Prisons that are reluctant to others… Why did Cheongsong-gun ask to build one more place in four places?

Cheongsong-gun “Please build a women’s prison.”
There is an image of a prison as a hate facility. So, if the story of relocation or new construction comes out, the NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) phenomenon appears, saying,’We cannot have hate facilities in our neighborhood.’

But in a local government in Gyeongbuk, the opposite is true. Asked to “build more prisons.” This is the story of Cheongsong-gun, Gyeongbuk, where there are already four prisons.

According to Cheongsong-gun on the 22nd, Cheongsong-gun head Yoon Kyung-hee met with the Justice Minister Park Beom-gye, who visited the North Gyeongsangbuk-do 2nd Prison in Jinbo-myeon, Cheongsong-gun on the 18th, and asked for “build a women’s prison.”

Seo Soo-hwan, head of the Planning and Audit Office of Cheongsong-gun, said, “At the time, he also shared his intention to attract emergency shelters and training centers for the Ministry of Justice.

Minister Park visited a correctional facility in Cheongsong-gun to express gratitude for receiving confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus infection (Corona 19) in the eastern detention center in Seoul in Cheongsong-gun and giving a snack such as an apple.

In Jinbo-myeon, Cheongsong-gun, where apples and peppers are mainly farmed, four prisons, including the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prisons in northern Gyeongbuk, and the Gyeongbuk Vocational Training Prison, which have 2,500 prisoners, have been established at intervals of 300m~1km. have.

Like Cheongsong-gun’s hope, if one more women’s prison is built, there will be 5 prisons in Cheongsong-gun. It is difficult to find a place where prisons are concentrated so much in small-scale county-level municipalities even in the world.

Cheongsong-gun’s hopes of attracting a fifth prison have continued since 2014. Residents of Jinbo-myeon, Cheongsong-gun, launched the’Cheongsong Correctional Facility Promotion Committee’ in 2014, in which 25 heads of Lee and representatives of 24 resident groups participate. Then, the residents signed an application for a prison inducement to the Ministry of Justice.

Residents want women’s prisons to enter the fifth prison, if possible. It was because if there were women’s prisons, it would be possible to create a large’comprehensive correctional town’ by adding vocational training prisons to the existing three general prisons.

As such, the reason Cheongsong-gun actively sought to attract prisons is because they realize that prisons can help vitalize the local economy.

First of all, it is helpful in business such as buying fruit and other items from prison visitors and the like. The prisons are purchasing some agricultural products produced in Cheongsong-gun as corrosive materials. It is important to note that there are jobs in the area, such as correctional officers and correctional facility assistants.

While prison guards mainly stay in Jinbo-myeon, the area around the prison, living facilities such as studios, supermarkets, schools, kindergartens, and restaurants are revitalized. It is different from the general state of rural local governments where closed schools, closed shops, and vacant houses appear one after another.

Cheongsong-gun planning director Choi Yeong-ju said, “After living with a prison for many years, emotional reluctance toward prisons in Cheongsong-gun disappeared a lot. Public opinion is spreading that it is a facility that should coexist.”

In Jinbo-myeon, where prisons are concentrated, Cheongsong Detention Center was established in 1980. After that, in 2005, as the Cheongsong Detention Center was dismantled, some facilities were remodeled, and the old buildings were rebuilt after being demolished.

Cheongsong = Reporter Yunho Kim
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