Prisoner employment

All of South Australia’s prisons offer employment opportunities aimed at improving prisoners’ work skills to help them find paid work upon release. There are a large range of jobs that prisoners can access some of which provide workers with nationally recognised qualifications.

Some jobs are offered across many sites while others are specific to a particular prison. Generic jobs include kitchen workers, laundry workers, garden and grounds maintenance and cleaners.

There are workshops that provide jobs in carpentry, metal work, textiles, stock picking, eco recycling and bakery.

There is even a world class dairy at a prison farm centre.

Business like industries

Where possible work environments are operated just like any business in private industry. This helps to match prison based jobs as closely as possible to industry needs.

Where possible, accredited training is offered usually through an external provider like TAFE SA.

This training may be in the form of a full certificate, a skill set or a high risk work licence.

Pay

There is no cash in prison. Prisoners have no access to their outside bank accounts or assets whilst they are in prison.

Each prisoner has a prisoner account established for them when they are in prison.

Prisoners get paid a small allowance for each day they work. This money is added to each prisoner’s account.

It can be used to make purchases from the canteen or transferred to their telephone account so that they can make telephone calls whilst they are in prison.  

Any monies owed by a prisoner will be recovered from this account.

Prisoners also get paid a small allowance for each day they attend a training course.