Prisons may not be economic boon

CONNELL, Wash. — When the Coyote Ridge Corrections Center was built on a hill above town, Gary Walton and others in this south-central Washington crossroads farming community rejoiced.

The 600-bed state lockup meant jobs and improvements to streets, sewers and other public works projects built when this community of 3,100 was founded about five decades ago.

“They gave us jobs we didn’t have before,” said Walton, Connell’s mayor for the last eight years. “We got a new fire truck from the impact funds. We’ve got a new wastewater system.”

But a recently published study suggests the explosion of new prisons across the country the last three decades has done little to stimulate economic growth in towns like Connell.

Greg Hooks and fellow researchers argue that becoming host to a prison may actually hinder economic development efforts, particularly in hard-pressed rural towns.

Hooks, chairman of Washington State University’s social studies department, and three other social scientists evaluated the impacts of new and existing prisons over the past 25 years.

“Prison construction has actually impeded economic growth in those rural communities that were already growing at a slower pace,” Hooks said. “Among slow-growing counties, it appears that new prisons do more harm than good.”

Additional study is needed to explain why, Hooks said, but it appears attracting prisons may drain money that could be used to lure other economic development.

“Building a prison is like building an enormous Super 8 Motel where the guests don’t want to stay,” Hooks said. “I don’t think you can parachute in a motel and have it change the economy one way or the other.”

The minimum security prison at Connell was built in the early 1990s, when the nation was experiencing a construction boom that saw a new 500-bed prison open each week.

Seeing the potential for an economic windfall, many rural towns overcame “not in my back yard” attitudes and actively sought prisons, offering free land or discounted municipal services.

Hooks and sociologists Clay Mosher and Thomas Rotolo of WSU and Linda Lobao of Ohio State University analyzed the economic impacts of prisons on communities in more than 3,100 counties in the contiguous 48 states.

“Those counties without a prison have the highest annual rate of growth; and those with a newly built prison grew at the slowest pace,” Hooks wrote.

Because of bidding wars, communities seeking to host a prison end up spending more on new roads, water and sewer system expansions and other infrastructure costs that state corrections departments formerly covered, Hooks contends.

When other economic development opportunities come along, prison communities frequently aren’t prepared to pursue them, he said.

Bill Phillips, Department of Corrections administrator of capital planning and development, was Washington state’s chief of construction in the early 1990s, when the Connell prison was built.

Phillips disagrees with the premise of Hooks’ study, saying Connell is an example of a small town that is prospering from its relationship with the prison.

“In Connell, there’s been a change in the overall appearance of the community,” he said. “From their perspective, there has been a significant positive impact. They continue to lobby for a significant expansion of the existing facility.”

But little has changed in Connell since the prison was built.

A new motel anchors one end of the sleepy downtown business district, near the highway interchange, but there are vacant lots between stores and several others are closed. A former grain elevator is being dismantled.

A few new homes, mostly modular or mobile homes, dot residential areas. Employment at a food processing plant at the southern edge of town is down.

Prisons generally order food and supplies from centralized state warehouses — not local grocery or hardware stores. But prison proponents argue there are still plenty of benefits for communities.

Prison work crews paid $1.10 an hour help maintain the city’s public works.

“If it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t be able to keep our parks up,” Walton said.

Prisoners also maintain a cemetery, public buildings, a community center and city swimming pool and repair city vehicles.

Walton partly blames expansion of U.S. Highway 395 to a four-lane, divided highway for the community’s economic malaise. The fast-moving road allows prison employees to commute 30 to 40 miles from the booming Tri-Cities of Richland, Pasco and Kennewick, where their spouses also can find jobs, he said.

But he still calls the prison’s impact positive.

“If you hit all the small towns that have gotten involved in bidding for prisons and didn’t get them, they have nothing,” Walton said.