Book Review: Big house on the prairie: Rise of the rural ghetto and prison proliferation by J. M. Eason

• DOI: 10.1177/1057567718790309
• Published date: 01 March 2022
• Date: 01 March 2022
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

Book Reviews

Eason, J. M. (2017).

Big house on the prairie: Rise of the rural ghetto and prison proliferation. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

236 pp. $35.00, ISBN 978-0-226-41034-0.

Reviewed by: Rodger C. Benef‌iel, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, Bloomsburg, PA, USA

DOI: 10.1177/1057567718790309

In Big House on the Prairie: Rise of the Rural Ghetto and Prison Proliferation, John Eason updates

the literature on the convergence between race, class, inequality, and the forces driving prison pro-

liferation in the rural United States. This is an ethnographic study of one such case in Forrest City,

AR, but Eason’s placement model can be applied to many similarly situated prisons in rural areas.

This is not a book about prisons. In this study prisons are an institutional actor in a larger story

about how stigmatized rural towns, plagued by decades of structural inequality and deindustrializa-

tion, will sometimes seek out stigmatized industries in an effort to revive the local economy.

Examples of these locally undesirable land uses (LULUs) include paper mills, hazardous waste dis-

posal facilities, chemical factories, nuclear plants, and so on. Prisons are included in this group

because they are seen by many scholars and community members as racially divisive instruments

of social control. Indeed, as is often observed when LULUs such as halfway houses and homeless

shelters are proposed, communities tend to respond with a vociferous “not in my backyard”when

confronted with the idea of building a prison in their hometown (Lyon-Callo, 2001; Roman &

Travis, 2004).

Despite the negative connotations, this structurally and socially divided town came together to

change the narrative from “not in my backyard”to “please in my backyard.”Eason models a

process in which a beleaguered rural community, economically stagnant and stuck in a post-Jim

Crow racial caste system, experiences a tenuous alliance between White elites and Black race

leaders to boost community support for building a prison. It is through this coalition that the town

changes the narrative regarding a prison’s stigma, which helps attract the political support and

capital needed for the project. In Eason’s model, the White elites have the political clout to initiate

the process, but they cannot move forward without the acquiescence of race leaders, who by not

voicing opposition infer their tacit approval.

Here is where the stigmatization of the rural ghetto comes into play. Forrest City, like many rural

towns, has areas with concentrated disadvantage. This is not a subject that receives a lot of attention

in the criminological literature. Migration patterns of both Whites and Blacks over the past 40–50

years and changes to the economic structure have led to the development of rural ghettos that

produce the same subcultures commonly seen in urban ghettos (Wilson, 1987). Race leaders, who

feel responsible for doing something to alleviate the conditions of these ghettos, f‌ind themselves

in the position of having to accept and help promote an otherwise undesirable institution for the

sake of the town’s health.

Race leader acceptance is key because unlike other types of LULUs, prisons require political

acceptance long before the project gets underway. In the case of Forrest City (which was pursuing

Book Reviews

International Criminal Justice Review

2022, Vol. 32(1) 107-120

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