Overcrowding and safety at Queensland prisons are among the issues union delegates for correctional staff want the government to address.

January 9, 2019

Queensland prison guards have demanded changes to the state’s corrections system, with the bashing of a guard by an inmate blamed on overcrowding.

Union representatives for Queensland correctional staff have met in Brisbane, where they’ve come up with a list of reforms they intend presenting to the Palaszczuk government.

Together Union secretary Alex Scott says his members want safety issues addressed immediately and, in the long term, a solution to overcrowding.

“Members are having to attend unsafe workplaces because of the level of overcrowding … every centre in Queensland is overcrowded, every centre in Queensland is unsafe for our members,” Mr Scott told reporters on Wednesday.

The bashing of a 45-year-old guard at Woodford Correctional Centre in December was “foreseeable”, he said.

New prisons to ease the “current crisis” at existing facilities, along with improvements to prisoner programs and activities will also be called for, Mr Scott said.

“Also long term changes to corrective services to avoid the number of prisoners we currently have (re-occurring),” he said.

The government knows the solutions that are needed but Corrective Services doesn’t have the money to pay for them, Mr Scott said.

“Our members are clearly saying a price shouldn’t be put on their safety and there needs to be an appropriate amount of money to run our prisons safely,” he said.

More strike action was not ruled out if the government failed to address the unions demands.

Prison officers at a Woodford Correctional Centre high-security jail walked off the job in late December in response to the serious assault of their colleague.

The guard was repeatedly punched and then kicked in the head by an inmate after he told the prisoner he would have to share a cell.