The South Okanagan’s public image has been enhanced over the years through tourism, wine production, agriculture and outdoor sports, plus the scenic value of its surrounding landscape.
I am disappointed that Mayor Dan Ashton, some members of Penticton city council and the Regional District of Okanagan Similkameen board are now toying with spoiling that image by adding a medium-security prison complex to the region’s economic and social mix.
Alcatraz may be a tourist attraction, but a local prison will not likely assist the tourism marketing efforts of this area’s chambers of commerce.
The visiting “associates” and friends of convicts in the South Okanagan prison will not likely be considered an exciting new tourism segment. Will the pals of criminals detract from the current target market of a family, festival and sports-oriented clientele for local motels, hotels and B&Bs? The economically significant tourist base that has been developed here should not be risked by accepting the bait of a free Provincial jail with its inevitable stigma and toxic implications.
Other concerns exist. Will a halfway house for ex-convicts be necessary? Who will pay for it and in whose neighbourhood will it be located?
Prisoners are released at the prison gate, not sent back to their home communities. Given that Penticton has the largest downtown in the region, will prisoners released from the South Okanagan prison drift by default into Penticton’s downtown street scene? If they only have limited funds, will they just stay and become difficult-to-employ, permanent residents of Penticton, as has been the case elsewhere? Who will fund remediation of the resulting social problems?
Prisons “disappear” into larger centres such as Kamloops and Prince George much more easily than into a region with smaller centres such as Penticton. And after it’s built, the jail is not going away.
If Penticton and the RDOS, with their enviable attributes such as adjacent lakes, mountains, nearby ski resorts, orchards, vineyards and wineries, cannot flourish without the addition of a prison complex, then there truly is no hope.
Loraine Stephanson
Penticton