A Prison in the Woods

Clarence Jefferson Hall looks at the development of America's carceral system from perspectives that few scholars have used. He examines the “natural” and built environments in New York's North Country in and around Adirondack State Park, where the state located a disproportionate number of its new prisons in the late twentieth century. He also focuses on the rural communities that welcomed or opposed these prisons. Many of America's new prisons landed in once-prosperous villages hit hard by deindustrialization and the closure of mines or logging operations. Hall is aware of the hardships these locations posed for inmates and their families, most of whom lived over three hundred miles to the south in New York City's crime-burdened neighborhoods and found it impossible to visit relatives regularly. But his focus is on the relationships among New York's prison officials, the Adirondack Park Agency (charged with preserving the natural heritage and resources of the park), politicians, environmentalists, affluent part-time residents who owned vacation homes in the park, and permanent residents—many aging, unemployed or underemployed, and unhappy about shuttered businesses, abandoned homes, and the decrepit state of roads, sewers, and water systems

Agency (philosophy · Archaeology · Criminology · Deindustrialization · Economic growth · Economic history · Economics · Geography · Political science · Prison · Social science · Sociology · State (computer science · American Environmental and Regional History · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · History · Homelessness and Social Issues