Queensland’s newest and largest high-security prison has officially opened in the Lockyer Valley, west of Brisbane.<\/p>\n
The first 20 prisoners are settling into their new cells after transferring from other jails across south-east Queensland.<\/p>\n
Twenty prisoners will be transferred per day over the next week, a Queensland Corrective Services spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
Once fully operational, the $965.2 million Lockyer Valley Correctional Centre at Spring Creek will have the capacity to house more than 1,500 prisoners and will require 800 frontline officers to run it.<\/p>\n
Queensland Corrective Services Commissioner Paul Stewart said the increased capacity in the state’s prison system would greatly improve community safety.<\/p>\n
“It couldn’t have come on at a better time for us,” he said.<\/p>\n
“This will relieve significant pressure that we have across other centres like Arthur Gorie, Woodford and Borallon.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Paul Stewart, Jim McDonald and Laura Gerber. (ABC Southern Qld: Peter Sanders)<\/p>\n
The high-security prison, touted as having no bars on the windows, was designed with an emphasis on rehabilitation, but Mr Stewart said it was no holiday camp.<\/p>\n
“It’s secure, that’s the first thing,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We’ve done things to increase the amount of daylight that prisoners have access to, higher ceilings, better sound, and that’s for prisoners and staff.”<\/p>\n
State member for Lockyer, Jim McDonald, said the high-security prison would be a major economic boost for the region, about 40 kilometres from the regional city Toowoomba.<\/p>\n
“Eight hundred jobs \u2014 that includes custodial correction officers, psychologists, social workers, health workers,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I’m also fighting to see \u2026 local businesses prosper from being able to supply goods and services there.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Security features at the prison include drone detection technology. (ABC Southern Qld: Laura Cocks)<\/p>\n
$300m cost blowout<\/p>\n
The state government first funded a business case for the Lockyer Valley Correctional Centre in 2014.<\/p>\n
The centre was originally planned to open in late 2024.<\/p>\n
In addition to the delayed opening, the facility’s cost also blew out by more than $300 million.<\/p>\n
Mr McDonald said getting the correctional centre built was a hard road.<\/p>\n
“There were some delays and cost blowouts with the project, but [Corrective Services Minister] Laura Gerber and her team got it back on track,” he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
X-ray machines and fingerprint scanners are among the biometric security devices in the prison. (ABC Southern Qld: Peter Sanders)<\/p>\n
Mr McDonald said it had been worth the fight.<\/p>\n
“It is very fancy \u2014 I’ve actually gone through the full biometric process of having my fingerprint scanned there for security,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I was a police officer for many years and I remember taking prisoners years ago to the Boggo Road jail down at Woolloongabba, and this is a long way from anything like that.”<\/p>\n
There is no timeline for when the Lockyer Valley Correctional Centre will be fully operational.<\/p>\n
Mr Stewart said Corrective Services would continue to populate the facility in stages.<\/p>\n
“It will be a staged commissioning process over the coming months to make sure that everything is done safely,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We won’t go to the next stage until we’re safe and we’re secure and we know that it’s a safe secure environment for our people and for the community.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Queensland’s newest and largest high-security prison has officially opened in the Lockyer Valley, west of Brisbane. The first…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":221095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[4740,120346,120344,120343,120348,120347,50,120345],"class_list":["post-221094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-australia","tag-jim-mcdonald","tag-laura-gerber","tag-lockyer-valley-correctional-centre","tag-lockyer-valley-prison","tag-new-jail-queensland","tag-news","tag-paul-stewart"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115191841072937267","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}