Remediation works at Capricornia Correctional Centre after explosive riots

Contracts have been awarded for works at the Capricornia Correctional Centre after infrastructure was destroyed during 16-hour long riots in October 2021. Here’s what we know.

Damaged caused to the Capricornia Correctional Centre during the October 2021 riots.

More construction work is underway at Capricornia Correctional Centre to fix what was destroyed during prisoner riots in October 2021.

At the peak of the chaos, up to 70 prisoners were involved in the 16-hour long explosive riots.

A report filed to the Office Industrial Relations Commission by the Together Union in January claimed high security prisoners threw soft drinks as missiles and used vending machines to ram fences, while correctional officers sustained gas burns.

Extensive damage sustained to furniture in cells.

Smashed windows at the prison. There were reports the prisoners were armed with hammers.

Extensive damage as a result of the 16-hour riots at Capricornia Correctional Centre.

Damage to a door. The prisoners gained access to a garden shed, with this damage potentially done by tools.

Photographs of the damage to the prison were provided to this publication and showed the extensive aftermath with toilets pulled from the floor, smashed windows, destroyed pipes and infrastructure and more.

The rioting prisoners gained access to the landscaping shed and allegedly armed themselves with power tools including pickaxes, hedge trimmers, whipper snippers and other dangerous tools and equipment, along with petrol to make molotov cocktails, and they also injected, inhaled and ingested it.

At the time, the riots were labelled by Queensland Corrective Services as the worst in their history.

A tender was awarded in February to a Brisbane firm, Phillips Smith Conwell Architects, for the Principal Consultant contract for $114,104.65 for the Capricornia Correctional Centre expansion project.

This publication contacted Queensland Corrective Services for a comment but it did not go into detail, describing the riots as “post occupancy evaluation activities”.

Capricornia Correctional Centre General Manager Chief Superintendent Richard Butcher and Queensland Corrective Services Assistant Commissioner Central and Northern Command Darryll Fleming at the Rockhampton prison debriefing about the riot.

“This tender is for a principal consultant, who will engage subcontractors to undertake a range of work, including some facility enhancements as a result of post occupancy evaluation activities following the expansion completion and some recommissioning of buildings and infrastructure affected by the Code Black,” a QCS spokesperson said regarding the tender.

QCS advised apart from one officer’s station, all prison infrastructure was fully operational.

Another tender was opened in December by QBuild for the Department of Energy and Public Works for works at the prison.

The tender was for works including replacing windows, constructing a new awning and a new contract slab.

The internal investigation into the riots by QCS is ongoing as is the police investigation.

At this stage, no charges have been laid.