Northern prison on hold as government considers third site
Police on site at Ashley in March 2021 when six youths spent almost 8 hours on the roof of the facility, causing major damage. Mike Moores archive photo.
Sharon Webb
The government’s choice of a site for a new northern prison is in limbo while its ministers battle over the choice between a bush reserve on Birralee Road or the Ashley Youth Detention Centre.
It’s believed a decision may be announced in November.
Meander Valley Council also appears to be in limbo on the choice, with the mayor Cllr Wayne Johnston declaring that the council does not have a position on any specific site and is yet to discuss the implications of the closure of Ashley.
This has not prevented Cllr Johnston from telling Tasmanian media that he would consider the Ashley site if he were in government, and that Ashley ‘would make sense’ for an adult prison.
Nevertheless the council and the State Government appear to have learnt from some Westbury residents’ outrage at not being consulted over a prison to be built near their town, and from the unilateral decision at the September 2018 council meeting to support a prison at the Ashley site.
Following a call by Westbury anti-prison group WRAP for the council to urgently engage in transparent consultation with its ratepayers about the Ashley site’s future and Labor MP Jen Butler’s request for the government to hold a public meeting on any new site, both government and council rushed to consultation reassurance.
‘The Government’s recent decision to close the Ashley Youth Detention Centre and stated willingness to consider it as a possible alternative site for a prison does not change the need to involve the community and keep them informed,’ Cllr Johnston said.
‘The messages about consultation and better information expressed in the public meeting hold true for any proposed location and the council will continue to advocate for an informed community.’
Greens leader Cassy O’Connor described a prison location at Ashley as ‘an elegant solution’, preferable to building a prison on a site containing wildlife, endangered and otherwise.
While some Deloraine people may agree, others see a strong contrast between Ashley with its ten inmates and a high security prison containing 270 prisoners.
The pause in prison progress has come with Mr Gutwein’s sudden September announcement that the failing Ashley Detention Centre would close in three years.
After years of the government repudiating advice to close the facility and allocating millions of dollars to upgrade it, a two hour discussion with Ashley clinical practice consultant Alysha about events in the centre changed Mr Gutwein’s mind.
In a joint statement with the Minister for Children and Youth, Sarah Courtney, he said, ‘It is time for a major systemic change in our youth justice system, with the need for a holistic approach that gives our young people a far better chance of gaining the supports they need so that they are in a better position to rehabilitate and to live better and more productive lives.’
Four years after receiving the recommendations of the 2016 Noetic Report into youth custodial options, the government has finally given up band-aiding Ashley for the sake of 60 jobs it provides to mostly Deloraine residents.
Mr Gutwein announced that the government would act on Noetic’s recommendation of two new smaller facilities located in the north and south of the State focusing on early intervention, diversion strategies and detention as a last resort measure.
A productivity report into government services early this year revealed that Ashley has a 58 per cent recidivism rate and assault and self-harm at the facility in the past year had increased fourfold.
In addition, the government is being bombarded with child abuse allegations from former Ashley detainees.
Noetic predicted that only six detainees would be in the centre by 2021 because young people on remand are now not kept there; currently the 51 bed centre has around 10 inmates.
