Malmsbury Youth Justice Centre to close, staff may be left in limbo
Workers at the Malmsbury youth justice centre may not be offered a new job when the facility closes its doors and inmates are moved to two other sites.
Victoria
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The Malmsbury youth justice centre is to close.
But workers at the centre won’t be guaranteed a job in youth justice when the facility closes in August.
It was this week announced that the ageing facility will close and detainees will be moved between the existing Parkville Youth Justice Centre and the new Cherry Creek facility.
During questioning in a parliamentary committee on Thursday, Liberal MP Nick McGowan quizzed Youth Justice Commissioner Andrea Davidson on whether every employee would be guaranteed a job post transition.
“That’s not something we can guarantee but we can guarantee we will give every support to our staff because we deeply value them and want to maintain that experience in our system,” she said.
Ms Davidson there weren’t enough jobs at the new Cherry Creek facility to cater for all Malmsbury workers.
But she said a number of employees had indicated their interest to transfer to adult corrections or community jobs.
A message to staff said detainees at the central Victoria facility would be moved to the Parkville Youth Justice Centre and Cherry Creek in a “gradual and planned process” from December this year.
The $420M Cherry Creek facility, which has 130 beds, was completed in June last year but has not yet housed a single prisoner.
Taxpayers have been forking out for maintenance and security staff to monitor the site which is operational.
Earlier this year, Premier Daniel Andrews defended the facility, saying the government did not want to rush the process of sending youths to it.
Youth Justice Minister Enver Erdogan on Tuesday afternoon confirmed the shut down of the “ageing” Malmsbury facility.
The 40 young inmates currently housed at Malmsbury will be transferred between the new Cherry Creek Youth Justice Precinct and the existing Parkville precinct.
Cherry Creek will take on the first cohort of males aged between 15 and 18 by August.
Opposition corrections and youth justice spokesman Brad Battin said the Malmsbury closure came despite the Andrews government having splashed tens of millions on upgrades to the troubled centre in 2020.
“Today’s announced closure of the Malmsbury Youth Justice Centre by the Andrews Labor government shows they continue to waste money because they have no plan to reduce youth crime,” he said.
“Youth crime has not stopped, with violent crime and home invasions continuing to increase, and there are thousands of court cases backlogged.
“Under Labor, Victoria is broke and the government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to not fix our crime problem.”
Mr Erdogan said the opening of the Cherry Creek centre marked a “new era” for Victoria’s Youth justice system.
“As we embark on this new chapter for our youth justice system, it also gives us time to reconfigure the system to make sure it’s fit for purpose,” he said.
Currently, there are 100 youth offenders in custody across Victoria.
By the end of this year, Cherry Creek will have capacity to house 56 young people.
Mr Erdogan said staff impacted by the Malmsbury closure would be supported.
“For staff that want to continue, there will be opportunities for redeployment in our youth justice system, in our corrections system and across our public sector,” he said.
Mr Erdogan said with a record low incarceration rate, there was no justification to have three prisons.
“We’ve been looking at the configuration of the system for some time,” he said.
He said Victoria’s youth justice commissioner Andrea Davidson was on Tuesday afternoon on-site at Malmsbury meeting with the affected 240 staff members.
The note to staff said the decommission of the Malmsbury facility would begin early next year.
Jesuit Social Services chief executive Julie Edwards said the Cherry Creek facility was “not needed and should never have been built in the first place”. “The Victorian government has long spruiked Cherry Creek as the most secure facility in the state with maximum security walls and fencing – this is not the kind of model that is conducive to helping children and young people address the underlying issues behind their behaviour and supporting them to lead healthy and positive lives,” she said.
Malmsbury has been plagued in recent years by violence against staff and inmates.
In March, a man was hospitalised after an alleged gang ambush on staff at the youth prison.
Last year, a teen was arrested 35 hours after allegedly making a grand escape from the facility.
He was sent to adult jail after the youth justice centre’s staff refused to take him back.
One source told the Herald Sun they hoped the new facility would be better staffed.
“It has been understaffed for too long and that’s why there have been serious incidents occurring,” the source said.
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