Coal, Cages, Crisis: The Rise of the Prison Economy in Central Appalachia

How prisons became economic development strategies for rural Appalachian communities

As the United States began the project of mass incarceration, rural communities turned to building prisons as a strategy for economic development. More than 350 prisons have been built in the U.S. since 1980, with certain regions of the country accounting for large shares of this dramatic growth. Central Appalachia is one such region; there are eight prisons alone in Eastern Kentucky. If Kentucky were its ow...