This financial year ,$320 million has been allocated to the Queensland’s Government second biggest infrastructure project – the new, expanded 1,000-bed Southern Queensland Correctional Centre near Gatton that will boost prison capacity across the state.
The Southern Queensland Correctional Precinct Stage Two is located at Millers Road, Spring Creek, about 12 kilometres north-east of Gatton and 100 kilometres south-west of Brisbane in the Lockyer Valley.
Corrective Services Minister, Mark Ryan said the $650 million-plus project will help to transform the Lockyer Valley.
“This financial year $20.6 million is allocated to complete the expansion at Capricornia Correctional Centre with a refurbishment of existing older cells, the medical centre, kitchen and prisoner processing facilities underway,” Ryan said.
“Over the coming months, as these refurbishments are completed and auxiliary services brought online, the prisoner population at Capricornia will increase in a staged and safe manner, with full utilisation realised by the end of this year.”
The centre will provide high security secure placement accommodation for sentenced and remand women that are classified as high or low security. It has 104 secure and 196 residential beds.
The project is expected to provide more than 400 construction jobs over the life of the project and support up to 900 jobs at peak construction.
Over 500 permanent jobs will also be supported when the facility is fully operational.
John Holland was awarded the contract for the project expansion in 2020.
The correctional centre comes as new laws have been introduced regarding parole, for inmates’ who have committed multiple murderers serving a life sentence and for child killers serving a life sentence.
Ryan said the new laws aim to protect victims and condemn perpetrators.
“While it’s the role of independent Parole Board Queensland to determine parole matters with a focus on how community safety can best be achieved, these new laws will enhance community safety and shield the families of victims from further trauma,” he said.
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