The Phantom Promise: How Appalachia Was Sold on Prisons as an Economic Lifeline
A guard tower at the United States Penitentiary, Big Sandy, stands as a sentinel along Kentucky Route 3 in Martin County.
All photos by Roger May
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Big Sandy hides on a big hill. If you鈥檙e not looking for the federal prison, you鈥檒l miss it easily. At first, all that can be seen above the soaring Kentucky cliffs, jagged granite dotted with green scruff, are lights. They look like the lights for a high school football field, or maybe a mall. Then the guard towers loom into view. You can鈥檛 see the razor wire from the road.
Construction on U.S. Penitentiary Big Sandy finished in 2002, one of three federal prisons built in eastern Kentucky since 1992. Plans for another federal prison, in rural Letcher County, Kentucky, appear to have fallen through; in June, the U.S. after an outcry from the community鈥攁nd a federal lawsuit expressing concern both over the environmental issues of building the prison on a former coal mine site, and the fact that the public had not been able to weigh in.
In the scramble to 鈥渟ave鈥� Appalachia as the coal industry collapsed, prisons鈥攎any housing incarcerated individuals transferred from distant states鈥攈ave been presented as an antidote to the joblessness and poverty plaguing parts of the region, especially the more isolated rural areas. Prisons are big projects with hefty price tags, and they bring pledges of 鈥渏obs, jobs, jobs.鈥� But more often, prisons do not deliver promised local employment, at least not initially, and carry with them a host of other issues.
, the town nearest Big Sandy, has a population of less than 900. Multiple storefronts on East Main Street are empty, one with large pane windows covered in flaking white paint. There鈥檚 a hardware store, a rural health clinic. The pawn shop at the edge of town has a row of ATVs parked out front, near a stack of tires and a few old wagon wheels. A sign says 鈥淲e Buy Gold.鈥� It鈥檚 unclear how many locals work at the prison. Despite Big Sandy鈥檚 promise of local jobs, the largest industry employing people in Inez is still oil and gas extraction, and less than a third of the town鈥檚 total population is employed anyplace at all.
Kentucky has 12 state prisons, plus five federal prisons. The Virginia state prison in Big Stone Gap is just across the state line. In March 2019, the number of people under the jurisdiction of the Kentucky Department of Corrections , though there were for all of them.
Kentucky has the in the nation, so much so that Kentucky radio station WMMT began producing a radio show, 鈥淐alls from Home,鈥� in the early 2000s. The program reaches into seven prisons, broadcasting messages from inmates鈥� families. WMMT is housed within Appalshop, Kentucky鈥檚 media, education, and arts center within Letcher County.
A prison is not like a factory. Its massive size doesn鈥檛 automatically mean jobs, especially not for a local workforce without the specialized training needed to be a corrections officer, or CO鈥攁nd especially not in a federal prison, which has additional qualifications. requires a college degree, or three years of work experience.
鈥淔ifteen years in, you might be able to have more local folks because the people they start out with would have been trained up, [but] it鈥檚 not immediate work; it鈥檚 never been,鈥� says Ada Smith of Appalshop and the Letcher Governance Project, a group that opposed the prison in Letcher County. People with military experience may have a greater chance of prison employment, says Smith, whose cousin works as a CO. When hiring for federal prison COs, the federal government looks for military experience, and as Smith says, 鈥渢here鈥檚 a higher percentage of rural military people than anywhere else.鈥�
Still, from 2014 to 2016, only , according to the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy; and just 2.4% of Kentuckians in rural areas overall worked in the fields.
Appalachian prisons have overwhelmingly been built in remote places, a fact that family members of incarcerated individuals lament in Up The Ridge, Appalshop鈥檚 2006 , which focuses on the then-new Wallens Ridge State Prison in Big Stone Gap, Virginia. Lisa Richardson, traveling to Virginia from Connecticut to see an incarcerated loved one, asked, 鈥淲hy would you build a prison so far up here and so secluded?鈥�
Federal prisons house inmates from all over the country鈥攐ften, inmates are transferred without warning鈥攔equiring family to make these costly and difficult journeys to visit their loved ones, if they can visit at all.
Some local government officials in McCreary County, Kentucky, tried to pitch the federal prison there as a generator of additional tourism dollars from families visiting incarcerated loved ones. The thought was that families would stay at hotels, eat in restaurants and take part in local recreational activities, including waterskiing. Smith characterized the pitch from officials, who suggested that traveling to the region for visitation as 鈥済oing to feel like a vacation!鈥� That did not happen, and the prison tourism dollars never came at the scale officials had hoped.
Near the Virginia state line, churches and other volunteer groups run ride-share programs where families are picked up, driven all night, fed breakfast, and taken to prisons for visitation. Families spend the night locally, but usually at inexpensive motels, where they receive a discount.
Even without many local jobs or tourism dollars, prisons can potentially contribute to a rural community in the form of infrastructure. Large prisons need a lot of water. They need roads and sewage systems. These structures aren鈥檛 always in place in rural, remote Appalachia. Kentucky, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania are among the states with the largest number of , according to the Appalachian Regional Commission.
Yet a , home of Big Sandy, for decades. In 2000, the collapse of a sediment pond, meant to hold the waste from a now-closed coal extractor company, turned several rivers black. The waste, which contained arsenic, lead, and mercury, among other toxins, poisoned the county water supply.
That was almost 20 years ago, and Martin County residents still struggle to obtain clean, safe water. Pipes don鈥檛 work. They don鈥檛 have pressure; the water that eventually drips out of them is sometimes neon blue and smells of diesel. Water bills have skyrocketed, and the Martin County Water District in 2018 conducted shut-offs to conserve water, with some residents reporting their .
In Letcher County, lack of basic infrastructure could have stopped the prison project before it began. Then the federal for the building of a sewage plant near the rural site, and to install the needed 9.5 miles of water lines. These basic public works projects were imperative for a prison, but they were also sorely needed by the community at large. The prison project promised water and sewer service to 100 nearby households. The future of those services is uncertain now.
On the small main street in Inez, Big Sandy feels distant, a phantom over the shoulder of the town, miles and a mountain away. But prisons cast a long shadow over the communities in which they rest.
The Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, Ohio, my hometown a few hours north of Kentucky, was closed in 1990 as a result of a lawsuit over inhumane conditions and overcrowding. It was quickly replaced by a different, mixed-security state prison for men. But the Reformatory stayed standing. It was used for music videos and movies, including The Shawshank Redemption.
It鈥檚 strange to grow up in a small, rural town where one of the major industries, after the Westinghouse and General Motors factories closed, is prison tourism. One titled their review of the Reformatory 鈥淟ocked Up & Lovin鈥� It!鈥� Buying a ticket and wandering inside, people gawk and take pictures, laughing. Someone spray-painted 鈥淗ELL鈥� in the administration area. Paint flakes from the walls. The cell blocks are six tiers high, narrow as kennels and covered in rust. Solitary confinement looks scarier than any fiction that might have been filmed there: near-complete darkness in the damp, low-ceilinged belly of the basement.
Some of the community outcry against prisons is related to racial injustice: It鈥檚 and it鈥檚 mostly White men guarding them. According to a paper on the Kentucky Policy Blog, using data from the Department of Public Advocacy, than White people in the state.
It is no coincidence that Appalachia is considered a prime place for prisons, as it was for coal, fracking, and other industries that often exploit both land and people.
In Up the Ridge, an unnamed young White man hoping to land a job as a CO acknowledges the racism of the area, but says he鈥檚 鈥渃olorblind.鈥� He says he understands 鈥渞acism probably would come up, but that鈥檚 something that hopefully they would train you for.鈥�
Prison employees receive training on diversity in , such as California, but the impact of these trainings is difficult to determine.
Also, prisons may eventually bring jobs to town, but
鈥淚 do not know anyone who dreams of being a prison guard,鈥� Smith told The Appeal, an online newsletter focused on criminal justice. It鈥檚 difficult work with a culture of closed ranks, similar to the military, and there鈥檚 a high turnover rate among COs. There鈥檚 even a term coined for the specific : 鈥渃orrections fatigue.鈥�
As with any job, COs can bring the stress and anxiety of work home. But the stress of being a prison guard includes dealing with physical violence and emotional distress, along with the low-level anxiety of being constantly alert to potential danger. Hypervigilance can lead to , a condition for which 34% of corrections officers fit the criteria, at rate even higher than that of military veterans.
The connection between police officers and domestic violence is widely known, but prison guards have been less studied, which a 2012 paper in the Journal of Family Violence theorizes may be because COs do less visible work than public police officers. The work and stress of prison guards is hidden away in restricted buildings, behind barbed-wire fences, and away in the hills. Still, the data revealed that perpetrated by COs.
In Up the Ridge, activist Sister Beth Davies described officers she had met in prison 鈥渄ay after day, becoming more violent and more racist, the hate鈥攁nd so the domestic violence rate has gone up. The divorce rate. The drug and alcohol problems. It compounded so many of the social issues here.鈥�
In 2019, two inmates at Big Sandy were convicted of assaulting another inmate with a weapon. Two other inmates pleaded guilty the month before for attempted murder of another incarcerated person. A prison staff member was burned with scalding water thrown by an inmate. In 2009, a prisoner at Big Sandy attacked a fellow inmate with a homemade ice pick before strangling him to death.
That leads to a high rate of burnout and turn-over even after a short period of employment. 鈥淧eople start working at prisons and don鈥檛 try to do it at year two,鈥� Appalshop鈥檚 Smith says. 鈥淭hen it鈥檚 just like 鈥 can鈥檛 do this.鈥� 鈥� It is a very intense job, and all the things that come with being in that kind of environment for eight to 12 hours.鈥�
Sometimes in Appalachia鈥攊ncluding Appalachian Ohio, where I have lived for much of my adult life鈥攖here is a sense that this is all we are good for, and this is our lot in life. That sense can lead to the belief that we are destined to suck it up and do the difficult, unwanted work鈥攚ork that changes people. It鈥檚 the inevitability of what Smith calls 鈥渟hit jobs,鈥� referring to 鈥渢his masculinity idea that, 鈥榊es, we鈥檙e trash, and yet we鈥檙e the ones willing to do it鈥攚e鈥檙e the hard workers.鈥欌��
She likens this legacy to coal jobs. 鈥淚 have supplied the [country with] energy and now I鈥檓 proud that now I鈥檓 the one making sure these dangerous people are off the streets 鈥� ,鈥� she says of the mindset of some COs and others working within the prison system in Appalachia. 鈥淸We have] these labor-intensive, physically exerting, basically dangerous jobs that most people won鈥檛 work in, or the people that do work them, it鈥檚 mostly immigrant labor. What has been said over and over again [is] White men won鈥檛 take these jobs anymore. But here they will.鈥�
鈥淲hen you鈥檙e hungry, honey, you鈥檒l take a job,鈥� said Chuck Miller of the Big Stone Gap Housing Authority in Up the Ridge.
The Appalachian willingness to work could translate to a host of other jobs, such as manufacturing in the factories currently sitting empty, or in health care, for which the region has a dire need. Joe DePriest, president of the Letcher County Chamber of Commerce, the county where he was born, says there is a Keebler factory, call centers, and mattress factories that are still open in Letcher County, home of the stalled prison project.
In September, Letcher County received a $3.5 million grant to build a sports resort, including a competitive shooting range. The county is also being considered for an airport project, which DePriest thinks would help with the accessibility of the area for potential developers: 鈥淚f they say they鈥檒l build you an airport, you should take it, you know?鈥� Hemp and CBD oil extraction continue to flourish, sometimes on farms on reclaimed mine land.
Another much-needed industry in the region with the potential to bring jobs to Appalachia is substance abuse rehabilitation鈥攖he anti-prison, if you will. With the possible exception of rehab facilities, none of these industries have the big, sweeping allure of a federal prison. But when statistics show that , a prison seems more metaphor than strategy, the great ghost of a promise.
鈥淭hey were putting an enormous amount of hope in that federal prison project,鈥� DePriest says. 鈥淎nd nobody, even the smallest guy on the street, or the biggest guy there is, nobody presented the federal prison as a cure-all for Letcher County. Nobody looked at it that way, but everybody looked at it as a shot in the arm, or something that could help 鈥� But it shocked me how much [the prospect of the prison project] affected people鈥檚 thinking and logic and the hope. It really did, and right now it still does. It鈥檚 still right there.鈥�
Up on the hill past the turnoff for Big Sandy prison is an office park. It winds through wild, grassy acres beside the prison. Most of the buildings sit empty, abandoned or never filled, weeds pushing through the parking lots. The prison didn鈥檛 really bring tenants to the park, just as it didn鈥檛 bring family tourists to the town.
Letcher County has an industrial park too, but because it was populated with companies primarily related to the oil and gas industry, most of those jobs were lost in the economic downturn 10 years ago. DePriest says a neighboring office park has remained full of tenants, but he doesn鈥檛 know why or how to replicate its success. 鈥淭hose are the same kind of people 30 miles down the road as here,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hey have the same kind of benefits, and the same kind of problems and attributes as here. And if they can generate 20 companies 鈥� 30 miles north of here, we can do the same.鈥�
It is no coincidence that Appalachia is considered a prime place for prisons, as it was for coal, fracking, and other industries that often exploit both land and people鈥攊t鈥檚 not simply a question of the terrain, but of industries no one else wants. Smith says that local officials have told her as much about the undesirability of the region, and how it is still passed over for more positive development: 鈥淚f we could have got a pie factory, then we would have!鈥� she recalls a member of the local planning commission saying. DePriest agrees that the abundance of extractive, exploitative industries in the region is no accident. 鈥淚 think the thing with the whole general area鈥攚e鈥檙e talking about Letcher County, but really the whole area in general鈥攊s a loss of hope,鈥� he says. 鈥淧eople need something to cling to, something to look forward to tomorrow.鈥�
Perhaps for outlooks to change in Appalachia, the larger country鈥檚 opinion of the region needs to change, too鈥攖o view the region not only as a place to build an industry, but as a place to build a life. Smith says that highlights the importance of scaling back projects in the region to address the fundamentals. Clean water and repaired roads might not be as exciting as a prison, but the need for these services is dire and still unmet in some rural places. 鈥淚f we could just get basic infrastructure for people that would be great,鈥� Smith says.
DePriest says, 鈥淚 think what we need to do, the leaders of the community, however we can, whatever needs to be done, is re-encourage people. To get their hope back.鈥�
Otherwise, the promise of prisons may be like the promise of mines: largely empty, largely unjust.
This story was reported with support from the , which supports and amplifies stories of low-income families and the actions that make change possible.
Additional support for 猫咪社区! Magazine鈥檚 Appalachia coverage comes from the One Foundation.
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Alison Stine
is a writer and editor who lives in southeastern Ohio. She is a contributing editor for the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, and the author of several books, including her聽debut novel, Road Out of Winter, to be published by Mira (HarperCollins) in September 2020.
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