Victoria plans to get prisoners to help maintain roads. How common is prison work in Australia and what are the issues?

By Lorana Bartels, Professor of Criminology, Australian National University
Tina McPhee, Lecturer in Criminology, UNSW

Victorian Premier Ben Carroll said this week that if Labor wins the November state election, it will pilot a program that would see supervised, minimum-security incarcerated people working on roadside maintenance.

They would be paid to undertake tasks such as collecting rubbish, mowing lawns, weeding and cleaning graffiti, which the premier says would free up skilled maintenance crews to fix potholes.

People living in low-security facilities in…

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