Casuarina is meeting reasonable expectations in relation to security, and the safety of staff and prisoners. It is, however, over-stretched at almost every point. As a result, despite the best efforts of staff, it is not meeting expectations in relation to prisoner health and support, purposeful activity, rehabilitation or resettlement.
Casuarina’s infrastructure and resourcing were insufficient to meet demand or need. In the 12 months to 30 September 2016, Casuarina received 2420 prisoners, released 685 prisoners and transferred almost 1600 prisoners to other facilities. This is a result of 40 per cent of it’s population now being made up of remand prisoners. This goes some way to conveying Casuarina’s constant movement and turnover.
This is very different from its original function, which was focused primarily on skilling and rehabilitating longer-term sentenced maximum security prisoners. The prison has become focused on population management, rather than prisoner management.