Parramatta Jail could be reopened to ease prisoner overcrowding

State Government considers reopening the Parramatta Jail

A ghost hunt organised by the Australian Paranormal Phenomenon Investigators was held at the abandoned Parramatta gaol. Photos: Chris McKeen

PARRAMATTA jail could be reopened to lift pressure on the state’s crowded prisons.

The colonial site is among a list of options the State Government is considering.

The government is also looking at extending correctional facilities to ease prisoner overcrowding.

A report by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research and Corrective Services NSW last year found if things remained unchanged, there would be 12,191 prisoners in the state’s prisons by March 2017.

Parramatta Jail. Photos: Chris McKeen

The prison population was likely to rise over both the short and long term unless measures were taken to reduce the demand for prison accommodation, the report said.

Corrections Minister David Elliott said the government was “considering a number of options to respond to the growth of the prisoner population”.

Before it was decommissioned in 2011, the prison was the oldest-serving jail in Australia.

Deerubbin Aboriginal Land Council was granted ownership of the site from the government in 2014, after a two-year land-claim dispute.

Inside Parramatta Jail.

If the jail was to open, the government would have to lease it back from the land council.

Opposition corrections spokesman Guy Zangari said: “Reopening a prison from the 18th century shows how desperate this government has become.”

Former NSW premier Nathan Rees said for the government to consider reopening the jail showed the planning process for the North Parramatta development was inadequate.

“The government should get a grip and have a proper planning process rather than put 4000 units that’s a stone’s throw away from a jail that’s about to reopen,” Mr Rees said.