"We Are the First to Unabashedly Go Out and Ask For a Prison": Deindustrialization and the Politics of Prison Siting in Maryland, 1975-1996

Abstract

This study investigates the geographic expansion of Maryland'sprison system in the late twentieth century by tracing debates over prison siting. The study aims to expand upon state specific studies of the twentieth century U.S. carceral state by focusing on Maryland, an understudied place in carceral studies. In particular, this study argues that after citizen protests in 1970s East Baltimore rendered urban prisons a political liability, state officials began pursuing a rural prison building paradigm in Somerset and Allegany County. The work brings together these seemingly disparate geographies by offering a linear narrative of prison expansion in the state, set within the context of deindustrialization, activism, and entrenched racial politics as they intersected within the age of mass incarceration.