Attacks in Port Phillip Prison and the Metropolitan Remand Centre are at a five-year high, driving up assault rates in Wyndham and Melton.
Latest police statistics show that Wyndham police received 787 reports of assaults (excluding family violence) between October 1, 2012 and September 30 – up 57.7 per cent on the previous year.
In Melton, assaults rose 17.4 per cent, with 729 attacks reported to police.
Wyndham’s Inspector Damien Christensen and Melton’s Acting Inspector Tim O’Connor said increases in prison assaults were behind the surge. Assaults in Port Phillip Prison are counted in Wyndham’s crime statistics, while assaults at the Metropolitan Remand Centre in Ravenhall are included in Melton’s.
Community and Public Sector Union industrial officer Andrew Capp said assaults were becoming commonplace at the remand centre and Port Phillip Prison, with overcrowding leading to prisoners lashing out. Mr Capp said there were more than 800 prisoners at the remand centre and more than 1000 prisoners at Port Phillip.
“There has been an increase in double-ups in cells,’’ he said.
‘‘If you have a prisoner in a single cell and then they have to share a cell, they aren’t happy about it.”
The Justice Department’s annual report reveals that prison assaults across the state are at a five-year high. According to the report, an average of 18.7 prisoners in every 100 were attacked by a fellow inmate last financial year, up from 14.1 in 2008-09.
Prisoner-on-staff assaults rose from 2.2 per 100 in 2008-09 to 4.3 in 2012-13.
A Corrections Victoria spokesman said all assaults in prisons were taken seriously and were reported to police. He said prisoner placements were managed to ensure security was maintained.
