Can a new prison save a town?

[Liberal_in_LA]

Can a new prison save a town?
Many California towns welcome new correctional facilities — and the jobs that come with them — hoping they'll revive the local economy. But the results can be disappointing.

Wanda Leung sits at her restaurant's cash register, flipping through a newspaper. It's lunchtime, but the turquoise stools at the counter are empty.

Drought has stripped the area of farm jobs. Men in cowboy hats wander the dusty streets looking for work. Every month, Leung takes $1,000 out of her bank account to pay the bills and keep her Lucky Restaurant open.

"This town is dead already," said the Chinese immigrant, who once earned enough from her business to put her two children through college.

Like other merchants in this town 35 miles west of Fresno, Leung is hoping her fortunes will change when the federal government opens a 1,100-inmate prison just down the road, bringing jobs and paying customers to the area.

"That's what we're waiting for," Leung said. "People aren't going to last much longer."

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But while prisons often do bring more customers to local restaurants, gas stations and other businesses, the overall economic benefits are mixed, some experts say.

Well-paid prison employees usually live some distance from the low-income areas that tend to attract prisons, and usually don't spend their salaries in town, said Ruth Wilson Gilmore, a USC professor who has studied how prisons affect California towns. Employers also avoid setting up shop anywhere near prison walls.

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In Mendota, some are also skeptical about the new prison's benefits — including migrant workers who can't imagine getting hired for a government job.

"There isn't work there — they want people who have papers," said Herman Alfaro, a 37-year-old father of three hanging out in one of the town's pool halls, where dozens of men chatted in Spanish.

Older workers are largely excluded too: Applicants for most of the jobs must be 37 or younger, under federal rules designed to prevent people from qualifying for lucrative government pensions after a relatively short career.


http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-0503-prisons-20100503,0,7858370.story

[virgogal]

1. All of my kids would be too old for the jobs. Unbelievable.

[SocialistLez]

2. Less prisons could save this country

I don't think we should go totally prison free but it's unacceptable how many people are in prison and especially how many African-Americans are in prison.

[doc03]

3. They built a state prison in my area several years ago

it brought lots of much needed good jobs. The prison is located in a rural area at an Interstate 70 interchange that has an OSU branch, vocational high school, state technical college, county jail/ Sheriffs office and many other county office facilities. I don't remember any escapes and the prisoners preform a lot of community services, like litter clean up, they have helped many times with disaster cleanups such as floods, cut grass at cemeteries the county maintains, the prisoners have also volunteered a lot of work for area churches, schools, parks etc. I would say everything has been positive about the prison and we have had none of the negative effects many people were up in arms about before it was built.