ECONOMIC LOCKDOWN

With unemployment largely unaffected and jobs going to residents of larger
cities, the Valley's prison boom hasn't been the economic boon advertised.

It wasn't supposed to be like this, 800 people lined up in the rain outside
John Muir Junior High School in Corcoran for a shot at two low-wage
clerical jobs in the local prison.

Everyone, from cops and city officials to restaurant owners and lawmakers,
says they thought the two prisons in the Kings County town would ease
chronic double-digit unemployment and a lack of middle-class wages in small
Valley towns. Financial experts said so. Local boosters took the
projections and ran with them.

They saw prisons, once pariahs, as economic saviors.

The prisons arrived.

Salvation hasn't.

In 15 years, California has spent $4.2 billion building 23 new prisons.
Eight of those prisons are within 150 miles of Fresno. An examination of
Avenal, Corcoran and Delano indicates the prisons don't do much for the
towns where they were built.

Most of the 8,000 jobs haven't gone to residents of these eight new company
towns.

They haven't sparked an economic revival in the southern San Joaquin
Valley. There are few new houses, restaurants and stores - despite town
leaders' expectations, despite $2 billion spent in construction over 15
years, despite a half-billion dollars a year in payroll.

It's clear from the long lines of cars streaming past Corcoran, through
Avenal and away from Delano as prison shifts change. In Corcoran, locals
know to stay off Dairy and Whitley avenues and Highway 43 at 6 a.m., 2 p.m.
and 10 p.m.

"We were told a lot of guards were going to be living in town, that the
tule fog was going to be the big thing to keep them living here, that no
one was going to want to commute," said Police Cpl. Victor Castillo, 34, a
lifelong Corcoran resident.

Instead, guards and much of the staff "just blow through town," Castillo
said. "I don't think more than a handful of them actually live here."

These company towns viewed prisons as a clean industry that would provide
jobs. Having depended on the Department of Corrections, they remain
economically troubled.

Now state and local officials are wondering what more can be done.

The same morning in Corcoran that 800 job-seekers in shifts of 150 took
civil-service placement tests for two jobs that paid between $17,000 to
$23,000 a year, the town's unemployment rate remained identical to its 15%
figure of 1986, a year before the first prison opened - and unchanged since
a second prison opened in 1997.

Corcoran's listed population is 20,900 - and 11,464 of them are in prison.
The state created 2,604 prison jobs in Corcoran between 1986 and 1997.

"When they built the prisons, I thought we would be the first to get jobs,"
said Stella Corona, 28, of Corcoran, who waited in line for her test. "But
it seems like they went to other people."

Napoleon Madrid, mayor of Delano, is native to the town known as the
birthplace of the United Farm Workers.

His parents worked in the fields because there was little else, especially
for immigrants. When voters put him on the City Council in 1996 and fellow
council members appointed him mayor two years later, Madrid had one thing
in mind: more jobs.

Madrid said he doesn't see them generated by the state prison system, even
though his town is slated for a second facility recently approved by the
Legislature and Gov. Davis.

"People here thought that more of the jobs would be available to locals,"
Madrid said. "But that hasn't been the case."

Valleywide, unemployment remains three times the state average of 4.8%.

The reality is dawning on civic leaders: These company towns have seen only
a slight benefit to the billions poured into building the largest prison
system in the nation.

According to estimates from the state and the prison guards' union, 7% to
9% of the prison jobs in these towns go to people living there. Most hires
live in Fresno, Visalia, Hanford and Bakersfield. And the bulk of jobs
locals get are service jobs, not positions as guards or on the medical
staff that pay $30,000 to $80,000 a year.

Civil service guidelines have awarded good-paying jobs to people on state
waiting lists who have taken civil-service tests rarely offered in the
prison towns, records show. Local business owners, who hoped for lucrative
contracts with the prisons, sometimes have found the state an unwilling
partner. To Madrid and others, prisons have not met expectations.

"If were up to me, I wouldn't have the prison," Madrid said. "Or get the
new one."

California's oldest prison, San Quentin, opened in 1852. Nearly 30 years
passed before the second was built in Folsom, near Sacramento. They remain
the state's most famous lockups, mostly because both were the subject of
country-western ballads, "Folsom Prison Blues" and a similar ode to San
Quentin.

"We'll always have Johnny Cash to thank," said a rueful Joe Galiardi,
executive director of Folsom's Chamber of Commerce.

Galiardi said he hears the singer's name when he calls the East Coast to
solicit business: "We seem to be pretty well-known."

California built a handful of prisons through the 1960s and 1970s. Focused
on rehabilitation, Corrections put a hospital in Vacaville and gave prisons
euphemistic names such as Sierra Conservation Center and California Men's
Colony.

But by the late 1970s, two events changed how the state handled prisons and
prisoners. A rising crime rate prompted lawmakers to push tough-on-crime
laws, especially involving drugs.

Then the state, with the support of prisoners, abandoned its indeterminate
sentencing statutes for an increasingly strict model that mandates a
specific number of years behind bars for certain crimes.

Prison populations soared.

By the time voters in 1982 elected former Attorney General George
Deukmejian, a Republican with an aggressive anti-crime platform, prisons
already were packed.

Deukmejian - with the support of the Legislature and aggressive lobbying by
the California Correctional Peace Officers Association - embarked on a
prison building binge that remains second to none nationally.

Between 1982 and 1997, California taxpayers financed 23 prisons - putting
one of every three in the Valley.

Small Valley towns, mired in unemployment and few year-round jobs, saw an
opportunity.

And the prisons came.

Robert Presley said he remembers those days. He was a state senator before
Gov. Davis appointed him to run the state's $6 billion Youth and Adult
Corrections Department.

To many, the appointment made perfect sense. The Riverside Democrat not
only wrote the legislation to sell billions in bonds to build the prisons,
he wrote many tough-on-crime laws that helped fill them. Until 1980, few
cities wanted prisons, he said. Then the recession changed everything.

"We were so pleased when cities started to request them," he said. "They
saw the chance at economic benefits. Those are good-paying jobs."

It also helped that prisons lost their reputation as crime factories for
host cities.

Keith Farrington, a sociology professor at Whitman College in Walla Walla,
Wash., is one of the nation's few academics to study the prisons' impact on
small towns. He said they seldom deliver as predicted - good or bad.

Farrington said an economic boom in many towns, especially if those towns
are near larger, more attractive communities, rarely occurs. However, he
said, the same goes with the forecasted higher crime rates.

"In reality, they can be pretty benign," he said.

Valley crime statistics illustrate Farrington's points. Similar-sized
cities with and without prisons had comparable crime rate declines during
the 1990s.

To lock up so many people, the state went on a hiring spree. During the
building boom, Corrections grew faster than any other state agency,
increasing from approximately 11,300 employees in 1983 to more than 44,000
last year.

This made Corrections the second largest state employer, after the
university system. According to documents at state Corrections
headquarters, state-paid financial analysts towns predicted two things:

Prison towns would gain better-paying, middle-class jobs. Housing and
retail, such as stores and shopping centers, would expand along with the
population increase.

City treasuries would benefit from additional state and federal money
because inmates count as part of a town's population. The money, called
"subventions," was the primary sweetener when prisons were pitched to towns.

Analysts were only partly right.

For small towns such as Corcoran and Avenal, the additional inmate
population - about half of each town's listed population is behind bars -
means another $200,000 to $500,000 annually without any corresponding
demand on most city services.

"Inmates don't drive. They don't call the cops," Corcoran Mayor Ruben
Quintanilla said.

And when cities in the early 1990s complained about the prison impact on
court and sewer systems, for example, the state agreed to kick in
additional cash to cover both. In other words, when an inmate has a court
date for a crime in prison, the state, not the county, picks up the tab.

The money has widened roads in Corcoran, built sidewalks in Avenal and
purchased a few police cruisers. But it hasn't led to significant economic
development near the prisons. It appears only larger Valley cities such as
Hanford, Visalia and Tulare saw a slight surge in new homes and stores.

The prison towns did not.

Quintanilla, who also manages an auto-parts store in Corcoran, said he
remembers the meetings, the environmental impact reports, the politicking
that brought maximum security Corcoran State Prison in 1987 and then the
inmate drug-treatment center that locals call "Corcoran II" 10 years later.

"The prisons have been good for the town," he said. "But I did hope we
would see more jobs."

Avenal's 17% unemployment hasn't budged, even with the addition of 1,500
jobs. In 1990, the year the first heavy equipment bit into a former cotton
farm to begin construction of North Kern State Prison, Delano's
unemployment hovered at 26%.

This year, joblessness in Delano remains at 26%.

The number of people in poverty in nearly every Valley town with a prison
has risen since the prisons were built, state data show.

Ruth Wilson Gilmore, an instructor at University of California at Berkeley
who is writing a book on how prisons have changed towns in the state for
University of California Press, said towns would be better off to recruit
businesses than prisons.

Gilmore, an active opponent of the prison system, did research that shows
poverty increased in prison towns after the facilities were completed.

Corcoran Chamber of Commerce President Frances Squire, the former owner of
Corcoran Country Inn, said her motel and nearby Budget Inn benefit from the
prisons but that not much else seems to.

"We do get relatives of inmates staying here, temporary staff also. And I
think a couple of the local restaurants benefit, too," she said. "But I had
my house in town recently appraised. I've owned it for 20 years. It hasn't
risen in value one bit."

Squire, 48, said the town where she grew up did get a McDonald's and Taco
Bell along the commute route, though it still lacks clothing or shoe stores.

"We have three pizza parlors in town. Bring us chicken or something," she
said laughing.

Some merchants have found a niche. Jeremy Robertson, owner of Corcoran
T-Shirts, said he makes the bulk of his revenue on guard uniforms.

"The only thing we do is CDC," Robertson said.

According to the state prison department's economic analysis, the predicted
business expansion from the new prisons didn't happen. In some cases,
business declined. In 1980, the average Avenal resident paid $16.81 in
retail sales tax. By 1989, two years after the prison was built, it dipped
to $11.23, one analysis showed.

Additional retail development outside the city limits generated by the
prison might encourage more locals to shop elsewhere more often than they
did before the prison's arrival, the analysis speculated, a condition
called "pull factor."

Corcoran, a separate analysis indicated, experienced the same thing.

What frustrates people in Corcoran, Delano and elsewhere is that
Corrections has done little to reverse the problem.

At Corcoran High School, where nearly one of every two students won't
attend college, a blue-collar job with middle-class wages is easy to fill,
residents say. But Corrections doesn't recruit, school officials say. State
participation in the high school's career day has been minimal.

Larry Buenefe, a career counselor at Corcoran High, said prison officials
"aren't exactly breaking down my door."

"Kids would take these jobs if they were offered," he said. "The local
police recruits here."

In Delano, city officials say they haven't heard a word about jobs from
Corrections officials who plan to build a second prison there.

"Right now is when the state of California needs to start doing a
recruitment process here in Delano," Madrid said. "Now is the time they
need to come in and train our people and help them pass those tests. I
don't see any of that."

Madrid said he knows that getting a state civil-service job can take more
than a year even if the applicant is qualified. For many prison jobs,
paying from $17,000 to $75,000 annually, this means a high school diploma
or a general education degree and no felony convictions.

Applicants are tested and ranked. Corrections officials say that in many
cases locals simply lack qualifications, such as a high school diploma.
Moreover, when Avenal's prison opened in 1987, the state had a backlog list
of potential correctional officers and existing officers who requested
transfers from other facilities. They got first priority.

Those reasons are not good enough for lawmakers and public officials with
constituents who live in the economically depressed areas. But other than a
few internal analyses by the department, the issue has received little
attention.

With a $335 million second prison for Delano in the advanced planning stage
and budding plans for a sex offender treatment center, perhaps in Coalinga,
and a geriatric prison for aging lifers, the time is now, Assemblyman Dean
Florez said.

At North Kern State Prison, "95% of the officers drive 20 miles round trip
from their homes in Bakersfield," said the Shafter Democrat, who joked that
eight prisons in his 30th District leaves him with more inmates than
registered voters. "This is an issue that needs immediate addressing.

"We need to recognize that if the state is going to use these prisons as
targeted investments - and it does - then it needs to start functioning
like one."

Sen. Chuck Poochigian, R-Fresno, said he hadn't heard about any problems
with prison employment.

"I've not followed this particular issue closely, but it is an interesting
subject," Poochigian said. "I know these communities were eager to put
prisons in these towns in order to address the high unemployment."

Lynette Bell, a spokeswoman with the state's Employment Development
Department, said she didn't think the agency had been asked to study the
issue.

Florez said he plans to craft legislation that would offer home-buyer down
payment bonuses to lure correctional officers or some other method to keep
more of the money local.

"We need to get them living in these towns, and spending in these towns -
not just the occasional burger and a tank of gas," Florez said.

Nowhere does the problem appear more acute than Avenal, where the state
writes $64.2 million annually in payroll checks.

The newest apartment complex, 12-year-old Westview Apartments in which
south-facing windows have views of the prison, has been the target of bank
foreclosure once since the prison opened in 1987. It now hangs what appears
to be a permanent vacancy sign. Every day, three shifts of prison workers
drive past it daily on their way home to Fresno, Hanford and Visalia.

In 1990, state analysts reviewed the economic impact of Avenal State
Prison. The little-noticed report, done by the same Berkeley-based group
that years earlier predicted a financial boost, concluded:

"Avenal has had difficulty attracting as many prison employees as
anticipated, as evidenced by vacant new homes and apartments. The principal
reason is that many prison employees regard Avenal as isolated, small and
lacking amenities. Prison employees have shown a remarkable willingness to
commute long distances and unwillingness to purchase a home in Avenal."

Presley said he didn't realize so few jobs were going to locals or that the
economic effect was limited in the company towns: "Maybe we should look a
little closer at local recruitment and job retention."

His boss, Gov. Davis, was less enthusiastic, saying economic benefits are
not part of his prison philosophy.

"I have never pitched prisons as anything other than punishment," Davis
said, adding that he doesn't consider them "economic drivers."

"I've never presented that prisons serve a purpose other than protecting
the public."

He said prisons should be "good corporate citizens" and should "reach out
to the communities" that house them.

Corcoran officials say they have attempted to reach out to the community
recently. A few weeks ago, a contractor fair sought to show local business
owners and salespeople how to win supply contracts.

And there is the matter of the recent mass civil-service testing at the
junior high, the first such effort in two years.

"I do think the institution has brought jobs to the community," said Linda
Meske, a Corcoran prison employee who was administering the civil-service
test. "We really have been working on improving our relationship with the
town."

But asked where she lives, Meske paused before replying: "Visalia."

For the Valley's prison towns, the answer may lie in the new administration
and its willingness to force its massive prison system to spend more money
in its host towns.

Madrid said dealing with corrections boss Cal Terhue has been a "pleasure"
compared to his predecessor, James Gomez. Quintanilla, Corcoran's mayor,
said Corcoran prison Warden George Galaza in the past year has tried to
build a relationship with the city by encouraging local businesses to work
with the prison.

Ultimately, the proof of the prisons' value to these communities will come
from the people in the towns who expected so much more when Corrections
came calling.

Moving from the drizzle into the auditorium, Stella Corona said she wasn't
thinking about the prison's failed promise or Corcoran's lack of amenities.
She said she likes it there - "It's a good family town," she said - and
wants to stay. A $17,000-a-year job with benefits is a rarity in a town
that bills itself as the nation's cotton capital.

"I'm hopeful," she said, even though she previously failed to get a prison
job. "A job at there would be great. That's why so many people are here."

With that, she moved through the auditorium door and sat down at a
cafeteria table next to friend Kathy Cruz, also there to take the test. The
test moderator shushed the room, read the instructions and told everyone to
begin.

Corona, with hope that things would change, put pencil to paper.