Community Perceptions About Prison Construction: Why Not in My Backyard?

Abstract

The image portrayed in literature is that communities express strong resistance to and negative attitudes about the introduction of a prison. Such claims, however, have not been supported with systematically collected data. A survey was administered to 3,795 residents of a county in which the construction of a new prison had just begun. Residents from throughout the county were asked to indicate their expectations about the impact of the prison on their community. Contrary to the literature, it was found that the majority of the 1,659 respondents were, at worst, neutral in their overall perceptions about the prison's likely impact. This article describes the results of this survey and examines them within the context of the literature on locally unwanted land use (LULU) and the not in my backyard (NIMBY) syndrome.

Syndrom NIMBY jako wyzwanie dla jednostek samorządu

“…2004;Caplan i in. 2007;Groothuis i Miller 1994], więzieniom [Martin 2000], ośrodkom pomocy dla bezdomnych [Takahashi i Dear 1997], biogazowniom [Upreti 2004], fermom hodowlanym [Mann i Koegl 2003] i wielu innym.…”

NIMBY or not? Exploring the relevance of location and the politics of voiced opinions in renewable energy siting controversies

“…Wolsink, 2000Wolsink, , 2006Bell i inni, 2005;van der Horst, 2007), więzieniom (m.in. Krause, 1992;Martin, 2000;Martin i Myers, 2005), ośrodkom pomocy dla bezdomnych (m.in. Takahashi i Dear, 1997), a także zagadnieniom związanym z problematyką syndromu NIMBY, które dotyczyły m.in.…”

The Fema Trailer Parks: Negative Perceptions and the Social Structure of Avoidance

“…NIMBYism refers to the negative community attitudes themselves that are expressed in response to LULUs. These literatures typically focus on community attitudes regarding the siting of human service facilities like waste management operations, toxic waste dumps, low income housing, prisons, mental health facilities, and the like (see Bohon and Humphrey 2000;Dear 1992;Gibson 2005;Groothius and Miller 1994;Luloff, Albrecht, and Bourke 1998;Martin 2000;Martin and Myers 2005;Oakley 2002). Many types of facilities are essentially needed by society (e.g., garbage dumps, prisons), but are vigorously opposed by some members of the communities that might qualify for siting.…”

“…Put simply, some facilities might make for better neighbors. As Martin (2000) concedes, this makes it very difficult to predict and explain variation in these attitudes; although, it has been the assumption that community reaction will mostly be negative when there are common negative stereotypes associated with the facility, such as might be the case with prisons or mental hospitals. Luloff and colleagues (1998) and others have echoed this sentiment by pointing out that NIMBYism is not a theory but a concept-a principle under which to classify certain behaviors, attitudes, or social processes.…”

“…Those who are more proximate are likely to hold more negative attitudes, while those who are farther away should be less concerned. In an important test of the proximity thesis, Martin (2000) used community survey data to examine how the siting of a prison in a community affected perceptions of crime and safety attitudes among residents. His key finding is that those living closest to the site were more negative than those who lived farther away.…”