Prisons have been used as economic engines in our society ever since the rapid expansion of prisons started in 1990. Rural communities begin to turn to building prisons to help boost their economy, which only causes more problems for their community. Addition by subtraction as related to mass incarceration causes more problems than it does create solutions. Our society wants to decrease crime and believes that the more prisons they build will help with that goal, but continuing to subtract people from the community may cause more harm than it does good.
People in poor rural communities believe building prisons in their town will cause a boost in their economy by creating more jobs for the community. The people of the community are unaware of the problems they will encounter. The main reason the community gives to much to create these prisons is for financial assistance. They believe more jobs will be available to the community, when that is not the case. Most of the jobs the prison does provide goes to people from outside of the community with higher education, seniority, and training. If a private prison is built in the community the turnover rate is much higher because they do not have the same government regulations that public prisons have. Also, private prisons tend to cut costs at wages and benefits first, causing people to quit and find work somewhere else. Prisons bring in visitors from outside of the community who are only there for a short period of time. These people tend to want stores that are cheap, and food that is fast, which causes the small local businesses to shut down and be replaced by chain stores. This hurts the community because local businesses invest in the community, when big chain stores do not. Prisons also displace lowwage workers in the community because prisoners will begin doing the remedial jobs in the community for much lower wages. Addition by subtraction as related to mass incarceration causes more problems than solutions. It is believed that subtracting the people committing
