For more than 20 years, minimum-security prisoners at work camps have supported regional WA through a wide range of services from environmental rehabilitation and road safety works to maintaining public spaces, restoring heritage sites and helping deliver community project and events.
“Since we’ve worked through some of the stigma, more communities see the benefits of partnering with us,” Wooroloo Acting Superintendent Callum MacNeill said. “Some of the local government staff say they couldn’t operate without us now.”
One of the most successful partnerships has been between Dowerin Work Camp, operated by Wooroloo Prison Farm, and several Wheatbelt organisations including the Shires of Dowerin, Goomalling, and Wyalkatchem.
“We all work collectively, so if one Shire needs a particular skill set from the work camp, then we share and help each other out,” Shire of Goomalling CEO Samuel Brace said. “It’s very collaborative.”
“It’s hard to get skilled workers out in the regions,” Ben Forbes, Manager of Infrastructure and Project at the Shire of Dowerin added. “Some of the workers from the camp already come with exceptional skills and experience that we otherwise don’t get.”
To qualify for the program the prisoners must progress though a stringent, ongoing security process, earning not only the skills, but the trust to live at the camps and work in the community.
“Once they get there, they realise they can do this and they have a sense of pride because they know they can do the right thing,” A/ Supt MacNeill said.
It means the program delivers more than services – it helps some prisoners transition from working in the community, to becoming a part of it.
“Today I met one of the former prisoners who moved his family up here and is working as a paid employee,” A/ Supt MacNeill said. “He’s got himself out of trouble, the family is doing well and he loves it – life is good.”
“We’ve got a few staff in a range of jobs that have come through the program, and brought their partners, families, they have their kids in schools,” Ben said. “We’ve had really good success turning their lives around and the community has wrapped their arms around them.”
With work camps operating across regional WA including Roebourne, Walpole, Warburton, and Wyndham, the initiative is helping bring new life to communities across the State.
“The number one thing that makes a work camp successful is partnerships, we can’t do this alone,” A/ Supt MacNeill said. “Come talk to us, and we’re happy work out how we can help you.”
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