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Wing 1 of the Dawn de Loas Correctional Centre exists much as it did the day it shut down. Sunlight creeping between caged windows reveals mattresses half-strewn over cracking concrete beds, a laundry turned into a room for prisoners to attend court hearings remotely, and a beaten white bookcase storing half-open Bibles and a shoddily packed chess game.
As prisoner numbers dwindled, the 515-bed facility within the broader Silverwater jail in Sydney’s west was shut down in 2022. But it will be reopened next year, after a surge in the prison population triggered by reforms to domestic violence bail laws the NSW Labor government passed in 2024.
The law now requires those accused of serious domestic violence offences to “show cause” for bail release before their court hearing, leading to a significant increase in the number of people refused bail and therefore placed in the prison system.
The government said that as of this month, 6398 people were on remand, accounting for 46 per cent of the adult prison population.
Premier Chris Minns said on Monday morning the government’s priority was to ensure the community was kept safe.
“We don’t celebrate the fact that the prison population has increased, but we regard it as necessary to keep the population safe, particularly around domestic violence or violent criminal enterprises in our community,” he said.
“It can’t be the case that because the prisons are overcrowded, the courts … are forced to release often-violent people back into the community because they’ve got nowhere to go.
“If we believe, and the criminal justice system believes, that someone is a danger to the community, or their intimate partner, or a member of their family, there must be a prison bed available to him or her to keep the public safe.”
It follows a spate of alleged domestic violence incidents across the state, including one weekend in September where four domestic violence deaths occurred in 48 hours.
The government also announced an additional 360 beds will be fast-tracked at Parklea Correctional Centre in Sydney’s north-west, which will be returned to public hands on Thursday after being privately run since 2009. It has previously also increased spending on frontline domestic violence and family services.
Recommissioning the centre will cost $47.1 million and require an additional 150 corrections officers.
Despite high job vacancies in the industry, NSW Corrective Services Commissioner Gary McCahon said a recent pay increase for Corrections staff would attract employees drawn to stable careers.
The Public Service Association, which represents corrections staff, said the state should focus on funding preventative work rather than what happens after an offence occurs.
“We can’t just arrest our way out of domestic violence,” union president Stewart Little said. “Prison can contain someone who poses a serious risk. It cannot, by itself, protect a person before violence occurs or stop an offender returning to violent behaviour after release.”
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Anthony Segaert is the Parramatta bureau chief at The Sydney Morning Herald. He was previously an urban affairs reporter.Connect via X or email.From our partners
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