Since the 1980s, rural communities have embraced prisons as a tool for economic development following the decline in resource-based industry in rural areas. Although there are economic benefits from prisons, the drawback is that for small rural communities, prisons change the demographic composition of the communities' residents and, as portrayed by Census Bureau data, make them unattractive locations for industry. The inmate population affects factors such as high poverty rate, lower educational achievement, and low per capita income. This article suggests that rural communities should take proactive measures to change this image by providing a methodology for reanalyzing census data to portray their “true” image to potential investors.
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