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Museums and galleries
NSW State Correctional Museum
The NSW State Correctional Museum is located at Cooma in the Monaro region of New South Wales. Adjacent to it stand Cooma Correctional Centre and other historic buildings.
The museum showcases the History of NSW Corrections since 1788. It contains information, displays and artefacts from convict days to the present.
Minimum security inmates conduct guided tours explaining NSW correctional history from the first fleet to the present.
There is wheelchair access to and throughout the museum.
Opening times
Open 7 days a week, 8:30 am to 3:30 pm.
Public holidays
Call (02) 6452 5974 to check opening times.
Closed Christmas Day.
Background
Starting out in one room in 1989 the museum moved into the decommissioned Cooma Correctional Centre in 1998. When the centre re-opened in 2002, two adjacent Corrective Services houses were converted into a new museum space and opened by the Commissioner of Corrective Services on 25 August 2005.
Highlights of the collection include an original portable cell, restraint devices (e.g. manacles and leg irons), convict and prisoner clothing, tin wear manufactured within prison industries, security equipment (e.g. riot shields and batons), contraband (e.g. inmate weapons, escape devices and tattoo guns), artefacts from the notorious Katingal gaol, photographs, videos, oral histories, and film documentation.
Museum photos
This photo selection focuses on selected items in the museum collection. The museum brings together historical objects from correctional centres across the State of NSW to aid in their preservation, display and marketing. The collection has significant heritage value and contributes to an understanding of Australia's cultural history as a penal colony.
Museum catalogue
You can search the Museum Catalogue for information, displays and artefacts from convict days to the present.
Boom Gate Gallery
Long Bay Correctional Complex has a long tradition of creating significant inmate artwork. Inmates continue to practice art at the complex, with many pieces available for display and sale at the Boom Gate Gallery. You are encouraged to drop into the gallery just for a look.
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We acknowledge Aboriginal people as the First Nations Peoples of NSW and pay our respects to Elders past, present, and future.
Informed by lessons of the past, Department of Communities and Justice is improving how we work with Aboriginal people and communities. We listen and learn from the knowledge, strength and resilience of Stolen Generations Survivors, Aboriginal Elders and Aboriginal communities.
You can access our apology to the Stolen Generations.