Dowerin, Walpole, Warburton, Roebourne and Wyndham work camps offer adult male prisoners meaningful community work and life skills opportunities to help them prepare for release.
Work-camp prisoners have more agency over their lives and decisions and are expected to take responsibility for their living environment, work and training.
Following its inspections, OICS recognised the camps provide prisoners with structured pathways towards reintegration and rehabilitation.
It confirmed rehabilitation, reparation, skills development, a work ethic and community acceptance continue to be central to the work-camp model.
“The model’s benefits are tangible,” OICS said. “We found that these objectives were largely being met across all the work camps.”
Prisoners can reconnect with the community and “communities benefit from valuable labour, much of it maintaining public spaces that might otherwise be neglected”, its inspection report said.
Department Director General Kylie Maj said by striving to mirror daily routines, the minimum-security camps help strengthen the prisoners’ readiness for being law abiding citizens back in the community.
“The camps are focused on fostering self-sufficiency and better outcomes post-release,” she said.
“External activities and community engagement enable prisoners to display good conduct and work habits, contribute productively and build trust, self-worth and social ties as part of their rehabilitation.”
OICS also noted the Department’s efforts to increase the number of prisoners placed in work camps.
Corrective Services Commissioner Brad Royce said progress has been made on enhancing work-camp placement eligibility.
“We remain committed to giving more incarcerated people access to the vocational skills, training and other reintegrative opportunities at the work camps, including First Nations prisoners,” he said.
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