Australia: Serious criminals enjoy 'love' visits -- and more

Plastic surgery, snooker competitions, overnight romantic liaisons and family getaways are among perks being enjoyed by violent Victorian criminals. Victims groups are outraged by the luxuries given to dangerous offenders, including murderers and pedophiles. The Sunday Herald Sun has previously revealed inmates enjoying taxpayer-funded golf and juvenile offenders receiving free ski trips and visits to McDonald's.

Sources have revealed Marngoneet Correctional Centre, near Lara, allows selected prisoners to enjoy conjugal visits under Corrections Victoria's family visits program. The jail, which opened last year to house inmates considered at "moderate to high risk of reoffending" -- has two well-appointed units for conjugal visits. One flat has two bedrooms and self-catering facilities to allow criminals to enjoy family getaways, a source said. "It has two bedrooms and they get their own kitchen -- it is just like a granny flat," a source said.

The other unit has one bedroom and is designed for prisoners without children to enjoy quality time with their lover. The conjugal visits were justified by authorities as a way to help inmates avoid becoming institutionalised, the source said. "It is all about maintaining relationships," the source said. Prisoners had to meet a set of behaviour standards to be eligible to enjoy a romantic night.

Victorian prisoners have also enjoyed up to $100,000 worth of plastic surgery at taxpayers' expense. Ten inmates have had a nip and tuck operations in the past three years. The procedures cost between $1000 and $10,000 each. The Department of Human Services, which cares for Victoria's inmates, approved the procedures, but could not explain why each was ordered. A spokesperson said it was "mostly" plastic surgery to repair injuries to hands and faces. The Sunday Herald Sun understands the majority of those treated had been slashed in knife fights.

Corrections Victoria also revealed that overflow waste water from the Barwon Prison sewerage treatment plant was used on the prison grounds. Only kilometres away in Lara and Geelong, sporting fields have been left bare by the drought.

Crime Victims Support Association spokesman Noel McNamara, who said he had visited prisons and seen inmates playing snooker, said Victoria's jails were like holiday resorts. People Against Lenient Sentencing president Steve Medcraft said it was unfair offenders lived it up while victims were left to live with the trauma of the crime. Corrections Victoria did not comment on the family visits program

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