Alexander Maconochie Centre

The Alexander Maconochie Centre, an Australian minimum to maximum security prison and remand centre for male and female inmates, is located in Hume, Australian Capital Territory. The facility is operated by ACT Corrective Services, an agency of the Justice and Community Safety Directorate of the Government of Australian Capital Territory. The facility accepts felons charged under Territory and/or Commonwealth legislation pending legal proceedings; and also detains convicted felons who are sentenced to full-time imprisonment.

The centre is named in honour of penal reformer Alexander Maconochie, who worked in Van Diemen’s Land and Norfolk Island from 1836 to 1844, and is the Territory's first prison.

History

Prior to 2008, correctional services for felons convicted in the Territory under ACT or Commonwealth legislation were managed by Corrective Services NSW on behalf of the Territory and/or Commonwealth governments. In 2004, in spite of localised opposition, a decision was made to locate the new prison, a first for the ACT, in Hume. The Centre was officially opened on 11 September 2008 by the Chief Minister of the ACT, Jon Stanhope. and constructed at a cost of A$130 million. The first prisoners were accepted on 30 March 2009.

Alexander Maconochie

Alexander Maconochie may refer to:

See also:

Alexander Maconochie (penal reformer)

Alexander Maconochie (11 February 1787 – 25 October 1860) was a British naval officer, geographer, and penal reformer.

In 1840, Maconochie became the Governor of Norfolk Island, a prison island where convicts had been treated with severy brutality and were seen as lost causes. Upon reaching the island, Maconochie immediately instituted policies that restored dignity to prisoners, achieving remarkable success in prisoner rehabilitation. These policies were well in advance of their time and Maconochie was politically undermined. His ideas would be largely ignored and forgotten, only to be readopted as the basis of modern penal systems over a century later in the mid to late 20th century.

Early life, Naval Career and Geographer

Maconochie was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on 11 February 1787. At the age of 9, his father died and he was raised by Allan Maconochie, later Lord Meadowbank.

He joined the Royal Navy in 1803 and as a midshipman saw active service in the Napoleonic Wars, rising to the rank of Lieutenant,. In 1811 he was serving on the Brig HMS Grasshopper, which was captured Christmas Eve off the coast of the Dutch Coast. He was taken as a prisoner of war and was released upon Napoleon's abdication in 1814. He returned to active service in the British-American War where he commanded HMS Calliope. In 1815, he was promoted to the rank of Commander.

Alexander Maconochie, Lord Meadowbank

Alexander Maconochie, Lord Meadowbank of Garvock and Pitliver FRSE FSA(Scot) (1777–1861), was a Scottish advocate, judge, landowner and politician. After 1854 he took the surname Maconochie-Welwood.

Life

Alexander Maconochie was born on 2 March 1777 in West Lothian, the son of Allan Maconochie, Lord Meadowbank and Elizabeth Welwood of Garvock. He was educated at the High School, Edinburgh, and probably at Edinburgh University, and admitted as an advocate in 1799. He was admitted to the Highland Society in 1800 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1817 upon the proposal of Sir William Arburthnot, Thomas Allan, Sir David Brewster and Sir Henry Jardine. He served as a Councillor of the RSE during 1822-5 (Literary section) and 1835-7.

He served as Solicitor General for Scotland from 1813, and as Lord Advocate from 1816 to 1819.

In keeping with his appointment as Lord Advocate, he was Member of Parliament for Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, England, from 1817–1818, for the Kilrenny district of Anstruther Burghs from 1818 to 1819. He made his Parliamentary debut during a period of considerable unrest in both Scotland and England in 1817, choosing to mark it by announcing the existence of a seditious conspiracy of weavers in the suburbs of Glasgow. The ensuing prosecutions were spectacularly unsuccessful, however, and caused considerable embarrassment, both to the government and to Maconochie himself, who, as Lord Advocate, was directly responsible.