Broken Hill Correctional Centre, formerly Broken Hill Gaol, is an Australian minimum and medium security prison for men and women located in Broken Hill,

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

, around from Sydney. Opened in 1892, it is the fourth-oldest prison still in operation in NSW.

History

The original gaol was built in 1892, designed by the Colonial Architect,

James Barnet James Johnstone Barnet, (1827 in Almericlose, Arbroath, Scotland – 16 December 1904 in Forest Lodge, Sydney, New South Wales) was the Colonial Architect for Colonial New South Wales, serving from 1862 to 1890. Early life Born the son of a ...

, who also designed the Sydney Museum, among others. Its construction cost £15,000, and was carried out by Dobbee and Son. Broken Hill Gaol, as it was named, opened on 8 November 1892 as a 90-bed facility with five

prison warden The warden ( US, Canada) or governor ( UK, Australia), also known as a superintendent (US, South Asia) or director (UK, New Zealand), is the official who is in charge of a prison. Name In the United States and Canada, warden is the most common ...

s and initially holding two female and 19 male prisoners. On 11 June 1907, Peter Sadeek was hanged for the murder of a woman, and is the only prisoner executed at the prison. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, from 1942 to 1944 the prison, after being vacated, was taken over by the

Commonwealth Government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Government ...

, to use as a safe place to store the nation's reserves of gold, holding around £AU44.8 million of gold, owned by the Bank of England, Commonwealth Bank and the

Bank of Java The Bank of Java (DJB, for ) was a note-issuing bank in the Dutch East Indies, founded in 1828 and nationalized in 1951 by the government of Indonesia to become the newly independent country’s central bank, later renamed Bank Indonesia. For m ...

. It remains the fourth-oldest operating prison in NSW.

Governance and description

The centre is operated by

Corrective Services NSW Corrective Services New South Wales (CSNSW) is a division of the Department of Communities and Justice of the Government of New South Wales, Australia. CSNSW is responsible for the state's prisons and a range of programs for managing offenders in ...

, an agency of the

Department of Communities and Justice The New South Wales Department of Communities and Justice, a government department, department of the Government of New South Wales, is responsible for the delivery of services to some of the most disadvantaged individuals, families and communiti ...

of the Government of New South Wales. The centre detains sentenced and unsentenced inmates under New South Wales and/or Commonwealth legislation. The medium security section is a reception prison for a large area of the state, bordered by

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , establishe ...

in the north,

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in the south, and

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

in the west. CC-BY icon

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Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
licence. As of 2017, the prison employs more than 60 staff, some of whom work from a city office with prisoners on

parole Parole (also known as provisional release or supervised release) is a form of early release of a prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by certain behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated parole officers, or ...

, and 90 prisoners. It is important to the Far West region, as it allows for imprisonment closer to families who live in the area.

Programs

Many of the prisoners are employed by Corrective Services Industries, in work such as

catering Catering is the business of providing food service at a remote site or a site such as a hotel, hospital, pub, aircraft, cruise ship, park, festival, filming location or film studio. History of catering The earliest account of major services be ...

, maintenance and community work, and they are also offered various vocational and education opportunities as a means of helping them to gain employment after their release. Since 2021, yarning circles have been introduced for

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

in men's and

women's prison This article discusses the incarceration of women in correctional facilities. As of 2013 across the world, 625,000 women and children were being held in penal institutions, and the female prison population was increasing in all continents.

s across NSW, starting with Broken Hill – in the men's prison in 2021, and the women's prison in 2022. The aim of the circles is to encourage communication, connect Indigenous inmates with their culture, and reduce reoffending and the high rates of incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Notable inmates

*Michael Ibrahimbrother of

John Ibrahim John Houssam Ibrahim, (born 25 August 1970) is a former Kings Cross nightclub owner. Police allege Ibrahim is a "major organised-crime figure" and was labelled as the "lifeblood of the drugs industry of Kings Cross" during the 1995 Wood royal ...

References

External links

* {{NewSouthWalesPrisons Buildings and structures in Broken Hill, New South Wales Prisons in New South Wales 1892 establishments in Australia