“I miss the days when we would send them back where they came from... Most of them are from the city."
Many of my interlocutors mentioned to me that former inmates, upon their release, stay in Auburn. This was attributed to different things, namely the fact that inmates have no family or livelihoods to go back to once they get out; "they don’t have anything to fall back on," as one interlocutor described to me. Because Auburn's facility is maximum security, most inmates are in the prison (or in the prison system) for long periods of time, so settling down after serving their time proves difficult. The former inmates that Auburn residents say are living in the town are also directly associated with increases in crime, poverty, and drugs as can be seen by the following quotes from various interlocutors:
"There wasn't a homeless problem 15 years ago. Now we do."
"Girlfriends [of the prisoners] would come and get on social systems and bring not so good things with them."
"Welfare works its way up here."
"They can sell rocks for $40 up here. In the city they sell for $10. It's a business move."
These perceptions of the former inmates are negative, but that didn't really surprise me; prisons in general have a sort of stigma that then becomes attached to those inside of it. What did strike me as particularly notable, however, was the fact that the prisoners were directly associated with "the city," which, upon further questioning, I learned was New York City. While I am unsure of how true these claims are, I found this association between the negative aspects of the prison (drugs, homelessness, welfare, etc.) and NYC to be fascinating. It almost seemed to serve means through which Auburn residents were able to distance themselves from the people inside the prison. One of my initial questions was who is the "us" and who is the "them," but I think that in large part, associating prisoners with NYC is a way for Auburn residents to preserve their identity as a hardworking, safe, tourist-friendly place/people.
This, I think, contributes to the ways that people in Auburn are able to forget about the presence of the prison. By viewing it as being a container for people not from Auburn, personal connections to the prison are severely altered, if not dissolved. Instead, the people inside the prison (and the ones who were recently released from it) are seen as tainting the purity of the town by bringing their crime, drugs, and poverty to Auburn. This supports the ways that Auburn presents itself as being separate from the prison and may suggest reasons for why the people of Auburn are able to seemingly not see the prison in their daily lives.
When describing the prison as an entity that exists within the town, the discourse is largely positive; it is an economic driver and a large source of jobs for residents of Auburn. The prison's connotation is only negative when applied to the prisoners and the people associated with them. This adds a new layer to the prison, presenting it in two separate ways: as an institution and as a people. The institution is seen positively but the people within it are not.
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