Privately run jail in NSW set to return to public hands

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The New South Wales Government is set to reverse the privatisation of one of the state's largest jails, the Junee Correctional Centre. It's a decision that has surprised many of its staff.

Transcript

00:00 The Minsk government is continuing its trend of reversing privatisation, this time returning

00:07 one of the state's largest jails back to public ownership.

00:11 Juni Correctional Centre in southern New South Wales is currently managed and operated by

00:16 US multinational company Geo Group and has been for the past 30 years since that jail

00:24 opened in 1993.

00:26 But now the government says that when that contract finishes in March 2025, that management

00:32 of that jail will return to the public sector and the Minister for Corrections, Analak Chanthavong

00:38 says that this will help lock in 340 jobs in the Riverina region and he says these are

00:45 stable, secure and well-paid jobs.

00:48 The Public Service Association Union has welcomed this decision and it says that prisons as

00:55 part of the justice system really belongs in the public's hands.

00:59 We have seen a statement from Geo Group who says that their staff and management were

01:05 surprised and disappointed by this decision by the state government but that the company

01:10 will work with the government to ensure a smooth handover.

01:14 And of course we also know that this decision from the government comes a few months after

01:18 a coronial inquest into the death of an Indigenous inmate, Reuben Button, who died at Juni Correctional

01:25 Centre and the coroner in that inquiry found that there were deficiencies in the processes

01:31 in that jail in terms of the provision of care towards that inmate.

01:36 But now that this decision on Juni Correctional Centre has been made and this announcement

01:41 is public, questions will now be asked about what the state government is intending to

01:45 do with the state's other private prisons, so those are Sydney's Parklea Jail and also

01:51 Clarence Correctional Centre in Grafton.

01:53 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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