When Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., recently ridiculed a provision on the House floor to spend $100,000 on a prison museum near Fort Leavenworth, Kan., Rep. Nancy Boyda, D-Kan., jumped to promote her district's heritage. Leavenworth County, she boasted, had more prisons than any other county in America. —Edmund L. Andrews and Robert Pear writing in "Light on earmarks spurs urge for more"

PBS recently premiered the documentary "Prison Town USA" on P.O.V. As employment in rural areas disappears, prisons have become the economic salvation of smaller counties. According to the PBS webpage,

[I]n rural America ..., during the 1990s, a prison opened every 15 days. The United States now has the dubious distinction of incarcerating more people per capita than any other country in the world. Yet this astonishing jailing of America has been little noted because many of the prisons have opened in remote areas like Susanville. "Prison Town, USA" examines one of the country's biggest prison towns, a place where a new correctional economy encompasses not only prisoners, guards and their families, but the whole community.

You can think of it as a welfare-to-work program for those who agree to support uniformed authority.

Related posts
A bit of good news for the felons of Washington State (3/31/06)
Appalling Week 3 - The lighter side (5/30/06)
Addiction of the Day (8/30/06)
Statistic of the Day (9/13/06)
A system run amok (1/4/07)

Tags: * imprisonment Kansas Federal prisons legislation House of Representatives