Dear George,

Greetings and glad you asked thsi question.

Stop The Prison

Team Manurewa along with community volunteers started sending petitions and signature campaign. The response to the petition has been very positive to date with over 500 signatures collected in opposition to building the new 1500 bed men’s prison in Manurewa. It is very obvious that many in our community oppose this prison. Below are some comments from residents who have signed the e-petition at www.stoptheprison.org.nz.

 “Manurewa already has a prison! One is enough for any area.”

 “Stop the prison in Manurewa! We are a positive community striving to do better for the future of our tamariki.”

 “What is this saying to our area\'s youth? Speak life into their futures- not a life sentence!”

 “Not all people in Manurewa think that we deserve to have another jail in the area. It is making us look like we are all criminals when it is just a minority of the people that are bringing south Auckland down not everyone.”

 “South Auckland is not a dumping ground for criminals”

 “We do not want another larger prison in Manurewa. There are plenty of alternative sites in rural NZ which would be far more suitable from a community and town planning perspective.”

“This is such a disgrace. There is enough crime in this area and we don\'t need to have a prison in this area ruining our community. Leave South Auckland the hell alone and go build your prison elsewhere and give us a chance to have a safe community here for once”

 There have been some general comments that this is a done deal, there is nothing we can do about it or even that we should welcome the prison. But what needs to be understood is that there are large costs to the community, which hosts any new prison. An international study characterised prisons into the following three categories.

Islands - These facilities are economically isolated from their host regions. They may employ and buy primarily from outside the region, thereby denying local residents many of the benefits of their physical presence.

Flagrant Defilers – These facilities may have harmful social effects. For instance they may contribute to decreased family or community cohesion, increased delinquency and crime, alcohol and drug abuse, or other bad habits.

Repellers – These facilities make it tougher for existing or prospective enterprises to operate in the same region, often because of the negative externalities described above.

The initial round of consultation has been completed and a notice send out by corrections refuted all public concerns, evidence and non-compliancy of the existing Women’s prison resource consent.  The Department of Corrections have the unlimited resources of our tax dollars to hire public relations, financial and legal experts to portray a positive picture of the Prison. This makes the Department of Corrections incredibly powerful but it does not make them right and we do not need to passively roll over and except this.

 “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest” 

Elie Wiese

What you can do is find us at the Sunday Manurewa Markets and sign the petition. Go to the www.stoptheprison.org.nz, sign the e-petition, select the email link to send a message to the Minister of Corrections, contact our three local members of Parliament and ask them to do something about this.

The more people who protest against this prison the more notice the Department of Correction will take of our concerns.