We met wealthy paradise seekers earlier as we saw how their arrival in a beauty spot distorts and ruins what makes it beautiful. After reading this well-written but depressing piece on the carceral industry’s impact on Appalachia, it turns out there is a similar effect when prisons are dropped onto the old mountaintop removal sites.
Economic studies show that prisons do decrease levels of unemployment in the communities they are located, as often promised, but they also show existing and newly built prisons result in a decrease in per capita income, as well as an increase in poverty levels. That means that likely higher paying prison jobs are given to new employees from outside the area while local residents are given lower paying jobs with fewer benefits. — emphasis added
Read the whole thing, as the kids say. It’s good quality reporting and analysis/commentary, something we don’t get nearly enough of these days.