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Six prisons in lockdown after guard tests positive
By Tammy Mills
Six Victorian prisons have gone into lockdown after a prison officer tested positive to coronavirus.
The guard at Ravenhall Correctional Centre in Melbourne's west was sent home from work last Thursday after a close contact of his tested positive to COVID-19, Corrections Victoria said.
He self-isolated and got tested, with the positive result triggering a wave of lockdowns on Tuesday at prisons across the state.
Ravenhall Correctional Centre, a medium-security prison in Melbourne's west.Credit: Joe Armao
Hopkins Correctional Centre in Ararat, Langi Kal Kal near Ballarat, Barwon Prison near Geelong, Fulham near Sale in Gippsland and Loddon at Castlemaine have all gone into lockdown.
The Age has been told the lockdowns were triggered because the prison officer had contact with at least five prisoners who were transferred from Ravenhall Correctional Centre to the other facilities.
Those prisoners have been tested and were yet to receive their results.
The Department of Health and Human Services has been carrying out further contact tracing with other staff and prisoners.
Prisoners who had contact with the guard have been placed in quarantine units and deep cleaning inside the jail was underway, Corrections Victoria said in a statement.
The new case is the latest to breach the prison system.
A new prisoner at the Metropolitan Remand Centre, also located in Ravenhall, tested positive to coronavirus on Friday, while two cases have been reported in the youth justice system: one from an inmate in Parkville youth justice centre and the other, an education coordinator at Malmsbury.
All young prisoners at Malmsbury were tested in response and the results have been negative, a Justice Department spokesperson said.
Testing of staff there was yet to be completed.
Greg Barns from the Australian Lawyers Alliance said the need to release certain prisoners was now even more urgent.
He reiterated calls from human rights lawyers to release some non-violent prisoners early, including those on remand, children, those vulnerable to the virus and those at the end of their prison terms to reduce the prison population and risk of spread.
"This is a potential catastrophe," Mr Barns said.
"People in prisons are at extreme risk of contracting the virus simply because they are detained," he said. "In our overcrowded prison system, social distancing is impossible and lockdowns create an increasingly intolerable and unstable environment."
Early release programs have been established in the US, the UK and parts of Europe.
The Victorian government has implemented various protocols to try to keep COVID-19 out of prisons and in the event of cases, try to prevent the virus from spreading.
New prisoners are being swabbed and placed in 14-day protective quarantine, away from the general prison population.
Prison officers are temperature checked and are said to be wearing personal protective equipment and encouraged to maintain social distancing.
Face-to-face visits were suspended at the start of the pandemic.
Ravenhall Correctional Centre is privately run by GEO Group.