Australian Territory To Build $280 Million Prison

DARWIN, Australia — Justice Department officials in the Northern Territory announced plans to build a $283 million prison to alleviate overcrowding.

The new 800-bed prison will replace the aging and overcrowded 450-bed Darwin Correctional Center in Berrimah. The new prison is scheduled to be open by 2012 and a 200-bed expansion could be added within five years, officials say.

The Justice Department also allocated $25.9 million to expand two existing prisons during construction of the new Berrimah facility.

Approximately 100 beds will be added at Alice Springs Correctional Center and up to 140 beds will be added at Darwin Correctional Center before the prison’s scheduled demolition in 2012, officials say.

Built in 1979, the Berrimah facility suffers from chronic overcrowding and prison officials recently purchased several modified cargo containers as a short-term housing solution. Two of the three containers, which cost $435,000, are designed to house four inmates each, while the third is equipped with bathroom facilities.

In other news, the New South Wales Department of Corrective Services will employ aboriginal elders to provide counseling to indigenous young offenders at a new $18.6 million community corrections center.

Situated approximately 500 miles northeast of Sydney, the new 70-bed detention center aims to reduce recidivism rates among young offenders through comprehensive educational, vocational and cultural programming.

As part of the program, aboriginal elders will teach indigenous offenders about their culture, history and traditions.

In seeking to help young aboriginal offenders turn their lives around, it is important to help them re-establish a link with a culture from which they have often become alienated, officials say.