The Silverwater Correctional Complex, an Australian maximum and minimum security prison complex for males and females, is located in

Silverwater Silverwater is a suburb in western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Silverwater is located 15 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district on the southern bank of the Parramatta River within the local government ar ...

, west of the

Sydney central business district The Sydney central business district (CBD) is the historical and main Central business district, commercial centre of Sydney. The CBD is Sydney's city centre, or Sydney City, and the two terms are used interchangeably. Colloquially, the CBD or ...

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. The complex is operated by

Corrective Services NSW Corrective Services NSW (CSNSW) is an executive agency of the Government of New South Wales, Australia. CSNSW is responsible for the state's prisons and a range of programs for managing offenders in the community. The state has 36 prisons, 33 ru ...

, an agency of the

New South Wales Government The Government of New South Wales, also known as the NSW Government, is the executive state government of New South Wales, Australia. The government comprises 11 portfolios, led by a ministerial department and supported by several agencies. Th ...

Department of Communities and Justice The New South Wales Department of Communities and Justice, a department of the Government of New South Wales, is responsible for the delivery of services to some of the most disadvantaged individuals, families and communities; and the administr ...

. The complex comprises four separate facilities including Silverwater Correctional Centre (a minimum security prison for males); Silverwater Women's Correctional Centre (a maximum security institution for women and the major reception centre for female offenders in NSW); the Metropolitan Remand & Reception Centre (a maximum security correctional facility for males); and the Dawn de Loas Correctional Centre (a minimum security correctional centre for males). The complex accepts prisoners charged and convicted under both New South Wales and Commonwealth legislation, and serves as a reception prison for inmates on remand or pending

classification Classification is the activity of assigning objects to some pre-existing classes or categories. This is distinct from the task of establishing the classes themselves (for example through cluster analysis). Examples include diagnostic tests, identif ...

Silverwater Correctional Centre

Silverwater Correctional Centre, an Australian minimum security facility for males is located within the complex.

Notable prisoners

* Sef Gonzales Filipino Australian convicted of murdering his parents and sister. * Robert Hughesan Australian actor convicted of sexual assaults on then minors during filming of the hit Australian TV sitcom '' Hey Dad...!'' * Chris Munceconvicted of fixing during a horse racing meeting in Hong Kong. *

René Rivkin Rene Walter Rivkin (6 June 1944 – 1 May 2005) was an Australian entrepreneur, investor, investment adviser and stockbroker. He was convicted of insider trading in 2003 and sentenced to nine months of periodic detention. Early life Rene Walt ...

(1944–2005)

stockbroker A stockbroker is an individual or company that buys and sells stocks and other investments for a financial market participant in return for a commission, markup, or fee. In most countries they are regulated as a broker or broker-dealer and ...

and businessman, sentenced to

periodic detention Periodic detention or weekend detention is a type of custodial sentence under which the offender is held in prison between Friday and Sunday evenings each week, but is at liberty at other times. Promoted by prison reformers as an alternative to ...

due to ill health. *

Eddie Obeid Edward Moses Obeid (born 25 October 1943) is a retired Australian politician and convicted criminal, who served as a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council between 1991 and 2011, representing the Labor Party. He was the Minister for ...

a former NSW politician convicted of

conspiracy A conspiracy, also known as a plot, ploy, or scheme, is a secret plan or agreement between people (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder, treason, or corruption, especially with a political motivat ...

and

misconduct in public office Malfeasance in office is any unlawful conduct that is often grounds for a just cause removal of an elected official by statute or recall election, or even additionally a crime. Malfeasance in office contrasts with "misfeasance in office", whic ...

. He was ordered to hand himself in in October 2021. His son will join him in jail too. *

Salim Mehajer Salim Mehajer (born 12 June 1986) is an Australian convicted criminal, property developer and former deputy mayor of Auburn City Council. In March 2018, Mehajer was declared bankrupt and in April 2018 was found guilty of electoral fraud, and s ...

a former property developer and

Deputy Mayor The deputy mayor (also known as vice mayor and assistant mayor) is an elective or appointive office of the second-ranking official that is present in many local governments. Duties and functions Many elected deputy mayors are members of the loca ...

of Auburn City Council who was imprisoned at Silverwater for

fraud In law, fraud is intent (law), intentional deception to deprive a victim of a legal right or to gain from a victim unlawfully or unfairly. Fraud can violate Civil law (common law), civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrato ...

charges.

Silverwater Women's Correctional Centre

The Silverwater Women's Correctional Centre (formerly known as the Mulawa Correctional Centre), an Australian maximum security facility for females is located within the complex. The centre is divided into twelve living units, a protection/segregation area, an induction unit, a hospital annexe, and provides accommodation for both sentenced and unsentenced inmates and various special program units. The facility opened in 1970 as the old women's prison at Long Bay was converted into a medium security facility for men.

Fraud In law, fraud is intent (law), intentional deception to deprive a victim of a legal right or to gain from a victim unlawfully or unfairly. Fraud can violate Civil law (common law), civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrato ...

is the most common reason for imprisonment. Inmates are eligible to study for national recognised qualifications including vocation and

TAFE Technical and further education or simply TAFE () is the common name in Australia for vocational education, as a subset of tertiary education. TAFE institutions provide a wide range of predominantly vocational courses. Colloquially also known ...

courses. In the 2010 New South Wales state budget, the prison was allocated $200,000 for a new video conferencing system.

Notable prisoners

* Lindy ChamberlainNew Zealand-born Australian convicted and later acquitted of murdering her 9-week-old daughter Azaria; Chamberlain gave birth to another child of her husband

Michael Chamberlain Michael Leigh Chamberlain (27 February 1944 – 9 January 2017) was a New Zealand-Australian writer, teacher and pastor falsely implicated in the August 1980 death of his missing daughter Azaria, which was later demonstrated to be the result ...

while in custody; she was held at Silverwater (then Mulawa Women's Prison), then transferred to

Berrima Correctional Centre Berrima Gaol is a heritage-listed former prison in Berrima, New South Wales, Berrima, New South Wales. Established in 1839, it was used for a variety of prison and internment purposes until its final closure in 2020, at which point it was the ...

; incarcerated from 29 October 1982 to 7 February 1986. * Violet Cococlimate activist with 15month sentence for blocking one lane of the

Sydney Harbour Bridge The Sydney Harbour Bridge is a steel through arch bridge in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, spanning Port Jackson, Sydney Harbour from the Sydney central business district, central business district (CBD) to the North Shore (Sydney), North ...

in December 2022. *

Kathleen Folbigg Kathleen Megan Folbigg (née Donovan; born 14 June 1967) is an Australian woman who was wrongfully convicted in 2003 of murdering her four infant children. She was pardoned in 2023 after 20 years in jail following a long campaign for justice by ...

convicted of the murders of her 3 infant children; incarcerated in 2003 and pardoned in 2023 * Maddison Hallconvicted of the murder of hitchhiker Lyn Saunders. *

Katherine Knight Katherine Mary Knight (born 24 October 1955) is an Australian murderer and the first woman in the country's history to be sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. She was convicted for the murder of her partner, John Ch ...

convicted of the murder of de facto husband John Price. *

Theresa Lawson Theresa Rose Lawson (nee Emmett; 20 February 1951 – 2 June 2014) was an Australian convicted fraudster. She was a Woolworths (supermarket), Woolworths payroll clerk and St Marys Band Club Director (business), director, who stole more than A$2.7 ...

(1951–2014) convicted of the largest fraud in NSW history. * Rachel Pfitnzer – convicted of murdering her son Dean Shillingsworth. * Sandra Willson – transferred to Mulawa Detention Centre from Parramatta Psychiatric Centre in 1970, after being declared not guilty on ground of insanity for the 1959 murder of a taxi driver, released in 1977 following protests on her behalf by the Women Behind Bars activist group.

Metropolitan Remand and Reception Centre

The Metropolitan Remand and Reception Centre (MRRC), an Australian maximum security facility for males is located within the complex. The prison opened in 1997, and has a capacity of 900 inmates. It is the largest single correctional centre in Australia. The majority of inmates are unconvicted or unsentenced. In March, 1999, Russian Australian librarian

Lucy Dudko Lucy Dudko is a Russian-Australian woman convicted of hijacking a helicopter in 1999, which she used in the Prison escape, escape from Silverwater Correctional Complex of convicted armed Robbery, robber John Killick (Australian criminal), John Ki ...

hired a helicopter supposedly to check out the upcoming Olympic site in Sydney. Using a gun, she forced pilot, Tim Joyce, to land within the Metropolitan Remand and Reception Centre grounds. Waiting was her partner John Killick, who was serving 28 years for armed robberies. He jumped in the helicopter making an escape while being fired on by guards and cheered on by inmates. They landed in a park where Killick hijacked a taxi at gunpoint. The two were able to elude authorities for six weeks before being arrested at the Bass Hill Tourist Park. In 2004, the Independent Commission Against Corruption conducted an investigation at the prison which concluded that mobile phones were becoming a significant security threat in Australian correctional facilities. In April 2012, the facility was inundated with members of

outlaw motorcycle club An outlaw motorcycle club, known colloquially as a biker club or club (in Australia), is a motorcycle subculture generally centered on the use of Cruiser (motorcycle), cruiser motorcycles, particularly Harley-Davidsons and chopper (motorcycle ...

s. Segregation between members of the same gangs is enforced in an effort to break member ties.

Notable prisoners

Rodney Adler Rodney Stephen Adler (born 19 August 1959) is an Australian whose family founded the FAI Insurances group, of which he became chief executive in 1989, and which was at one stage Australia's third largest general insurer. Adler became a director ...

disgraced former director of

HIH Insurance HIH Insurance was Australia's second-largest insurance company before it was placed into provisional liquidation on 15 March 2001. The demise of HIH is considered to be the largest corporate collapse in Australia's history, with liquidators e ...

and businessman. * Hew Raymond GriffithsBritish-born Australian alleged software pirate, before his extradition to the US. *

Man Haron Monis Man Haron Monis (; born Mohammed Hassan Manteghi Borujerdi; 19 May 1964 – 16 December 2014) was an Iranian-born refugee and Australian citizen who took hostages in a siege at the Lindt Chocolate Café at Martin Place, Sydney on 15 Dece ...

(1964–2014) Iranian-born Australian; convicted "hate mail" campaigner against the families of dead soldiers, faced numerous charges of being an accessory to murder and sexual assault. Perpetrator of the 2014 Sydney Siege, shot dead by New South Wales Police Force Tactical Operations Unit. * Phuong NgoVietnamese Australian politician and businessman convicted of ordering the 1994 killing of Australian NSW state MP John Newman. *

Dragan Vasiljković Dragan Vasiljković ( sr-cyrl, Драган Васиљковић; born 12 December 1954), nicknamed Captain Dragan () is a convicted war criminal and former commander of a Serb paramilitary unit called the Kninjas during the Yugoslav Wars. In 200 ...

(aka Captain Dragan and Daniel Snedden), former Serbian paramilitary commander and alleged war criminal. *

Danushka Gunathilaka Mestiyage Don Danishka Gunathilaka, commonly known as Danushka Gunathilaka, (born 17 March 1991) is a professional Sri Lankan cricketer who represented and played for Sri Lanka as a top-order batter in all formats of the game. He has also been oc ...

, Sri Lankan cricketer

Dawn de Loas Correctional Centre

The Dawn de Loas Correctional Centre, an Australian minimum security work release centre for males, is located within the complex.

Major incidents

In March 1999, inmate John Killick escaped Silverwater Prison via a helicopter that had been hijacked by his partner,

. In March 2021, one of the staff working at the jail died after shooting himself just moments after driving a prison van. In October 2021, a former prison guard who used to work at Silverwater was sentenced to jail for assault. Before this she was punished for having inappropriate contact with a prisoner at the jail.

References

{{NewSouthWalesPrisons Prisons in Sydney 1970 establishments in Australia Walter Liberty Vernon buildings in Sydney Silverwater, New South Wales

Silverwater Correctional Centre

Notable prisoners

Silverwater Women's Correctional Centre

Notable prisoners

Metropolitan Remand and Reception Centre

Notable prisoners

Dawn de Loas Correctional Centre

Major incidents

See also

References