Capacity: 922
Client: Victoria Ministry of Corrections
Accreditations: Certified Quality Management System to ISO 9001:2008. Certified Environmental Management System to ISO 14001:2004 Certified Occupational Health and Safety Management System to AS 4801:2001 National Safety Council of Australia Accreditation to Australian Council of Healthcare Standards.
The GEO Group Australia received the award for the design, construction, operation and management of a 590-bed adult male facility in 1997. Since this time, the facility has been granted numerous increases in accommodations and currently has a bed capacity of 717. In September 2002, a variation of the existing Prison Services Agreement was signed to allow for the design, construct, finance and management of an additional 68-bed Community Transition Program (‘Nalu’).
The facility is designed to provide a safe, supportive and humane environment in which inmates can live and work, and in which the staff can deliver a suite of rehabilitative programs. The principal objectives of the facility include safety and security; health, fitness, and recreation; rehabilitation services; community support and reparation; and full integration with the Victorian Prison System. An industries program currently provide inmates with on-the-job training in manufacturing, woodwork for industry, metal fabrication, and horticulture. Future industry programs include the manufacture of potted plant bases from wood, landscaping of parks and raising plants for resale. Education and training services are delivered by a local college and are fully integrated within each industry – equipping inmates with industry knowledge and transferable and marketable qualifications.
The facility accommodates inmates behind a secure perimeter, arranged in a flexible manner to cater for minimum and medium security inmates, special management inmates, drug treatment and protection facilities. The facility layout is of campus design allowing free flow of prisoners between accommodation units, education, healthcare, industries and leisure facilities. The facility affords an appropriate Centre environment with minimal impact on the adjoining community, and the surrounding built and natural environment. The accommodations vary from cell blocks to small, non-institutional cottages to enable inmates to progress to better standards of housing as their classification and/or behavior improves. The facility operates an innovative indigenous Aboriginal program that uses culturally appropriate environments to increase involvement in educative endeavours and to support community cohesion.
The facility was also accredited by the Australian Council on Healthcare Standards (ACHS) in 1999 and was re-accredited in 2006.