Prison Agriculture in the United States

The Prison Agriculture Lab at Colorado State University compiled a first-of-a-kind nationwide data set tracking prison agriculture in the United States. The data set identifies 1101 adult state-operated prisons, including 662 adult state-operated prisons with some type of crops and silviculture; horticulture and landscaping; animal agriculture; and/or food processing and production. These four types of agriculture are further broken down into subtypes, which are more detailed descriptions of an agricultural activity. The data set furthermore entails details on the specific drivers of agriculture, which are the goals or justifications for agriculture at each prison provided by prison authorities. The drivers are broadly classified into financial, idleness reduction, training, or reparative driver groups. Data covers all 50 states and was collected between 2019-2022 by speaking with prison authorities and by scraping official government and agency reports and websites. To enrich the geospatial aspects of this data set, the prison agriculture data provides a key to link with Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level prison boundaries data from 2020. 

Response Rate:  Confirmed data on agricultural activities for 662 out of 1101 adult government-run state prisons.

The following publications cite the data in this project.

• Chennault, Carrie, and Joshua Sbicca. “Prison Agriculture in the United States: Racial Capitalism and the Disciplinary Matrix of Exploitation and Rehabilitation.” Agriculture and Human Values 40, no. 1 (2023): 175–91. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-022-10346-x.

The following publications are supplemented by the data in this project.

• Oak Ridge National Laboratory. “Homeland Infrastructure Foundation Level Data (HIFLD) Prison Boundaries,” September 30, 2020. https://hifld-geoplatform.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/2d6109d4127d458eaf0958e4c5296b67_0/.

• Prison Agriculture Lab. “Growing Chains: Prison Agriculture and Racial Capitalism in the United States.” 2022. https://prisonagriculture.com/story-map/.

• Prison Agriculture Lab. “Prison Agriculture in the United States ArcGIS Map.” 2022. https://prisonagriculture.com/arcgis-map/.