138: Inspection of Albany Regional Prison

Albany Regional Prison was opened as a 72-bed minimum-security men’s prison in September 1966. In February 2021 it held 302 prisoners. Albany is a receival prison for men and women from local courts, or police for the Great Southern Region. Men may continue to reside there on remand, or after sentence, but women are transferred …

The prison had benefited from a drop in WA’s prison population which allowed A and B Wings in Unit 1 to close for the time being. While this presented an opportunity to replace or renew that Unit as recommended in our 2018 report, planning for the State’s prison network had not yet concluded, and there …

We made several recommendations in our 2018 inspection report which were focussed on addressing infrastructure inadequacies in Albany. These inadequacies were acknowledged by the Department, but the Department’s planning for the State’s prison network is not yet concluded, so the future intentions for Albany’s ailing infrastructure are yet to be determined. We found significant improvement …

Recommendation 1 That the Department continue to prioritise replacement of legacy infrastructure at Albany Regional Prison, including: prisoner reception and that contained in the original prison building known as Unit 1. Recommendation 2 Evaluate the feasibility of increased use of mobile technology in prison units both to help staff better meet their work obligations and …