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Prison Profiles - Dame Phyllis Frost Centre

The Dame Phyllis Frost Centre (DPFC) provides maximum security, medium security and specialist accommodation for remanded and sentenced women prisoners.

Operator

Corrections Victoria

Security level

Maximum

Operational capacity

300 (30 June 2011)

Operational capacity is the total number of places available in which to house prisoners.

Accommodation

• single cells with ensuite facilities
• self-contained units
• two special cell blocks housing 20 prisoners each designed for protection prisoners and prisoners with a history of poor behaviour.

Medium security units house ten prisoners in separate rooms while minimum security units house only five prisoners. Each unit has individual kitchen and dining facilities and prisoners are required to cook and prepare their own meals and do their own washing, ironing and housework. Groups of prisoners share activity areas, and a quiet area for reading and writing.

Under the 2005-09 strategy, Better Pathways: An Integrated Response to Women's Offending and Re-offending, the Medical Centre, Visitors' Centre, Education facility and Prison Industries facility are being extended and modified. There will be new buildings for intensive support, programs and staff amenities.

History

The prison facility, originally known as the Deer Park Metropolitan Women's Correctional Centre (MWCC), opened on 15 August 1996 and received its first prisoners that same month. It was the first privately designed, financed, built and operated prison in Victoria.

On 3 October 2000, the government took control of the facility and appointed an administrator under section 8F of the Corrections Act, and section 27B of the prison contract to operate the prison. On 2 November 2000, the Minister for Corrections announced the transfer of ownership and management of MWCC to the public sector.

It is now being managed and operated by Corrections Victoria and is called the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, after the well-known campaigner for women prisoners. In the 1950s, Dame Phyllis persuaded the State Government of the day to set up a Consultative Council for Female Prison Reform, and she worked tirelessly with governments, prison administrators and non-government agencies for improved conditions, rehabilitation and education for women in prisons until her death in 2004.