The stable jobs provided by a jail can be a crucial economic safety net for a rural community where other jobs – in agriculture, tourism or the trades – can ebb and flow with the season, the time of year or the lure of the bigger cities.

Jails don’t close – Kirkconnell, between Bathurst and Lithgow, looked to be the exception to that rule before it was hastily reopened as inmate numbers soared across the state – and their considerable maintenance and upkeep are the responsibility of the government, not a small-time landlord whose spending is dependent on their cash flow and their state of mind.

A big jail, like Bathurst Jail, provides ballast to an economy.

But residents of any city that houses a jail know that these facilities are built and maintained and staffed to house criminals. And they are there within the community.

This fact might sit at the back of Bathurstians’ minds for months, years even, as they drive past the Bathurst Jail on their way to Orange or to the golf club.

But it will roar to the front of their mind as soon as there is a hint of trouble behind the jail walls – as there was on Tuesday.

It’s hard to know for sure what Bathurstians would have thought when they heard there was a possible riot at the Bathurst Jail on Tuesday afternoon.

Uneasiness, probably, Wariness. Fear, even.

The Bathurst Jail is a part of the city, but it is separate from it. Most residents would prefer not to consider what goes on inside, but reports of inmate unrest would have removed that option.

There would have been plenty of concern across the city on Tuesday as reports came through about police gathering outside the facility, along with Fire and Rescue and the ambulance service, and a collective exhalation of breath as further reports came through that the unrest had been settled and things had returned to normal.

Jails are not a normal workplace.

That is the sharp truth that confronts residents of Bathurst whenever there is a report of trouble behind their local facility’s walls.

That doesn’t make the jail bad for Bathurst, it just makes it different to every other employer in town.

We can temporarily forget the jail is there, and what it is used for, but every now and then it will remind us.