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>My understanding is that the vast majority of prisons are located in
>rural areas, and that prisons are becoming increasingly important to
>many rural economies in the US. That's the case here in NC anyway.
>Have unions ever been very strong in rural areas?
>
>-N
Well over 200 prisons were built in the rural US in the '90s. Residents are told prisons will be good for local economies but they're being sold a bill of goods. Most jobs created by building a prison are filled by people from outside the community and goods for the prison aren't bought from local merchants. Plus residents are stuck servicing bond debt for prison construction, you get the reputation of "prison town" and other industries stay away, wastewater management is a big problem.
Real Cost of Prisons Project has a series of very informative comic books on this topic. They're all here:
http://realcostofprisons.org/comics.html