In February 1980, one of the most horrific prison riots in US history occurred at the Maximum Security State Prison in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Several years later, at an academic gathering in the beautiful conference setting of quaint Santa Fe, the dinner discussion turned to the question of why the main branch of the state university was located in Albuquerque, while the maximum security state prison was located in Santa Fe. An administrator from a college in New Mexico, replied, “As State Capital, Santa Fe had first choice.” When I first heard this comment about 30 years ago, I thought it was a joke. However, I immediately recognized that this one-liner could come in handy in future discussions. Thus, I filed it away in my memory to pull out at an appropriate time.
I will admit that over the intervening years, in addition to employing it myself, I have heard others use the “first choice” quip on more than one occasion in discussions of seemingly anomalous situations. My next post, “Which Would You Find More Acceptable in Your Back Yard, a Toxic Waste Dump or a Murder of Crows?” represents such an occurrence.
When I started this series of posts on the NIMBY syndrome, I figured it was time to pull out this old story and look at it more closely. I thought of three general questions that I should answer. Firstly, are there other state capitals which may have chosen prisons over universities? Secondly, what are positives and negatives for a community having a prison within its environs? Thirdly, what are the benefits and detriments that an institution of higher learning imparts to the community in which it resides?
I quickly discovered that arriving at the answer to the first question was much more time consuming than I expected it to be. I first ascertained that all 50 state capitals had jails, prisons, and/or detention centers of some stripe within their metropolitan boundaries.
Surprisingly, trying to determine how many state capitals hosted state-supported universities also proved a little trickier than I thought. I began by settling on a definition of state-supported university. For my purposes, I looked at institutions of higher education that: 1) called themselves public colleges or universities; 2) offered four-year baccalaureate degrees as the core of their undergraduate academic programming; 3) offered primarily full-time, traditional, residential programs; 4) offered campus housing to students; and 5) garnered a significant slice of their general operating budget from direct state appropriations. In my search I found 41 states that had institutions that met all five of my conditions. Besides New Mexico, the other eight that did not were Iowa, Maryland, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
The higher education options in the capitals of these nine states present an interesting mix. All nine of the state capitals have for-profit institutions offering non-traditional degree programs for adult students. Four of the state capitals do not have any private colleges or universities that offer traditional four-year baccalaureate programs. These are Des Moines, Iowa, Pierre, South Dakota, Montpelier, Vermont, and Cheyenne Wyoming. Only two of the state capitals, Annapolis, Maryland and Pierre, South Dakota, do not have public two-year community colleges.
Although Annapolis, Maryland does not have any state supported four-year school, it is the home of the United States Naval Academy. As a national military academy, it is not the typical college. First students do not pay tuition. They “pay” for their education by a military service requirement after graduation or separation from the academy. The admissions process is also quite complicated, with the student completing a normal academic application and a nomination application to those individuals or groups that are authorized to nominate students to the national military academies.
Thus, Pierre, South Dakota seems to fall completely outside the normal pattern of educational opportunities in state capitals. There are no traditional college options, either public or private, in Pierre. Students just graduating from high school must leave Pierre and go elsewhere to attend any college.
Therefore, the data suggest that most state capitals have not picked prisons instead of colleges or universities. While 96% of state capitals had state supported, two-year technical or community college, a hefty 82% were also home to state supported universities. Thus, most state provided their state capitals with both prisons and state supported higher education.
Although most economic impact studies give the edge to universities over prisons in providing economic benefits to the surrounding community, there are a few negative blips on the radar screen. In the last quarter of the 20th century, the two unrelated trends of an economic downturn in rural America and the epidemic-like increase in U.S. prison population caused some rural communities to turn to prisons as a basis for economic development. While most economic and employment impact studies look at the increased revenue produced by the universities and prisons, they do not take into account the added costs of increased services required and social disruption.
With all the economic, cultural and educational advantages that colleges and universities provide communities, why would any community embrace a prison before a college or university? There are some economic reasons, but many of the reasons seem to be social. Whereas a college or university is likely to drastically change the culture of a community, a prison is very unlikely to cause any such changes. Colleges may attract a diverse student body that is very different from the community. This can cause tensions among the students and the local residents. Faculty and students are also by nature activists and push for change, while the local residents may be very content to remain in their status quo. College students are also generally free to move about. I once read a newspaper account concerning a community resident complaining about a wild party which spilled over from a college into the surrounding community. It described the scene by saying, “The inmates were running wild.” With prisons, the inmates almost never run wild in the local community. Prisoners are locked up and have little or no contact with the surrounding community.
Once a prison is built, there are few extra demands on public safety services or transportation infrastructure. Once a college is built there are multiple extra public safety or infrastructure concerns. Colleges and universities have numerous, large events with a concomitant influx of visitors, which must pass through the community to get to the campus. Communities are left with the big question of who is going to pay. Since all public and most private colleges are tax-exempt organizations, they do not pay state and local taxes to cover the cost of the common public services that communities must provide like public safety, transportation infrastructure like roads and bridges, and utility infrastructure concerns like water and sewer. To get around the tax questions, some communities have asked college and universities and other tax-exempted organizations to pay user fees to cover what might be considered their fair share of the cost of providing community services.
One other concern with a number of college communities is the disruption that the expansion of a college causes the local neighborhoods. From personal experience, I have seen neighbors very upset with the way colleges have bought up properties and changed the nature of the neighborhood. With public institutions, the use of eminent domain can further alienate the locals.
Why are prisons sometimes considered better neighbors than college and universities? Colleges and universities change the nature of their neighborhood. They are a disruptive force, costing more than they are worth in the opinions of some neighbors. Once prisons are built, they usually just sit there and have no interaction with the neighborhood.
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