The Big House in a Small Town

This work is an in-depth on-the-ground examination of how prisons impact rural communities including a revealing study of two rural communities that have chosen prisons as an economic development strategy.A recent study by the Urban Institute estimates that one-third of all counties in the United States house a prison and that our prison and jail population is now over 2.1 million. Another report indicates that more than 97 percent of all U.S. prisoners are eventually released and communities are absorbing nearly 650000 formerly incarcerated individuals each year. These figures are particularly alarming considering the fact that rural communities are using prisons as economic development vehicles without fully understanding the effects of these jails on the area.This book is the result of author Eric J. Williams'' ground-level research about the effects of prisons upon two rural American communities that lobbied to host maximum security prisons. Through hundreds of interviews conducted while living in Florence Colorado and Beeville Texas Williams offers the perspective of local residents on all sides of the issue as well as a social history told mainly from the standpoint of those who lobbied for the prisons.