Hay Institution for Girls

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The Hay Institution for Girls was located at Hay, in the Riverina district of rural NSW, Australia. It opened in February 1961 when the former Hay Gaol was re-established as a maximum security institution for girls, under the NSW Child Welfare Department. The Hay Institution for Girls was eventually closed in June 1974.

Hay Institution for Girls was a prison that had been closed down for years but was re-opened in 1961 as a place of punishment for girls who would not comply with the strict regime of the Parramatta girls home.

It was a place of inhumane and extreme discipline for girls between the ages of 13 and 18 and was established by the NSW Department of Child and Social Welfare as an annexe to the Parramatta Girls Home. Disciplinary practices and routines were modelled on a similar institution for boys operating since 1945 in Tamworth, NSW.

Both Hay and Tamworth institutions were built in 1880. Hay comprised a central cellblock containing 12 cells, called 'cabins', each containing a single iron frame bed, thin mattress and a small bench and seat attached to the wall.

The maximum number of girls held at any time was 10, with 5-6 officers on duty at all times. The officers were untrained, with female staff subordinate to male staff, who were the only ones allowed to have keys to the girls cabins.

Girls were not permitted to speak without signalling for permission; they were required to have their eyes to the floor at all times.

Movement within the site was severely restricted and always accompanied with the locking and unlocking of doors. Walking was not permitted; rather, the girls were required to march 'on the double' at all times.

The daily routine dehumanized the girls through the use of hard labour (e.g. breaking concrete, digging paths and gardens, scrubbing concrete floors and walls, sewing leather, and practices (exercises such as 100 push ups, 100 star jumps, marking time)) which were carried out with regularity at predetermined intervals during the day.

This routine did not alter from one day to the next - up at 6am and return to their cells at 7pm. Hourly checks were made on the girls at night, causing sleep deprivation, and they were required to lie in their beds facing the door at all times.

No education or schooling was provided - only conditioning through control and punishment. Girls who resisted, or who showed any form of attitude, were locked in isolation, placed on a restricted diet and had their sentences extended.

Typically girls sent to the Hay Institution had come from poor socio-economic backgrounds, many were indigenous stolen generation children, many had been state wards from a very young age, none had committed any criminal offenses. They were simply the lost and forgotten children of Australia's welfare system.

The Institution closed down on the 30 June 1974.

The first reunion of the Girls Institution took place on the 3 and 4 of March 2007.