Prisons and Rural Pennsylvania Communities: Exploring the Health of the Relationship and the Possibility of Improvement

Abstract

This article is part of a larger study that sought to measure community satisfaction with and perceptions about the economic impact of state correctional facilities located within four rural communities in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.The project culminated in the development of recommendations for policies that could benefit rural communities presently hosting, or considering hosting, a correctional institution. This article briefly discusses the relevant literature and the methodology used in the study and then presents and discusses policy recommendations in a rank ordering based on their relative importance. The goal of this research is to recommend policies that may improve the sometimes strained relationships between correctional institutions and their host communities.