Eloy residents hopeful that private prison will bring economic boost
by Nuran AlteirDespite controversy about plans to expand a private prison complex in the small town of Eloy, Arizona, residents say they’re looking forward to the additional tax revenue and jobs the new construction is expected to infuse into the town’s stagnant economy.
Arizona state officials awarded private prison company Corrections Corporation of America, or CCA, a contract in December to add up to 2,000 more inmate beds. The state will guarantee CCA nearly $22 million a year, according to The Arizona Republic. The for-profit incarceration giant has begun construction at its Red Rock Correctional Center about 10 miles outside downtown Eloy for the first 1,000 beds.
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Luther Pedigo, owner of the Tumbleweed Inn bar and restaurant
“It’s just a business,” said Luther Pedigo, who owns the Tumbleweed Inn bar and restaurant in Eloy. “It’s a business and you’re housing inmates and you’re doing it and making money off of it.”
Pedigo, who also owns Industrial Hose Repair in nearby Casa Grande, said he expects the prison expansion will stimulate the local economy by generating a need for more housing and retail options to accommodate the increased number of prison workers.
Historically, Eloy, about 65 miles south of Phoenix, has been known as a cotton growing town. Since the recession, several businesses have opened there. There’s auto repair shops, a plastics manufacturer, and an airport for the “world’s skydiving capitol”.
“When we first moved out [to Arizona] it was pretty bad,” Pedigo, 60, said of his move from Florida. “I mean, it was right when everything took a slump.”
But it has been changing for the better, he said.
“It’s a business and you’re housing inmates and you’re doing it and making money off of it.”
Eloy City Manager Harvey Krauss said CCA has been especially positive for the city’s economy. Now that it’s working to add beds to its Red Rock Correctional Center, that positive economic impact will only grow, Krauss said. The prison will start housing new prisoners by September 2016, according to CCA’s contract with the state.
“That’ll build onto the property tax value,” Krauss said. “I would guess that it contributes overall with everything about $2 million about every year to the general budget through construction, sales and property tax.”
Harvey Krauss, Eloy City Manager
Some residents, like 21-year-old Chantal Dimas, said she hadn’t heard of the expansion but agree it would only have a positive effect on the economy.
“Eloy is small but I think it has everything,” Dimas said before a nervous laugh. “Well, not everything, everything. But they do have what you require, like a small grocery store and they have like some family parks. No movie theater. They used to have one but they shut it down like years ago.”
Dimas said many of the customers who eat at her family’s restaurant, Nico’s Mexican Food off Main Street in Eloy, are local residents and employees. They include prison guards.
“[Prison workers] are like a pretty big source of our income,” Dimas said. “I think it would be good if [the prison] added jobs, not just for the new employees themselves, but like other small businesses around.”
And that’s good, Dimas said, because Eloy doesn’t have a lot of job opportunities.
“Usually if people want a job, they’ll either go to the other towns like Casa Grande or Coolidge to find something else,” said Dimas, who is also a part-time student to become a preschool teacher.
Chantal Dimas, Eloy resident
Nico’s Mexican Food restaurant
People who oppose the prison expansion say supporters ignore reports that the state’s private prisons have high turnover and low pay,according to a 2012 report by the American Friends Committee Service.
“These problems contribute to larger safety problems in private facilities, where inexperienced and undertrained guards often are unprepared or unwilling to handle serious security breaches or disturbances,” the report states.
City Manager Krauss said that isn’t the case at the Eloy prison complex, which is made up of four facilities: Red Rock Correctional Center,Saguaro Correctional Center, La Palma Correctional Center and Eloy Detention Center.
Nuran Alteir
Nuran Alteir developed a passion for telling stories at an early age. That passion, coupled with a desire to do good, has led her to work as a multimedia journalist for numerous publications including KPCC: Southern California Public Radio, the Orange County Register, New York Times and, most recently, the Oregonian. Her experience in domestic newsrooms has been supplemented by time abroad as a reporter in Cambodia, Italy and the Turkish/Syrian border. Nuran graduated from California State University, Fullerton with a bachelor’s in journalism and a minor in Spanish. She is now pursuing a higher degree in the sciences.