St Heliers Correctional Centre is a

prison farm A prison farm (also known as a penal farm) is a large correctional facility where penal labor convicts are forced to work on a farm legally and illegally (in the wide sense of a productive unit), usually for manual labor, largely in the open air ...

for men located outside the town of

Muswellbrook Muswellbrook ( ) is a town in the Upper Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia, about north of Sydney and north-west of Newcastle. Geologically, Muswellbrook is situated in the northern parts of the Sydney basin, bordering the New Englan ...

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 ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, and operated by the Corrective Services division of the State

Department of Justice A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a v ...

. St Heliers generally holds offenders serving sentences under State or Australian criminal law and has a capacity of 256.

History

The property was originally settled by Lieutenant Colonel

Henry Dumaresq Henry Rowland Gascoigne Dumaresq (20 February 1839 – 31 October 1924) was an Australian politician who represented the electoral district of Longford in the Tasmanian House of Assembly between 1886 and 1903. He was elected to the Tasman ...

and named after

Saint Helier St Helier (; Jèrriais: ; french: Saint-Hélier) is one of the twelve parishes of Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands in the English Channel. St Helier has a population of 35,822 – over one-third of the total population of Jersey – ...

Jersey Jersey ( , ; nrf, Jèrri, label=Jèrriais ), officially the Bailiwick of Jersey (french: Bailliage de Jersey, links=no; Jèrriais: ), is an island country and self-governing Crown Dependencies, Crown Dependency near the coast of north-west F ...

. The New South Wales State Government purchased the property in 1945 and it was used as a child welfare institution until its closure in 1986. It reopened as a correctional Centre in September 1989. The centre is largely self-sufficient in terms of beef and vegetable produce and provides the 9,700 prisoners in the other low security prisons in NSW with food. At peak, the centre runs 350 head of cattle. Inmates are also involved in furniture restoration, work in a local abattoir, and help maintain the Muswellbrook Cemetery and Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The mobile outreach program of the correctional centre has worked on signage and restoration of the Great North Road, a trail from Sydney to the

Hunter Valley The Hunter Region, also commonly known as the Hunter Valley, is a region of New South Wales, Australia, extending from approximately to north of Sydney. It contains the Hunter River and its tributaries with highland areas to the north and so ...

built by convict labour during the 1820s, and listed on both the

Australian National Heritage List The Australian National Heritage List or National Heritage List (NHL) is a heritage register, a list of national heritage places deemed to be of outstanding heritage significance to Australia, established in 2003. The list includes natural and ...

and

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

World Heritage A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...

list. The mobile prison program was suspended in 2003. In 2012 the centre commenced a thoroughbred retraining and rehabilitation program in conjunction with Racing NSW.

Notable inmates

Rodney Adler Rodney Stephen Adler (born 19 August 1959) is an Australian whose family founded the FAI Insurances group, of which he became chief executive in 1989, and which was at one stage Australia's third largest general insurer. Adler became a director of ...

jailed between 2005 and 2007 for false or misleading statements and being dishonest as a director of a public company. *Reg Lyttlejailed between 1975 and 2010 for the murder of 15 people in an arson attack at the Savoy Hotel, Kings Cross on Christmas Day 1975.

References

External links

St Heliers Correctional Centre website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Heliers Correctional Centre Prisons in New South Wales 1989 establishments in Australia Muswellbrook

History

Notable inmates

See also

References

External links