NT Corrections Minister Gerard Maley in talks with CDU to turn Katherine agricultural college into prison farm
Corrections Officers, advocacy groups are questioning plans to turn Katherine agricultural college into a prison farm. Read why.
The NT Government is planning to turn a Top End agricultural college into a prison farm.
Corrections Minister Gerard Maley has confirmed negotiations were ongoing with Charles Darwin University to turn their agricultural college, 18km northwest of Katherine, into a prison work camp.
Mr Maley said the proposed work camp was a pivotal part in the government’s ‘sentenced to a skill’ program for low to open security prisoners.
“They have cows, they have agriculture, and some of those work camps prisoners will be able to be sentenced to a skill to learn the skills that everyday Territorians have to make a better life,” he said.
The Katherine facility was pitched in October as a 50-bed facility to be open by late 2026, but six months later the Corrections Minister has proposed that a 100-bed site could be open by the end of the year.
“We’re working on a proposal to know exactly what it will look like,” Mr Maley said.
Despite the final designs being expected by mid-year, he said the Katherine community had yet to be fully consulted about the new prison farm.
“Is going to be publicised, it has been out there in the community,” Mr Maley said.
Corrections workers said there had been no consultation about the Katherine work camp, saying “there’s no transparency, we know nothing”.
“We’ve been promised all this infrastructure, we’ve been promised prisoner expansion — but we’ve heard nothing,” one officer said.
“They’ve announced all this money for all this amazing infrastructure that is going to solve all of our issues, have they even started planning?” one officer asked.
Mr Maley said the infrastructure funding was ready “to get that up and running” and promised the new facility would “alleviate” the pressures on the system.
“(We can) spread the prison population not only in Darwin and in Holtze and in Alice Springs, but also to Katherine,” he said.
However Corrections workers warned spreading staff over multiple facilities was another burden on the system, with the Top End workforce already stretched to cover the new Berrimah and Darwin Police Prisons.
“We haven’t got the staff, you’ve expanded so much,” a Darwin officer said.
“You just cannot run it, you don’t have the officers to run it.”
When asked if staffing was sufficient to cover the current prison population, Acting Corrections Commissioner Alecia Brimson said there was continuous recruitment for new workers.
Ms Brimson acknowledged that retention was a significant issue, with 40 per cent of the 157 Correctional officers recruited in July quitting in less than 12 months.
“There’s no question that the number places strain on the organisation, right across all of our centres,” Ms Brimson said.
It remains unclear if the Katherine Work Camp will be accessible to remand prisoners — who make up more than half of all people in NT cells — as Ms Brimson said there were restrictions on the programs that could be offered to unsentenced prisoners.
Justice Reform Initiative said work camps were a misguided response to chronic overcrowding, and questioned if the Katherine facility would be suitable to host rehabilitation programs.
JRI said the Territory had the worst recidivism rates in the country, with 60 per cent of prisoners returning to a cell within two years.
NT Coordinator Kirsten Wilson said she was also concerned about the government’s ability to staff and operate the remote prison facility.
“Based on what we know of the NT corrections system, the idea that this facility will be genuinely rehabilitative and reduce reoffending is a fantasy,” Ms Wilson said.
“With such high rates of recidivism in the Territory, we have to ask: why would this be any different?”
Instead Ms Wilson called for investment into alternatives to imprisonment, diversion programs, community-based supports, and justice reinvestment strategies.
“Real answers to community safety are not found in sending more people to prison or creating more prison beds to fill,” Ms Wilson said.
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Originally published as NT Corrections Minister Gerard Maley in talks with CDU to turn Katherine agricultural college into prison farm
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