Details

Latitude

-37.0621

Longitude

144.211

Start Date

1861

End Date

1990

This purpose-built prison was opened in 1861 to house all manner of prisoners, and was one of the few prisons outside Melbourne that received long-sentence inmates. However, by the turn of the century it was mainly being used to accomodate short-sentence prisoners and first-time offenders. In 1908 the gaol closed. For a while there were plans to transform into an institution for treating inebriates, many of whom during this period would otherwise be confined to gaols on charges of habitual drunkenness. Ultimately, in 1909 it was instead?converted into a reformatory school for males aged 16 to 25 years. The reformatory closed in 1951, with the facility reopening in 1954 as a gaol to accommodate medium-security prisoners. It closed for good in 1990. Today the gaol is open to the public as a tourist attraction.

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Details

Latitude

-37.903

Longitude

144.861

Start Date

1853

End Date

1855

HMS Deborah was purchased in 1853 to act as a prison hulk. In 1855 the prisoners on Deborah were transferred to the hulk Lysander, and the Deborah was held as reserve gaol accommodations. From 1856 it was used as?a storage facility, before become a reformatory for male juvenile offenders in 1864. It continued to receive reformatory boys until 1873. After that for a while it was used to store and experiment with torpedoes, before being broken up in 1885.?

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Latitude

-33.6644

Longitude

138.933

Start Date

1856

End Date

1894

The first prison built in South Australia outside the capital of Adelaide, Redruth opened in 1856. Initially it received few prisoners, but was experiencing overcrowding by 1876, with 22 prisoners within 8 cells. In 1894, the poor state of the buildings and low numbers of prisoners led to the decision to close the prison. It was reopened as a girls reformatory in 1897, continuing as such until 1922, after a riot by inmates the previous year had seen criticism of the staff and facility. Redruth Gaol underwent restoration in the late 1980s, and today operates as a?museum.

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Details

Latitude

-32.0043

Longitude

115.516

Start Date

1838

End Date

1902

Rottnest Island was first used as a prison by colonial authorities in 1838 when six Aboriginal prisoners were sent there under the superintendence of a small military force. The following year?it was announced that the island would thenceforth be used as a prison for Aboriginal offenders. In 1881, a reformatory for boys was also opened on the island.?Some 3,700 Aboriginal men and boys were imprisoned at Rottnest Island across the facility's duration, with the reformatory closing in 1901 and the prison closing in 1902.?It was used as an internment camp during both World Wars. During the late twentieth century the former prison cells were used as tourist holiday accommodation, but in May 2018 the prison site, known as the 'Quod', was handed back to the Rottnest Island Authority. It has been suggested that the site may become a museum to the prison's history.?

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Details

Latitude

-27.5624

Longitude

151.962

Start Date

1864

End Date

1903

Toowoomba Gaol opened in 1864 to receive inmates from the immediate area. In 1870 it began receiving female inmates from throughout southern Queensland, including?the capital of Brisbane. In 1881 a reformatory and industrial school for adolescent girls was opened adjacent to the prison. In 1887 the Royal Commission into Queensland prisons heavily criticised the gaol, declaring that 'no woman can enter Toowoomba Gaol without becoming degraded, losing self-respect, and made infinitely worse than before she stepped within its walls'.?Both the prison and reformatory?closed in 1903.?Today only the gaol foundations remain.

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Details

Latitude

-33.8476

Longitude

151.171

Start Date

1841

End Date

1909

Cockatoo Island was declared?a gaol in 1839 due to the imminent closure of the Norfolk Island convict establishment. Convict barracks were built, and became occupied in 1841. In 1869 the remaining prisoners were transferred from the Island to Darlinghurst Gaol, and the prison buildings became the Biloela industrial school and reformatory for delinquent girls from 1871. Following the closure of the Biloela reformatory in 1888, male prisoners were again sent to the island. The gaol continued to function until 1909. The Cockatoo Island Prison Barracks Precinct is now a heritage site and is open to the visiting public.

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Details

Latitude

-42.8937

Longitude

147.299

Start Date

1828

End Date

1856

This purpose-built workhouse for female convicts operated from 1828 to 1856. Female transportees would be housed there upon their first arrival in the colony until they could be sent out to assigned service with an appropriate family; assigned women would also be returned to the factory for disobedience or rule-breaking. The factory's location in a damp, swampy area led to high rates of disease among inmates, exacerbated by overcrowding. In 1869, more than a decade after its use as a female convict factory had ceased, the site became a reformatory for boys who were homeless or had been convicted of offences by the courts. At the reformatory boys would receive a basic education, work on farmland attached to the institution, or be apprenticed out to employers. The reformatory closed in 1876, but in 1884 the site was again opened as an alternative facility to prison for juvenile offenders, now known as the Boys' Training School. The Boys' Training School was transferred to a new site in New Town in 1896. Today the remaining Cascades buildings form a heritage site that is open to the visiting public.

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Details

Latitude

-27.4129

Longitude

153.145

Start Date

1865

End Date

1871

In 1865 the ship Proserpine was acquired by the Queensland government and outfitted as a prison hulk to provide accommodation for inmates, due to overcrowding at the Petrie Terrace Gaol. In 1871 it was repurposed to act as a reformatory school for boys aged under 18 years. The reformatory was relocated to a new facility at Lytton in 1881.

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Latitude

-37.7371

Longitude

144.968

Start Date

1851

End Date

1997

The original prison building opened at Coburg in 1851, but underwent much extension and renovation in the late 1850s and early 1860s. The size of the complex expanded as different divisions were introduced to house different types of prisoners, with separate accommodations for prisoners of good behaviour, long-term prisoners with behaviour problems, short-term prisoners, remand prisoners, prisoners with psychiatric problems, high-security prisoners, young offenders and eventually maximum-security prisoners. A government reformatory for girls was also opened adjacent to the prison in 1864, but eventually closed in 1893, in part because it was felt that the reformatory's location so close to the prison was less than ideal. A reformatory for boys also operated in the grounds of Pentridge prison, known as the Jika Reformatory, from 1873 to 1879.?With the closure of Melbourne Gaol in 1924, Pentridge became the main prison for the metropolitan area. Pentridge eventually closed in 1997. The site is heritage-listed, and is currently undergoing remodelling that will turn it into an urban village.

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Details

Latitude

-31.8677

Longitude

115.969

Start Date

1998

End Date

2001

Riverbank opened in 1960 as the first purpose-built maximum-security reformatory for boys, with accommodations for up to 33 teenage offenders. There was a significant emphasis on work-skills training, with an onsite factory that made a range of goods for charities, and the introduction of a computer-aided learning system from 1986. In 1996 the youth facility closed and was re-commissioned as an adult prison in 1998, which remained operational until 2001.

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Details

Latitude

-36.3579

Longitude

146.69

Start Date

1860

End Date

2004

Beechworth Gaol opened in 1860 while still incomplete, with the buildings not finished until 1864. The prison was one of many built during this era on the radiating 'panopticon' principle to enable surveillance of prisoners by guards positioned in a central observation point. Declining prison numbers led to the gaol being closed in 1918, but in 1925 it was reopened as a reformatory for men designated 'habitual offenders', who under legislation at that time could be held indefinitely. In 1951 it was used instead as a training prison to provide rehabilitative employment and educational opportunities for more low to medium-security inmates. The facility closed in 2004, and today operates as a tourist attraction.

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Details

Latitude

-34.7407

Longitude

149.74

Start Date

1884

End Date

2999

Goulburn Gaol?opened?in 1884 with a capacity for?728 inmates. Prison labour was used to build a further 127 cells in 1893. The prison was re-named the Goulburn Reformatory in 1928, and became known as the Goulburn Training Centre in 1949. During this period it had a particular focus on rehabilitating young or first-time offenders through a variety of employment and training programs. In 1992 the centre was again renamed as the Goulburn Correctional Centre. Today the gaol has a capacity for 222 inmates, from those designated minimum-security through to those detained in a SuperMax unit.

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