Cashing In On Crime III - The Prison Industrial Complex > Back To Resources Main

by Randall Shelden; April 22, 2004

We Don’t Count Prisoners’ Votes but They Count Nevertheless.

Even though prisoners cannot vote in almost every state, they are counted and this count is translated into federal dollars pouring into small towns all over the country. This is what one report called the "phantom" population of rural prisoners. What is happening is that rural communities that have prisons are allowed to pay the U.S Census Bureau money to include prisoners in the census count, thereby adding substantial numbers to the local population.

A Wall Street Journal report details how this has happened in the small Arizona town of Florence, which has an "official" population of 17,054 according to the 2000 census. What this census figure does not reveal is that 11,830 of these "residents" are prisoners, since Florence, like many other small towns with where prisons have been built, is looking to the census count to help them in these financially-strapped times.

This began in Florence back in the 1980s and since then the town has expanded its borders no less than three times. On two occasions the town has paid the Census Bureau for special recounts. This is because for each dollar generated by local taxes and fees, they get $1.76 more because of the prison population. Florence now has "new town offices, a new park and a new senior center…The rebuilt little-league facilities boasts a digital score board and dugouts. New police and fire facilities are under construction, and officials are planning a $1 million community center with a pool – all without a local income tax or any substantial increases in sales or property taxes." In 2001 about $4 million additional federal funding was expected to be received by the end of the year, according to the Wall Street Journal report.

Not surprisingly, Arizona has one of the highest incarceration rates in the country (513 in 2002, ranked 10th in the country), with almost half being either black (14.7%) or Hispanic (33.7%). After Corrections Corporation of America began housing prisoners from Washington, D.C. in its prison in Florence, the African-American population of the town more than doubled to more than 1,500. Florence now has two state prisons, three private prisons, plus the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service detention center. This little town can now brag about having the highest percentage of prison inmates of any U.S. town of more than 10,000.

Florence is not the only small town to reap such benefits. Calipatria, California has an "official" population of 7,289, thanks to 4,095 prisoners; Ionia, Michigan has a population of 10,569 that includes 4,401 prisoners (Ionia used some of the federal money to install laptop computers in the town automobiles and turn a National Guard armory into a community center). Sussex County, Virginia appears to be the fastest growing county in the country, thanks mostly to the fact that between 1998 and 1999 two new prisons increased its population by 23 percent. According to the 2000 census, there are 12,504 "official" residents. Similarly, Coxsackie, New York received an increase in federal funding because its 1990 population was 27.5 percent prisoners. With a 2000 population of 2,895 it is no doubt set to receive more. Two small Arizona towns, Gila Bend (pop. 1,980) and Buckeye (pop. 6,537) competed to get both adult and juvenile prisons placed in their district. Buckeye won and stands to receive more than $10 million in federal subsidies.

Another benefit of adding prisoners to the Census count is that it places many of these communities under the official poverty level, thereby qualifying for even more federal funds! Gatesville, Texas (pop. 15,591) qualified for poverty status with its 9,095 prisoners, resulting in the town receiving $4.2 million in state grants, which it used to upgrade water lines and build new roads. Another irony to all of this is the fact that while these prisoners are helping towns qualify for large sums of federal dollars, they are not included in the official unemployment figures. According to one recent study, by including African-Americans in the official unemployment figures, the unemployment rate for them increases to almost 40 percent, while adding about 2-3 percent to the national unemployment figures.

This is a form of "robbing Peter to pay Paul" since these federal dollars are following these prisoners from their original communities. One recent report noted that during the first decade of the 21st century about $2 trillion in federal funds will be distributed based upon the 2000 census count, so that a lot of money will be transferred from poor urban areas to small towns with prisons. Minnesota’s state demographer Tom Gillaspy estimates that the census "directs $2,000-$3,000 per person counted to any given community each decade, not including additional census-based funding distributed to poor communities" (emphasis mine).

Adding Legislative Clout for Republicans

Finally, mention should be made of the impact rural prisons have had on redistricting. One result of the "phantom" increase in rural populations is in an increase in the voting power of rural districts, many of whom have added additional congressional seats, mostly Republican. An organization called the Prison Policy Initiative has argued that by allowing mostly white rural districts "to claim urban black prisoners as residents for purposes of representation resembles the old three-fifths clause of the Constitution that allowed the South extra representation for its slaves…" Such a policy also means that legislators in rural areas "can devote more attention to their ‘real constituents’" while at the same time those who support building new prisons in their rural areas have additional clout in state legislatures. The state of Florida, already infamous for the 2000 election fraud, will soon have a significant redrawing of political boundaries, thanks to 79,144 prisoners (according to the Florida Department of Corrections web site), over half are African-American). Gulf County has two prisons that contribute to its population numbers (13,332). One recent study noted that the attorney general of Florida issued opinions in 2001 that said county commissions and school boards "must include prisoners when redistricting" (emphasis mine).

One effect is that voting, in Florida and the other 48 states where prisoners are denied a vote, the voting power of large numbers of mostly minority urban communities are transferred to rural, mostly white areas – also, by the way, heavily Republican. A statement from a former New York State legislator sums up the feelings of many politicians: "When legislators cry ‘Lock’em up!’ they often mean ‘Lock ‘em up in my district." I am tempted to conclude that locking up so many urban minorities is one part of a much larger conservative strategy to take over the country!

It has been noted that the increase in the number of prisoners has resulted in the disenfranchisement of large numbers of citizens. This has especially affected African-Americans. One study noted that while two percent of all adults have been disenfranchised because of a felony conviction (mostly drug convictions), about 13 percent of all black men have been! In six states the percentage of black men disenfranchised is 25 percent or more, going higher than 30 percent in Alabama and Florida. As noted in the best-selling book by Greg Palast, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, this had a direct impact on the Florida vote count in the 2000 election, where at least 40,000 voters (mostly black) were prohibited from voting because of alleged "felony" records (upon further investigation by Palast, most of these people either had no records at all or only misdemeanor arrest records).

Criminologist Todd Clear has noted that the increasing tendency to house prisoners in far-away rural communities amounts to what he calls "coercive mobility" that has a negative impact on informal methods of social control in poor communities. In many poor neighborhoods, up to 25 percent of the adult males are behind bars on any given day. This results in the removal of both human capital and social capital from these communities. He has estimated that as much as $25,000 per year leaves the community for every man who is incarcerated and this money goes directly to the communities that have the prisons.

Don’t Worry about Outsourcing, We’ve Got a Prison

A recent news item appearing in the Los Angeles Times on March 28, 2004 is revealing. The story was about the small town of Clintwood, Virginia (pop. 1,549), tucked away in a relatively remote area of the far western edge of the state, close to the Kentucky border. The story is familiar in that a company called Travelocity (where you can make airline reservations), which was the largest employer in the area (250 jobs) and replaced the dying coal industry, was closing up shop and moving its operations to India by the end of the year.

In the middle of this article, which tells of the potential impact of the job losses that have typified the recent trend of "capital flight" to foreign countries, there’s a passing reference to a prison in the area. The writer of the article notes that there is a joke around the town "that the only secure jobs are at the new state prison, because they are not going to be shipping the convicts to India anytime soon. There are several new lockups around the county, which a lot of people have mixed feelings about." The director of the local Chamber of Commerce stated, with somewhat bitter irony, "It’s not quite as bad as being a nuclear waste dump site. But we’re the dumpsite for human misery."

A check of the Virginia Department of Corrections web site reveals that there is a prison in the small town of Pound (about 10 miles from Clintwood, with a population of 1,089). The name of the prison is Red Onion State Prison which has an average daily population of 985 (http://www.vadoc.state.va.us/facilities/institutions/redonion.htm). This is a maximum security institution opened in August, 1998.

An article by Yves Engler appearing in Z Magazine (September 6, 2003) concerned the modern health care system. He observed that our economic system of capitalism (finds it more profitable to treat illness rather than prevent it.( He notes that (preventive care measures, such as decent sewage and water systems, draining swamps near cities, education, regulated food handling, and universal vaccinations bring little in terms of profit for pharmaceutical companies or the larger capitalist system." The American medical industry has a financial stake in treating rather than preventing diseases.

If we pretend for a moment that crime is a disease (in a way it is), then this analogy makes perfect sense. Simply put, reacting to crime is far more profitable for business and other interests than preventing crime. Our criminal justice is designed to fail to reduce crime, because, although citizens would be greatly benefited from less crime (just as citizens would be greatly benefited from fewer health problems), the criminal justice industrial complex (and the prison industrial complex that is part of it) would not benefit.

Part of the problem we are talking about here can be summed up by way of a parable, attributed to the famous 20th century social activist Saul Alinsky. Imagine a large river with a high waterfall. At the bottom of this waterfall hundreds of people are working frantically trying to save those who have fallen into the river and have fallen down the waterfall, many of them drowning. As the people along the shore are trying to rescue as many as possible one individual looks up and sees a seemingly never-ending stream of people falling down the waterfall and he begins to run upstream. One of his fellow rescuers hollers "where are you going? There are so many people that need help here." To which the man replied, "I’m going upstream to find out why so many people are falling into the river."

Now imagine the scene at the bottom of the waterfall represents the criminal justice system, responding to crimes that have been committed and dealing with both victims and offenders. If you look more closely, you will begin to notice that there are more people at the bottom of the stream, that they work in relatively new buildings with all sorts of modern technology and that those working here get paid rather well, with excellent benefits. And the money keeps flowing into this area, with all sorts of businesses lined up to provide various services and technical assistance. If you look upstream, you will find something far different. There are not too many people, the buildings are not as modern, nor are the technology that they use. The people working there do not get paid very much and their benefits are not as good as those provided down below, while the turnover is quite high. Neither do they find businesses coming their way with assistance. They constantly have to beg for money. Moreover, you will often find more women working upstream, since their work in this culture is not as valued as the work men do (men are in charge downstream).

If you want a lower crime rate, then you must spend more money upstream, so to speak. In order to do this, however, the interests that now control the criminal justice system would have to be convinced that there is a larger profit to be made from investing upstream, rather than downstream.

Randall G. Shelden is Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. He is the author and co-author of several books on crime and criminal justice, including Controlling the Dangerous Classes: a Critical Introduction to the History of Criminal Justice, Criminal Justice in America: a Critical View, Girls, Delinquency and Juvenile Justice and Youth Gangs in American Society. His web site is: http://www.sheldensays.com.

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