The rate of incarceration in the United States is higher than that of almost any other nation. California alone incarcerates more people than many countries in the world. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, the U.S. has about two million people behind bars at any given time. About 540,000 of these people are locked up in local jails and another 1 million are in state prisons. Incarceration rates undoubtedly affect communities of color at disproportionate rates, a rural issue since rural communities are home to many Black and Latinx people, especially in the Deep South.
An interesting phenomenon has been the rise of jails in rural communities. Economic restructuring of rural communities is an important piece in understanding and explaining the rural jail and prison boom. First, as some rural communities suffer from declines in industries that previously dominated such as farming, mining, steel, and coal, coupled with factory closures and a shift to the service sector employment, there have been many social and economic consequences for these areas further discussed here and here. Prisons as an economic development strategy for rural communities have been a way to bring jobs to towns. As the incarcerated population in America increased there was a subsequent demand for prison expansion and state prison and jail populations burgeoned. Prisons then became a convenient way to address the economic problems facing rural communities and a way for politicians to create a facade of aid and increased employment opportunities.
According to the Vera Institute of Justice's Report of People in Jail and Prison in 2020 (here), the U.S. saw an unprecedented drop in total incarceration rates between 2019 and 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The decline however was "neither substantial nor sustained enough to be an adequate response to COVID-19." Furthermore, the largest and most sustained jail population declines were in rural areas. These declines were a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and increased awareness of the heightened public health issues prisons and jails face because of close quarters. However, even with these declines rural counties "still incarcerate people at doubt the rate of urban and suburban areas. Three out of 5 people incarcerated in local jails are in smaller cities and rural communities." Since 2013, jail populations have grown by 27% in rural counties. This rural jail boom has been attributed to many factors including the rural lawyer shortage, prosecutor hiring processes, and the rural justice system overall, some of which are addressed in previous blogs here.
The prison and jail system operate as an arm of the state apparatus, often inflicting violence on rural communities in the form of separating families and continuing the cycle of poverty. Policing of rural communities continues to drive incarceration rates. This policing is skewed not only in urban areas but in rural ones too to affect low-income communities of color. A report by Vera shows that people in some rural areas are punished for not meeting system rules rather than violent or dangerous criminal charges. Prisons, and the nature of the criminal "justice" system in rural communities then become another mechanism to punish rurality.
As Professor Beety discusses in Prosecuting Opioid Use, Punishing Rurality, unique prosecutorial charges such as drug-induced homicide, a popular charge amidst the ongoing opioid crisis "operate in largely insular and sparsely populated rural areas." Beety also makes clear that poverty impacts people of color in rural communities and these people of color are then over-represented in the criminal legal system.
The prison system is often wielded as a way to address problems that rural communities face, rather than addressing and understanding the systemic causes that lead to these problems. Overall, the notion that jails help rural communities should be challenged and other forms of justice should be sought to give these communities the healing they deserve.
