DOT, Va. — In the heart of Virginia's coal country, the way out of a sagging economy these days is through concrete walls, razor-wire fences and guard towers.

        Prison building has become big business, and supporters say that what the industry lacks in beauty, it more than makes up for in opportunity.

        The $100 million federal penitentiary at Lee County, which opened this month, is part of a major prison-building boom under way in Appalachia. Four more federal prisons are under construction in eastern Kentucky and West Virginia.

        Officials here see the new prison as a godsend, a recession-proof industry that will create 432 jobs and pump $25 million a year into one of the state's poorest areas.

        Don Williams, former chairman of the Lee County Board of Supervisors, is one of many local officials who initially opposed the prison but now embrace it.

        “In the beginning, I was going to fight it,” Mr. Williams said. “But since then my eyes have been opened. We need the money.”
       

Jobs for rural areas
               Prison building has been growing in rural America for decades. Before 1980, 36 percent of prisons in America were located in non-metropolitan areas. By 1999, non-metro areas were home to 57 percent of all prisons.

        “There are so many rural communities that are hard up for jobs, they'll take prisons with much less objection than you will find in the city,” said Calvin Beale, a federal demographer who studies prison growth in small towns.

        And the need keeps growing. Thousands of federal inmates are flooding the system as police clamp down on drug and immigra tion violators, said U.S. Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Traci L. Billingsley.

        But not everyone is convinced about the prison's benefits at a time when the nation's inmate population is rising and crime is declining.

        “We don't want to neglect legitimate economic problems,” said Marc Mauer, assistant director of the Sentencing Project. “But to use them as a justification for locking up more prisoners is an extremely shortsighted policy.”
       

Plenty of federal funds
               While expensive for the federal government, the crowding problem is great news for rural communities such as Lee County, a community of 23,589 with 17 percent of its work force unemployed or on disability.

        Before it agreed to build the prison, Lee County had attracted only one company to its 5-year-old industrial park. The prison soon filled the park as well as 238 more acres around it.

        “We really were very lucky,” said Marty Hensley, a former member of the board of supervisors. “We had a lot of money invested in that site, and it was sitting dormant.”

        Because of the 1,888-bed prison, Lee County received $13 million from the government to build sewer lines and revamp its waste water-treatment plant. And an airport is under development with the help of $6 million in federal funds.

Better than tobacco
               The prison itself will be the single largest investment ever made in Lee County. The $25 million that will go to salaries, local businesses, and other local expenditures is more than three times what tobacco farmers ever made in a single year, officials said.

        Already, 128 men and women from surrounding towns have been hired to work at the prison as it slowly begins to accept inmates, said prison spokesman Bill Story.

        Most of its 430-member staff are expected to be hired by April 2002. Those hired will have a starting salary of $30,000, about $12,000 more per year than the average annual county income.

        And officials hope the prison will spark the building of restaurants and motels.

        “Everybody will benefit from this, whether it's the dentist or the doctor or the general store,” said U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher of Virginia.

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