Eastern Goldfields Regional Prison (EGRP) is a 350-bed facility commissioned in 2016 to allow prisoners from the Goldfields region to be accommodated on country, close to their families and community. It would seek to address issues including overcrowding in metropolitan prisons, high rates of recidivism in the Goldfields region, the continued overrepresentation of Aboriginal people, and the neglect of female prisoners’ needs.
During the 2023 inspection, EGRP held between 231 and 240 prisoners, with only a few prisoners accommodated in Unit 3 to prevent a COVID-19 outbreak. Unit 5, the prison’s minimum-security external unit has never been opened.
The prison operates under a Public Private Partnership (PPP) with facilities management carried out by a contractor. The PPP contract guarantees whole-of-life replacement for all infrastructure and equipment delivered as part of the initial build and regular proprietary software upgrades. The PPP model is not impacted by prisoner numbers, with the cost remaining static regardless of the prison’s population.