II. The Carceral State

Beginning in the 1970s, the United States’ incarceration rate began an unprecedented 25- year climb. This sequence of maps shows the increasing rate of imprisonment in the U.S. from 1978 to 2019. Each class of the legend represents the number of prisoners under state or federal jurisdiction with a sentence of more than 1 year per 100,000 U.S. residents. Despite the decreasing rate of violent crimes since 1991, the imprisonment rate increased rapidly in the 1990s.

The rise of OxyContin being prescribed by physicians in the 1990s led to a nationwide opioids epidemic. The heavy manual labor of mining, as well as a pronounced rise in unemployment, left Appalachia particularly vulnerable and the region quickly became the epicenter of drug addiction. Kentucky alone witnessed a 5-fold increase in overdose deaths since 1999.

Besides an increase in drug addiction rates, Appalachia also has high unemployment and poverty rates. While prisons have been shown to have limited economic impact on the areas they are placed, for many communities in Appalachia prisons are viewed as a singlar hope for economic improvement. Since 1989, 29 federal and state prisons have been constructed in Appalachia on top of former MTR sites.

Today, the U.S. holds more than 2.3 million people in prisons, correctional facilities, and jails. Violent crimes such as rape and sexual assault, murder, and robbery take up to 31 percent. The rest consist of crimes related to drugs, public order, and property. More than half a million people are incarcerated under drug offenses.

Who profits from mass incarceration? Behind the empire state of mass incarceration lies the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC). Public corrections agencies, private prisons, construction, healthcare, bail fees, and commissary are all entangled in the PIC.