Deaths in custody in Victoria

There have been two deaths in custody in Victoria this week, and three deaths in privately-run Port Phillip Prison this year.

Two people have died in Victorian prisons this week, and three people have died at the privately-run Port Phillip Prison in the last four months.

Corrections Victoria provides a short update on its website notifying of a death in custody in a prison in the state. Two of these notices were posted this week alone.

On 6 November a 37-year-old man died at the Marngoneet Correctional Centre, a medium-security prison.

Two days later on 8 November a 46-year-old man died at the Port Phillip Prison, whose operation has been outsourced to British multinational G4S.

This was the third death at this prison in the last four months.

On 8 July a 74-year-old died at the hospital within Port Phillip Prison, and an 84-year-old died at the same facility on 7 September.

G4S owns, operates and maintains the Port Phillip Prison on a contract worth $1.8 billion, running from 1996 to 2037. 

The privatisation of prisons in Australia has been in the spotlight this week after the New South Wales government announced plans to bring the Junee prison into public hands over the next 18 months. The prison has been run by American firm GEO Group since it was opened.

There were two deaths at the Junee prison in three days in early 2022. Earlier this year a coroner investigating the death of a 34-year-old Indigenous man at the prison found that the healthcare provided to him was “hampered by significant resourcing issues”. 

The coroner’s findings were believed to have been influential in the state government’s decision to not renew GEO’s contract running the prison.

In total, Corrections Victoria has reported seven deaths in custody so far this year.

There have been two deaths at the state’s women’s prison, the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre. A 33-year-old died at the prison on 2 September, and a 41-year-old woman died at the prison on 27 June.

A 70-year-old Torres Strait Islander also died in an undisclosed Victorian prison earlier this year.

In Western Australia, a 41-year-old Aboriginal man died at the Hakea Prison on 6 November.