NSW ghost jail: Prison staff paid to guard empty cells

PRISON officers at NSW’s newest jail are so bored they are whiling away the hours picking up rubbish as the $300 million correctional facility awaits its first inmate.

An artist’s impression of the new correctional centre in the Hunter Valley, yet to receive an inmate.

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PRISON officers at the state’s newest jail are so bored they are whiling away the hours picking up rubbish and “counting bricks”, with the multimillion-dollar correctional facility yet to receive a single inmate.

The 400-bed Hunter Correctional Centre at Cessnock was built to ease the pressure on the state’s overcrowded prison system, with the jail to officially open early next year.

However, around half of the 160-strong prison workforce to be stationed at the jail have already been transferred across, despite the cells yet to be filled.

An artist’s impression of the Hunter Correctional Centre at Cessnock,

A prison officer stationed at the rapid-build maximum security prison said some staff were conducting night watches and perimeter checks on the empty facility while others were “counting bricks” to pass the time.

The state-of-the-art prison was one of two built in response to prison overcrowding, the other being the Macquarie Correctional Centre at Wellington. Featuring room for 400 inmates across four wings, the prisons are designed to reduce the rate of reoffending with each one offering specialised programs with a focus on rehabilitation.

According to the departmental website, the Macquarie Correctional Centre was to have begun accepting inmates last month, while the Hunter Correctional Centre is to open early next year.

“Some staff are so bored they’ve gone home sick.”

However, staff fear the selection criteria for inmates has been set so high that the department is struggling to find prisoners that meet its benchmarks of not having mental health issues, being “motivated” and having passed urinalysis tests.

According to the source, just 150 inmates so far had been chosen to be transferred over. “We are basically here guarding cells with no inmates in them — and it’s not anticipated we will get any for another three months,” he said.

“Some staff are so bored they’ve gone home sick, while others are picking up rubbish, screws, counting bricks, anything to pass the time and stop the boredom.

“We understand they’ve set the eligibility criteria so high that only around 150 inmates have made the cut to come here.”

While the staff were being paid, their counterparts at the prisons they had left were being offered overtime to cover for the vacated positions, the source said.

“Staff ... are occupied with numerous important tasks that are critical to the safe opening of a new prison.”

A Corrective Services NSW spokeswoman said inmates would begin arriving at Hunter in February, while Macquarie would being accepting prisoners next month.

She said inmates were being assessed on a case by case basis to ensure the right mix of prisoners was being chosen to bed down security and operational routines in the inititial operational phase of the centres.

Prison officers at both jails had been assigned “numerous important tasks” to ensure the prisons were operating safely and securely by the time inmates arrived, she added.

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“Staff allocated to Hunter and Macquarie correctional centres are occupied with numerous important tasks that are critical to the safe opening of a new prison, including but not limited to security escorts for contractors, site security, commissioning and asset testing,” the spokeswoman said.

As of June 2017, there were 13,146 prisoners in NSW jails — around one-third of the national prison population, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The rapid-build prisons are part of a $3.6 billion investment in expanding jail capacity to deal with the surge in inmate numbers.