Plans for a 75-bed mental health unit for prisoners at a new men’s jail being built in Ravenhall are “woefully inadequate”, according to the Victorian Institute of Forensic Mental Health (Forensicare).
A Victorian Ombudsman’s report has recommended a specialist unit for prisoners with intellectual disabilities.
With the report finding the rate of mental health disorders among Victorian prisoners is three to five times greater than in the community, Forensicare chief executive Tom Dalton said the Ravenhall unit would buckle.
“In the absence of some significant shift in public policy in relation to the imprisonment of offenders, the apprehension of parolees and the denial of parole to an increasing number of prisoners, by the time Ravenhall opens that number of mental health beds … will be woefully inadequate.”
