Parklea prison expansion to open

PARKLEA Correctional Centre will open its 150-bed expansion next Monday, boosting the capacity to more than 1,000 at this minimum security jail.

Artist’s impression of the expansion at Parklea Correctional Centre.

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PARKLEA Correctional Centre will open its 150-bed expansion next Monday, boosting the capacity to more than 1,000 at this minimum security jail.

The privately-run prison is also constructing a further 500 beds with this expansion due for completion in 2019.

NSW Corrections Minister David Elliott, announcing the opening of the 150-bed expansion, said two new centres in Wellington and Cessnock will also be opened in the coming months.

Kim Blinkhorn, GM, Operational Performance Review Branch, Corrective Service NSW, Corrections Minister David Elliott, prisons commissioner Peter Severin and Riverstone MP Kevin Conolly at the tree planting ceremony at Parklea prison on May 26.

“This project will assist in delivering a prison system that accommodates more inmates to address the rising prison population and has a greater focus on inmate rehabilitation,” Corrections Minister David Elliott said.

Riverstone state Liberal MP Kevin Conolly, asked why the NSW government is expanding prisons after closing down some when the Liberals came into power in 2011, said: “It reflected the prison numbers then ... Parklea is also one of the few prisons we can expand.”

Parklea has been managed by GEO Australia on behalf of Corrective Services NSW since 2009.

Parklea jail has been hit by many breaches over the year, including the release of an You Tube video by one of the inmates showing him with a knife, razor and drugs.

According to the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, the NSW prison population was more than 13,000 in June this year, not counting prisoners held in police cells.