Work has begun on the new Ravenhall prison, which will hold more than 1000 offenders when it opens in 2017.
The prison’s price tag will be in the order of $2.5 billion over 25 years – including running costs of $1.6 billion – and will be built on government-owned land near the Metropolitan Remand Centre and Dame Phyllis Frost Centre.
Corrections Minister Wade Noonan said the prison would create 700 construction jobs and 600 ongoing jobs, and have capacity to expand to hold 1300 inmates.
“Given the forecast surge in prisoner numbers, we will need this prison,” Mr Noonan said. “An extra 1200 offenders have entered the prison system in just the past two years.
“Victoria’s recidivism rate is 39.5 per cent and likely to go higher.”
The government also announced the prison’s operators, GEO Consortium, will receive as much as $2 million a year if it reduces recidivism at the prison by 12 per cent compared to that of the state’s overall prison system.
The private operators could be paid millions of dollars in bonuses if they reduce the reoffending rate of their inmates.
The contract includes a target of a 14 per cent reduction in recidivism among indigenous prisoners, which has increased 73 per cent in the past four years in Victoria alone.
– Cameron Tait with The Age
