The Berrima Correctional Centre has been reclassified as a prison exclusively for women. This comes two years after the facility reopened its doors.
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The facility was used exclusively for women for a decade before it was decommissioned. It was then reopened in 2016 as a minimum security facility for low-risk male offenders.
An increase in the female prison population across NSW was underscored as the reason for the change. It follows a trend by the state government of reopening centres to increase prison capacity.
Minister for Corrections David Elliot said there had been significant growth in female numbers and this had been addressed with the construction of more than 500 additional beds for women.
A NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research report released earlier this year revealed a 40 per cent increase in the overall female prison population in the state over the past six years. The number is significantly higher among Indigenous women, rising by 74 per cent in the same period.
Mr Elliot said the overall increase was largely due to better policing and tougher sentencing, but noted that the proportion of women reoffending within 12 months of leaving prison had dropped from 41.2 per cent to 38 per cent.
Corrective Services NSW Commissioner Peter Severin said $330 million was being invested in rehabilitation programs that would target those inmates who posed the greatest risk of reoffending.
“It’s important to recognise that women in the prison system suffer from high rates of sexual and domestic violence, so programs are designed to address these specific needs and offer a real opportunity to break the cycle of reoffending,” Mr Severin said.
NSW has the largest prisoner population nationally, accounting for a third of the total adult prison population according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
While women represent only eight per cent of the overall state prison population, a woman in NSW convicted of a crime today is 50 per cent more likely to be sent to prison than she was 10 years ago.
The Berrima Correctional Centre has now been upgraded and is ready to accept up to 75 female inmates. Improvements included replacing urinals with appropriate bathroom facilities, adding two audio-visual link suites for court appearances and legal visits, upgrading bunk beds and an additional assessment cell.
Male inmates that were previously at the facility were absorbed into the wider system last month.
