Homes not Prisons

Homes not Prisons Homes not Prisons is a campaign calling on the Victorian Government to stop the expansion of Dame Phy

On 19 March 2021 the Victorian Government announced construction of 106 new cells at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, a maximum-security prison for women in Ravenhall in Melbourne’s west at a cost of $188.9 million. The expansion includes two new 20-bed “Management Units” for solitary confinement. Dame Phyllis Frost currently has capacity to imprison 604 women. In June 2020, at the height of the COV

ID pandemic, there were around 330 women in the prison. Numbers are now increasing again and are currently over 400. Expansion of Victoria’s women prison is part of a $1.8 billion expansion of prisons for women, men, transgender and gender diverse people across Victoria announced in the 2019/20 Victorian Budget. Despite reductions in prisoner numbers in Victoria during the COVID pandemic the Andrews Government remains committed to building thousands of new prison cells. Homes not Prisons is a campaign calling on the Victorian Government to stop the expansion of Dame Phyllis Frost and re-allocate the budget for prison building to public housing and to provide “housing first” and support for criminalised women and their children. Victoria spends the least on public housing per capita of any Australian state or Territory. The Big Housing Build announced in the 2020/21 budget is focused on privately operated “community” and “affordable” housing and will not increase public housing accessible to criminalised and highly disadvantaged women and families.

08/04/2026

Locking up children doesn’t achieve anything. It’s harmful for everyone: kids, families and communities.

The evidence is clear; any time spent behind bars increases the likelihood that the child will be trapped in a cycle of offending and incarceration – ultimately increasing future crime.

And yet right now, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are being criminalised and imprisoned at alarming rates.

That’s why we, alongside 200 organisations and leaders across civil society, have signed NATSILS’ open letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, calling on him to act.

Will you add your name too? www.natsils.org.au/open-letter-pm/

04/04/2026

At the vigil in Flemington - Honk for Public Housing - a large group of teenagers walked past on their way to school and yelled out "Save the Towers!" Most people are not sucked in by Labor's propaganda which is very interesting and gratifying...People are not stupid. We always get heaps of motorists supporting our protest by honking their horns as they drive past. FR

No Mykis. No “Inspectors”. No turnstiles. No fines. No fear. And we use the billions we save to expand and improve PT.
02/04/2026

No Mykis. No “Inspectors”. No turnstiles. No fines. No fear. And we use the billions we save to expand and improve PT.

26/03/2026

Now is the time to get amongst it. We’re all doing pretty amazing work. Responding to the boot which is trying to stamp down on the human face of everyone here, we are strong. We retain our spirit. We keep on loving community. We fight for housing. For shelter. For safety. For younger and older people alike. We all see through the hoodwinking, through the lies. Through the cruelty and deception. Join us in this fight and make some lifelong friends while you’re at it. Smash your TV.

Honouring these legends at the St Kilda bowlo last night…. Care Not Cruelty + The Save Public Housing Collectiveepublichousingcollective + 44 Flats United🔥

Get in touch.

24/03/2026
19/03/2026

"TWO weeks after Toowoomba police officers killed Stevie Lee Nixon-McKellar, his family gathered on the street where he said his last words: help me, help me, you’ve got me.

It was usually a quiet street, a cul-de-sac which ends next to a BMX track across from sprawling green parkland called the ‘Captain Cook Recreation Reserve’, not far from a small air strip where on occasion, light aircraft fly low.

But this day was solemn and grey, the clouds heavy and threatening a downpour.

Stevie Lee’s family had travelled a long way; his grandmother and aunties had driven in from his hometown of Mitchell, a four-and-a-half-hour drive west, and his mother, Dr Raelene Nixon, had flown in from Victoria, although she was not there on the street that day.

She had been forced into quarantine.

It was a year and a half after African American man George Floyd was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis, sparking historic Black Lives Matter protests, and COVID border restrictions were still in place in Queensland.

At that point, Dr Nixon and her family had not been given any information about her son’s death beyond a QPS media statement released on 7 October 2021, the day he was killed.

https://www.blackwitness.com/p/his-spirit-went-home-the-death-in

26/02/2026

Experts say over-policing and South Australia's youth criminal justice system is helping turn children in residential care into criminals.

26/02/2026

Launch Housing joins many human rights, legal, community, and First Nations organisations to oppose the Victorian Government’s recent youth justice laws, which allow children as young as 14 to be sentenced as adults.

Children do not belong in prisons, and no child should ever receive a life sentence.

Through our work as a provider of homelessness support and community housing, we know the lifelong impact of the trauma of encountering the justice system.

Children in the justice system need support, not punishment. They need safe housing, family and community connection, education, mental health care, and culturally appropriate services.

Evidence shows these measures reduce reoffending and help young people thrive.

Read more via our website: https://www.launchhousing.org.au/victorias-youth-justice-reforms/

23/02/2026
23/02/2026
19/02/2026

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