Blythe’s interim city manager. “We have to take care of each other.” This sense was redoubled when the town’s residents learned the state had decided to shut down Chuckawalla Valley State Prison, one of the two prisons, along with Ironwood State Prison, that revitalized the local economy and reversed what had been a declining population. They’re Blythe’s two largest employers. Those jobs have been transformative for the community. Chuckawalla opened in 1988 and Ironwood in 1994. With them came “an opportunity for employment with benefits and retirement,” Crecelius said. “People could increase their wage and be able to then send their kids to college.” Eight hundred jobs will be lost with Chuckawalla’s closure. When, in December 2022, news of the impending closure arrived from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, via a press release, it felt like “a sucker punch to the gut,” Cusick said. “I almost wondered if they were trying to wipe us off the map.” The state plans to close several prisons, or facilities within prisons, as a means of saving money. Chuckawalla is slated to close by March 2025. A Save Chuck campaign was mounted. Why Chuck? According to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s website, it was selected for a variety of reasons, including cost to operate, the impact of closure on the workforce, and public safety. When the state was scouting locations for a new prison four decades ago, few communities offered to house it. “We stood up and said, ‘Yes, we’ll take it,” said Vice Mayor Johnny Rodriguez. The poverty rate was high; well-paying jobs were much needed. The prison brought new business to town. Rodriguez’s father opened a grocery store that remains in operation. “We were the first volunteers who were willing to do this,” he said, “and now that they don’t need it, it’s the first one they take away. And it’s kind of a slap in the face.” (Interestingly, the city of Norco – which, like Blythe, is in Riverside County – had petitioned the state, unsuccessfully, to close its prison, the California Rehabilitation Center.) “One of our major fears is our hospital,” Crecelius said of the potential ripple effects of the closure. The hospital relies on the income from prison-population admissions. It’s also the only hospital in California within 100 miles, she said. Though there are hospitals in Arizona about half that distance, traveling out of state for care often creates insurance issues. “I’m also very concerned about the impact it’s going to have on our schools,” Crecelius said. “We did an economic-impact report, and they anticipate the school district losing $4.9 million from loss of enrollment.” Crecelius said local officials had an initial meeting with Califronia Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) Sec. Jeff Macomber in January of last year. “We’ve requested follow-up meetings since then. Those meetings have either not been set or they’ve been set and then cancelled. So it’s really been radio silence from CDCR.” There’s a sense, Rodriguez said, that a factor in the state’s decision was that as a remote, minority-majority community, “we were an easy target.” Residents worry that Ironwood could be next. Meanwhile, Blythe officials are working with Eason and his Urban Institute team to help chart a path forward. They’ve recommended two options for which the town is well suited: green energy and tourism. The state of California has mandated that municipalities reduce their carbon footprint, and those efforts have been incentivized. The Urban Institute researchers suggest that clean-energy grant programs like the Justice40 Initiative offer sustainable opportunities. They write: “Renewable energy sources like solar and wind offer a golden opportunity for rural places to diversify their economic options.” Blythe is also well positioned to invest in tourism development. “We have the Colorado River,” Crecelius noted. “There’s a lot of opportunities for recreation”: jeeping, rockhounding, hunting. “Other than three months out of the year, we have a beautiful climate.” “I think the options are great,” she said. “But it’s going to take help.” Lasting Change Roughly two million people are incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails each year, Eason laments, and tens of millions are under probation and parole. He very much wants to reduce those numbers. But he wants to see a transition from incarceration that accounts for the fact that the criminal legal system has offered opportunities for people, and communities, who have access to precious few. “Law enforcement is a path to the middle class,” Eason said. “If you cut that off – and you’re also cutting off towns that have become dependent on it – you’re only creating more precarity, which will probably lead to more crime and punishment and other bad things.” In a 2023 Urban Institute report, Eason and his colleague Susan Nembhard wrote: “If prison reform and abolition advocates want to responsibly close prisons to curb demand, it’s vital to integrate evidence-based research to make lasting change to criminal legal systems. Central to this research is understanding where prisons are built and how prisons affect these communities.” Closer collaboration with communities that are already disproportionately hurt by the criminal legal system, they write, is the first step. 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