Plans to build prison work camp at farming college
The Northern Territory government is in talks with Charles Darwin University to turn land at its rural college, 18km northwest of Katherine, into a prison farm for 100 low- to open-security inmates to be operating by the end of 2025.
The prison farm plans come amid record spending of $1.5 billion for law and order announced in the NT budget on May 13, with a third of that for corrective services.
The Country Liberal Party government in May rushed through tough new bail laws that will ramp up the demand for prison beds.
Corrections Minister Gerard Maley has confirmed negotiations were ongoing with the university, with the proposed work camp being a key part of the government's "sentenced to skill" program for low security inmates.
The university's Katherine rural campus spans more than 4400 hectares of working cattle and farming operations, the university's website says.
Infrastructure funding was ready to get the proposed facility up and running and it would alleviate pressures on the system, Mr Maley told the NT News.
University vice-chancellor Scott Bowman confirmed preliminary talks were underway with the NT corrections department about a parcel of land on the rural campus being made available for the building of a correctional facility.
"Charles Darwin University is proud of the work we currently undertake with the Department of Corrections, delivering training in all Northern Territory correctional facilities," he said in a statement to AAP.
"Our work so far has demonstrated that skills and education are key in rehabilitation."
Acting Corrections Commissioner Alecia Brimson has acknowledged the strain put on the NT prison system by staff retention issues, with 40 per cent of the 157 correctional officers recruited in July quitting in less than 12 months.
Data shows the NT has an incarceration rate three times greater than anywhere else in Australia and has the highest reoffending rate, with six out of 10 prisoners returning to jail within two years of release.
A justice reform group says the NT government should stop investing in new prisons in response to overcrowding and instead look at proven community-led programs to address the root causes of crime to make communities safer.
Justice Reform Initiative's NT co-ordinator and Noongar woman Rocket Bretherton said overcrowded and understaffed jails led to long lockdowns and pressure-cooker situations that endangered people in prison.
"How is that rehabilitating people? How is that making the community safer, how is that setting people up to better their lives when they come out of prison?
"If jailing people worked then the Northern Territory would be the safest place in the world, with the amount of people we have in jails. So obviously jailing is failing," she told AAP.
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