New ‘Prison Report’ Creates Debate

A new report that claims the proposed Wrexham prison will not create as many local jobs, is too big and wont house many Welsh prisoners is to be published.

The essay or report is being published publicly in three parts by the Institute of Welsh Affairs and is written by a Cardiff PHD student, with some members of the press being given prior sight (not us!). The IWA describes themselves as an ‘independent, membership-based think tank, dedicated to promoting the economic, social, environmental and cultural well-being of Wales’.

The report highlights American examples of prisons, using a Californian development to explain ’20 per cent of jobs on average go to current residents of a town with a new prison’. Referring to another prison development in Malone, in New York State, when a prison was opened there in 1999. Local residents were promised 750 jobs, however the research claims under one hundred were created.

A comment has been left on the report by local Councillor Arfon Jones, who has copied an email sent by Councillor Hugh Jones who is Wrexham Council’s Lead Member for Partnerships which says:

“The conclusions reached by the Institute of Welsh Affairs are based using information from an out of date report which uses old data from 4,000 miles away in Iowa and in New York, where there is a wholly different socio-political climate. In fact nearly all the references and links in the report refer to the USA.”

“The report completely ignores the social and economic benefits from the proven reduction in reoffending provided by a local prison. The direct annual cost of one re-offending prisoner is in the region of £85k.”

“The report also ignores the much more recent 2009 report from the UK firm Roger Tym and partners which demonstrated that the direct impact of a 1500 place prison to the local economy was in the region of £47million an 1100 local jobs.”

The report also claims that due to the nature of the prison, a claimed predominantly Category C adult male prison, other Welsh prisoners cannot be housed there (eg. Cat A) thus ‘three quarters of the prison’s population are in fact from England’. It is worth noting though that the prison itself will be roughly equidistant from the English border as it is to St Giles in town.

You can read part one of the report here, and part two here. We will link to part three tomorrow.

The reports, and no doubt tomorrows report, are a creating further welcome debate on the ‘Wrexham Prison’ development – with one venue being the Wrexham.com forums where this multipage debate is going – you can view it by clicking here…

(You can read the IWA’s latest set of accounts in this PDF which also contains details of the organisation. We are pretty sure they read Wrexham.com as they have used an image we took of the proposed development!)

Previous Wrexham Prison Coverage:

• Prison planning application cost revealed.
• Private running of the prison still on the cards.
• The Prison planning application is published
• We break the news first that the MOJ selects Wrexham as the site of the prison.
• Community concerns raised over the site proposal
• The town puts forward two proposed sites
• The report considered by Councillors uses out of date data.