Corrections department confirms uni campus as prison work site in Australian first

Name: Corrections department confirms uni campus as prison work site in Australian first
Uploaded: 2025-12-04T22:11:22+00:00
Duration: 1 min 55 s
Channel: ABC NEWS (Australia)
Description: A rural university and training campus in the Northern Territory is set to become a real-life school of hard knocks in what's believed to be an Australian first. Corrections has locked in Charles Darwin University's Katherine Campus for a cohort of 100 low-risk prisoners in a new bid to drive down the Territory's alarming incarceration rates.

Skip to player Skip to main content

ABC NEWS (Australia)

11 months ago

A rural university and training campus in the Northern Territory is set to become a real-life school of hard knocks in what's believed to be an Australian first. Corrections has locked in Charles Darwin University's Katherine Campus for a cohort of 100 low-risk prisoners in a new bid to drive down the Territory's alarming incarceration rates.

Category

📺

TV

Transcript

Display full video transcript

00:00At any given time, up to 100 students can stay here for university and vocational training courses.

00:09Soon, they'll be replaced by up to double the number of prisoners.

00:13Maybe what we can achieve here will be a model for other jurisdictions around the country.

00:19Months after the idea was first floated, Charles Darwin University's now inked a deal with the government.

00:26Like similar camps in Nullanboy and the Barclay, the plan is to help low-risk prisoners get skills or accreditation for a job.

00:34Agriculture, plumbing, electrotech, all of those sorts of various trades that are going to be of increasing demand here in the Big Rivers region with the growth of the Beetaloo Basin.

00:46Also, potential opportunities to assist research into biosecurity and autonomous drones.

00:52Corrections says they'll wear electronic monitoring and be sent back to prison if they step out of line.

00:58CDU now in negotiations with Corrections to build new student accommodation on site.

01:04But parents of local high schoolers who attend the campus for training are already sounding the alarm.

01:10We will be ensuring that the facility and the site operates to minimise any potential contact.

01:17With crime a long-running concern in town, shoppers are cautiously optimistic.

01:22I think they have to do something, but I hope they're going to put a good procedure in place before it starts.

01:30I think it's better off bringing family back into community and giving them opportunity to work as well.

01:36All it's going to take is one guy to slip through the cracks and get out and this project, which I think is a good one, could fall through.

01:44The community will get to have its say with Corrections and CDU hosting consultations before the build gets underway early next year.

01:52See ya!

01:53See ya!