Melaleuca Women's Prison is a

maximum security prison Maximum security prisons and supermax prisons are grades of high security level used by prison A prison, also known as a jail, gaol, penitentiary, detention center, correction center, correctional facility, or remand center, is a facility wher ...

for women, in

Canning Vale, Western Australia Canning Vale is a southern suburb of Perth, from the central business district. Its local government areas are the City of Canning (west of Nicholson Road) and the City of Gosnells (east of Nicholson Road). History Canning Vale's name derives ...

. It opened in December 2016, and has a capacity of 254 inmates. Melaleuca is a standalone facility, built on what were previously Units 11 and 12 of

Hakea Prison Hakea Prison is a maximum security prison for males, located in Canning Vale, Western Australia. The facility is managed by the Department of Justice on behalf of the Government of Western Australia The Government of Western Australia is t ...

. The prison was initially operated by the private company

Sodexo Sodexo (formerly Sodexho Alliance) is a French food services and facilities management company headquartered in the Paris suburb of Issy-les-Moulineaux. It has 522,000 employees as of 2023, operates in 55 countries and serves 100 million custome ...

. The

state government A state government is the government that controls a subdivision of a country in a federal form of government, which shares political power with the federal or national government. A state government may have some level of political autonom ...

paid Sodexo a bonus for reducing

recidivism Recidivism (; from 'recurring', derived from 'again' and 'to fall') is the act of a person repeating an undesirable behavior after they have experienced negative consequences of that behavior, or have been trained to Extinction (psycholo ...

for each inmate who stays out of prison for two years. This incentive scheme was the first of its type in Australia. In April 2020, the

Department of Justice A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice, is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...

took over operations and continues to operate the prison, leaving Acacia Prison the only remaining private prison in Western Australia. In 2023, Western Australia’s inspector of custodial services declared the prison was not fit to house women, especially pregnant ones. The prison is named after the ''

Melaleuca ''Melaleuca'' () is a genus of nearly 300 species of plants in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae, commonly known as paperbarks, honey-myrtles, bottlebrushes or tea-trees (although the last name is also applied to species of '' Leptospermum''). They ...

'' plant, and was formerly known as the Melaleuca Remand and Reintegration Facility.

References

External links

Melaleuca Women’s Prison
Department of Corrective Services web page {{WesternAustralianPrisons 2016 establishments in Australia Maximum security prisons in Australia Prisons in Western Australia Women's prisons in Australia Canning Vale, Western Australia Women in Western Australia