Prisons in Victoria Prisons in Victoria

The Victorian adult corrections system includes more than 50 community correctional facilities and 14 prisons and one transition centre across the state, each catering to the specific needs and requirements of its prisoners.

Across Victoria, there are 11 publicly operated prisons, three privately operated prisons (Fulham Correctional Centre, Port Phillip Prison and Ravenhall Correctional Centre) and one transition centre, Judy Lazarus Transition Centre.

Victorian Prisons

This section profiles all 13 Victorian prisons and one transition centre, including brief histories and an overview of prison facilities and services, including information about the operator, security level and capacity, an accommodation description and location details.

Barwon Prison
Beechworth Correctional Centre
Dame Phyllis Frost Centre (Women only)
Dhurringile Prison
Fulham Correctional Centre
Hopkins Correctional Centre
Judy Lazarus Transition Centre
Langi Kal Kal Prison
Loddon Prison Precinct (Middleton)
Marngoneet Correctional Centre (Karreenga)
Melbourne Assessment Prison
Metropolitan Remand Centre
Port Phillip Prison
Ravenhall Correctional Centre
Tarrengower Prison (Women only)

Ararat Prison
HM Ararat Prison is located 200 km west of Melbourne. It provides accommodation for prisoners with low to medium security protection requirements, including a high proportion of sex offenders (50 per cent) and protection or special needs prisoners (50 per cent).

Warrak Road
Ararat VIC 3377
Tel: 03 5352 0500

Barwon Prison
HM Barwon Prison provides accommodation and services for mainstream, maximum security prisoners. The prison includes the high security Acacia Unit, the protection units Banksia and Hoya, and mainstream units, Cassia, Diosma and Eucalypt.

Barwon was the first new prison in Victoria to be designed specifically for 'unit management'. Construction of the prison commenced in 1986. It was completed in October 1989 and the first prisoners were received in January 1990. Barwon Prison is the only maximum security prison located outside the metropolitan area. It is situated 6 km from the township of Lara and 70 kilometres south-west of Melbourne.

1140 Bacchus Marsh Road
Lara VIC 3212
Tel: 03 5220 8222

Beechworth Correctional Centre
Beechworth Correctional Centre focuses on reparation and pre-release activities - helping prisoners reintegrate into the community when they are released. The prison design complements its rural setting and its environment reflects life in the general community as much as possible, offering prisoners similar structures, choices and responsibilities to those they will encounter in the outside world.

The Beechworth Correctional Centre was commissioned in January 2005, after the historic 144-year-old Beechworth Prison closed in December 2004. The Beechworth Correctional Centre is located 5km south of the Beechworth township (Beechworth is 270 kilometres north-east of Melbourne). Beechworth is further from Melbourne than any of Victoria's prisons.

494 Flat Rock Road
Beechworth VIC 3747
Tel: 03 5728 0055

Dame Phyllis Frost Centre
The Dame Phyllis Frost Centre (DPFC) provides maximum security, medium security and specialist accommodation for remanded and sentenced women prisoners.

The prison facility, originally known as the Deer Park Metropolitan Women's Correctional Centre (MWCC), opened on 15 August 1996 and received its first prisoners that same month. It was the first privately designed, financed, built and operated prison in Victoria.

On 3 October 2000, the government took control of the facility and appointed an administrator under section 8F of the Corrections Act, and section 27B of the prison contract to operate the prison. On 2 November 2000, the Minister for Corrections announced the transfer of ownership and management of MWCC to the public sector.

It is now being managed and operated by Corrections Victoria and is called the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, after the well-known campaigner for women prisoners. In the 1950s, Dame Phyllis persuaded the State Government of the day to set up a Consultative Council for Female Prison Reform, and she worked tirelessly with governments, prison administrators and non-government agencies for improved conditions, rehabilitation and education for women in prisons until her death in 2004.

Riding Boundary Road
Deer Park VIC 3023
Tel: 03 9217 8400

Dhurringile Prison
HM Dhurringile Prison is a pre-release prison where prisoners undertake both on-site employment and meaningful community reparation via community assistance programs.

Dhurringile Prison was originally the 68-room homestead for a large farm and was completed in 1877. During the war it was used as an internment camp for 'alien civilians' and later for prisoners of war. After the war the Presbyterian Church used it as a training camp for English and Scottish orphans, until the Victorian Government purchased it in 1965 to use as a minimum security prison. Over the years the grounds have been reduced to just over 100 hectares (one square mile). The prison is 160km north of Melbourne.

Murchison-Tatura Road
Tel: 03 5824 8800

Fulham Correctional Centre
Fulham Correctional Centre accommodates predominantly mainstream prisoners and includes a drug and alcohol treatment unit and a protection unit.

Fulham Correctional Centre was opened on 20 March 1997, with the first prisoners transferred on 7 April 1997. It was Victoria's second private prison, and first privately operated men's prison. Nalu was opened in September 2003.

Hopkins Road
Fulham, West Sale VIC 3850
Tel: 03 5142 3800

Langi Kal Kal Prison
HM Prison Langi Kal Kal houses minimum security prisoners with low-to-medium protection requirements. It is a large working farm and is a minimum security pathway for protection prisoners from Ararat Prison.

Langi Kal Kal Prison is 140 kilometres west of Melbourne on the Western Highway at Trawalla. Originally a 70,000 acre farming property in 1838, a substantial farmhouse was built in approximately 1900. After World War Two the land was subdivided and the central area, including the farmhouse, was set aside for prison purposes. The first prisoners arrived in September 1950, and the prison was officially opened in February 1951. In 1965 the prison became a Youth Training Centre, but again became an adult prison in June 1993.

Western Highway
Trawalla VIC 3373
Tel: 03 5349 4900

Loddon Prison
HM Loddon Prison is a mainstream prison focusing on release preparation and drug rehabilitation. It also offers placement and support for HIV positive prisoners and release preparation for intellectually disabled prisoners.

HM Prison Loddon was the second Victorian prison designed specifically for unit management (Barwon was the first). Construction began in February 1988 and cost $29 million. The first prisoners arrived in August 1990 after Castlemaine Prison closed. Loddon Prison is located 4km from Castlemaine, 128km north-west of Melbourne.

Matheson Street
Tel: 03 5471 1211

Marngoneet Correctional Centre
The Marngoneet Correctional Centre is a 300 bed, medium security facility, providing intensive treatment and offender management programs for males who are at moderate to high risk of reoffending, and have a minimum of six months of their sentence left to serve.

Officially opened on 3 March 2006, the centre is located near Lara, approximately 70 kilometres west of Melbourne.

The name 'Marngoneet' is taken from the local Wathaurong community language and means 'to make new'. The development of the facility was supported by the local Wathaurong Aboriginal Cooperative.

1170 Bacchus Marsh Road
Lara VIC 3212
Tel: 03 5282 0600

Melbourne Assessment Prison
HM Melbourne Assessment Prison (MAP) facility provides statewide assessment and orientation services for all male prisoners received into the prison system.

Planning for the Melbourne Assessment Prison began in 1974, with construction in December 1983. It was completed in 1989 and cost $80 million. The prison was officially opened on 6 April 1989, and received its first prisoners on 29 May 1989. Previously the Melbourne Remand Centre, the prison was originally built to accommodate remand prisoners. In 1997 the prison became the reception prison for all male prisoners in Victoria.

317 Spencer Street
West Melbourne VIC 3003
Tel: 03 9321 4111

Metropolitan Remand Centre
Metropolitan Remand Centre is Victoria's major remand facility. It is a 600-bed, purpose built, maximum security facility for un-sentenced male prisoners. The facility makes it possible to separate sentenced and un-sentenced prisoners, so far as practicable. This aligns with the United Nations and international standards for the treatment of prisoners who have not yet been found guilty by the courts.

This is one of three new prison facilities built as part of the redevelopment of Victoria's corrections system under the Corrections Long Term Management Strategy. The Remand Centre officially opened in April 2006.

The project was designed and delivered under a Partnerships Victoria project. The Department's Major Project Delivery Services team administers the partnership with the private sector partner(s) responsible for construction and maintenance of the accommodation, security systems, buildings and grounds.

Middle Road
Ravenhall, VIC 3023
Tel: 03 9217 7777

Port Phillip Prison
The facility provides remand, sentenced, mainstream, protection and specialist accommodation for high, maximum and medium security prisoners.

Port Phillip Prison was the third privately operated prison to open in Victoria. It received its first prisoners on 10 September 1997.

Corner Dohertys and Palmers Roads
Tel: 03 9217 7200

Tarrengower Prison
HM Prison Tarrengower is a minimum security women's prison with an emphasis on release preparation and community integration.

Originally a farm, the prison was opened in January 1988 after the property was purchased and accommodation units were built. Tarrengower is the only minimum security female prison in Victoria. It is situated 136km north of Melbourne, 2.5km from the Maldon township.

Corner Baringhup and Nuggety Roads
Tel: 03 5479 8200

Visiting Prisons

Family and friends can maintain contact with prisoners throughout their prison sentence through personal visits. Prisoners can also arrange confidential meetings with a range of professional visitors including lawyers, police and authorised Corrections Victoria staff.

This section has a range of information for people visiting a Victorian prison including directions for getting to prisons by road (and, in some cases, public transport), visiting times, what you can bring, how often you can visit, identification requirements for gaining access to a prison and what is expected of you during a visit.

Arranging to visit a prisoner if you are not on their visitors list.
You will need to write to the prisoner (care of Corrections Victoria) and ask him or her to have you placed on their approved Visitors List.

In your letter, you should include your full name, date of birth and address. It is then up to the prisoner to make the arrangements for you to be able to visit them.

Write to:

(prisoner's full name)
C/- Corrections Victoria
GPO Box 123
Melbourne VIC 3001

Your letter will be forwarded to the prisoner.

If you have been previously banned from visiting a Victorian prison, or convicted of an offence you will have to get permission to enter a prison. You will need to write a letter to the General Manager of the prison that you wish to visit, providing your CRN or details of the offence and the name of the prisoner you wish to visit, and requesting permission to visit.

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❊ Web Links ❊

➼ Prisons in Victoria 

➼ www.justice.vic.gov.au

➼ www.corrections.vic.gov.au

❊ Also See... ❊

➼ HM Pentridge Prison






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