Claims in the literature that communities express strong resistance to and negative attitudes about the introduction of a prison have not been supported with systematically collected data. A survey was administered to 3,795 residents of a county in which construction of a new prison had just begun. When asked for their expectations regarding the prison's impact on their community, the majority of the 1,659 respondents were, at worst, neutral. The article describes survey results and examines them within the context of the literature on locally unwanted land use and the not-in-my-backyard syndrome. Post hoc assessments of perceived impact generally indicate that residents in host communities did not hold strongly negative views. Those initially opposed to prison construction in their community tended to become more neutral or supportive once they became aware of the economic benefits. The article concludes that the most significant factors affecting prison-community relations were the siting process and public relations. It strongly recommends that future projects attempt to directly assess and systematically monitor siting processes. Such data could help identify aspects of the siting process that are more and less effective in addressing public concerns and fears. They could also help in fine tuning siting strategies and thereby help to create more cooperative relationships with host communities. Tables, appendix, references