Tooele County is off the list of potential Utah State Prison relocation sites.
Last week the state legislature’s prison relocation commission dropped the two undisclosed sites that they were considering from Tooele County.
The county sites scored poorly in proximity, utilities and community acceptance, according to Sen. Jerry Stevenson, R-Layton, co-chair of the prison relocation commission.
“The Tooele County locations stayed on the list through several other round of cuts,” he said. “But it largely came down to proximity to courts, advanced medical care, prison staff, and volunteers.”
The commission was also concerned about the availability of utilities to the proposed properties in Tooele County, along with a lack of support for the prison in the community.
“The committee received a letter from Randy Sant, Tooele County’s economic development consultant, that indicated the county was not sure that they wanted the prison,” said Stevenson.
However, according to Sant his letter was not meant to imply that the county did not want the prison, only that at this time the county was taking no position for or against the prison.
Rep. Doug Sagers, R-Tooele, confirmed that Tooele County was off the list of prison possibilities.
“I have seen the list of final sites for the prison,” he said, “and Tooele County is not on the list.”
Sagers credited opposition from citizens and community leaders for the county being removed from the list of prison prospects.
The consultant hired by the prison relocation commission to evaluate prison locations is scheduled to give a progress report at the commission’s Oct. 22 meeting.
A study commissioned by the Tooele County Health Department that was released Wednesday indicated that the Tooele County community is nearly equally divided between support and opposition to welcoming the state prison here.
A survey of 545 county residents included in the study showed 43 percent were opposed to the prison coming to Tooele County while 40 percent favored it. Fifteen percent were undecided.
The study was not part of the state’s prison relocation evaluation efforts. It was conducted by Westminster College’s School of Public Health and paid for by a $21,000 grant from the Center for Disease Control.
Officials from Westminster College presented the findings of their health impact assessment of prison relocation in a public meeting at the Tooele County Health Department on Wednesday evening.
Many fears about a relocation of the state prison were not supported by the study’s conclusions.
The study found that here was no substantive evidence that relocating the prison to Tooele County will increase the crime rate and jeopardize the safety of community members.
There was also no evidence found that supported the notion that prisoners stay in the community where a prison is located when they are released.
“While the prison system does not do a good job of tracking where prisoners go after being released, a conversation with the warden of the state prison indicated that a release plan is developed for prisoners before they are released and very few stay in the Draper area,” said John Contreras, director of Westminster College’s School of Public Health.
Contreras also stated that families of prisoners are not likely to relocate to prison communities.
The study’s findings did not support claims that prisons are an economic boom to communities.
“The majority of data from previous literature on areas similar to Tooele County found little to no increase in employment following prison relocation,” read the study.
Prison employees are likely to live in urban areas and commute to work in rural locations, according to the study.
While Tooele County’s prison locations are off the list for now, that does not mean the prison relocation commission will not return to the finalist list before the commission makes its final report, according to Stevenson.