THERE were no walls. That was the first thing he noticed when he got off the bus from Loddon Prison.

The horizon that had been hidden behind great thick walls for the past five years was an overwhelming expanse before him.

Tony is 28 and he has been a prisoner in the Beechworth Correctional Centre for the past 20 months of his 6½-year stint.

He probably couldn’t believe his luck when he turned up at the minimum security prison.

It was built on about 600 hectares of bush and farmland a few kilometres from the town eight years ago after the closure of the old prison in the middle of town.

The 149-year-old cold granite slab jail was replaced with a prison that looks like a holiday resort.

There’s a tennis court, a brand new gym, basketball court, vegie patches, an aviary and a canteen that stocks ice-cream and chocolates.

Prisoners stay in six- or eight-bedroom units dotted on a hill-side, equipped with flat screen televisions and modern kitchens where they can cook their own meals — with real knives.

But the kicker is the fact there are no walls and there is a million-dollar view of rolling hills in the Stanley State Forest.

“You sit on your table out the front of the unit and you see the hills and the cows,” Tony said. “It felt weird.”

This is why it’s almost laughable when you read stories of prison escapes from Beechworth.

Technically, yes, it’s a prison break, but it’s hardly an escape from Alcatraz when you can just walk away from the place and hail a taxi. 

And yes, that has happened.

General manager Terry Jose has worked in the prison system for 27 years.

He has run intelligence units and dog squads in the state’s toughest prisons, from Barwon to Melbourne Remand Centre, closely watching our maddest and baddest from gangland figureheads to bikie brawlers.

Beechworth is no different.

A former outlaw motorcycle gang sergeant-at-arms was released recently and there are murderers in its midst.

But gone are the days of bread and water.

“It’s gone from containment to rehabilitation and treatment and putting them back out on the streets better,” Mr Jose said.

He said the state needed prisons like Beechworth’s so criminals didn’t return to jail.

“Our role is containment, but it’s skilling them for integration into the community,” Mr Jose said.

Like all prisons in the state, Beechworth is at capacity at the moment with 160 men serving varying sentences.

“We have ones who are serving 15 to 20 years and they are on their last couple of years or blokes doing short stints that have never been in custody before,” Mr Jose said.

The average stint is four to five months but the longest-serving prisoner is seeing out the last three years of a long jail term and the shortest, who the prisoners call “backpackers”, are around for a few weeks.

Days are structured to resemble the outside world.

Men will work a 30-hour week in community projects like mowing church lawns, helping in the town’s neighbourhood centre or cooking sausages and selling pot plants at the festivals that seem to be in Beechworth every second weekend.

They can also work in the prison factory that has a contract for churning out wooden wares like cubby houses and dog kennels.

Maintenance work on the grounds can count in the 30 hours, as does a TAFE course or caring for the injured eagles in the aviary.

So the steak knives in the kitchens are not even the sharpest tools the prisoners have access to.

“Don’t forget they have angle grinders, chainsaws and they drive trucks around. A little knife I prefer,” Mr Jose said with a laugh.

But he said the prison was relatively incident-free because men were assessed for “suitability” before being sent there.

If you’re likely to do a runner or use the kitchen knife to stab something other than a rogue vegetable, you won’t get in.

It’s a system based on reward.

You work your 30 hours, complete your drug programs, stay out of trouble and get credits so you can buy anything from food at the canteen, to cigarettes or a tennis racquet.

It also means a shining report when you face the parole board for potential release.

But that’s not to say everyone is happy to be there.

There have been four escapes since 2005, including one where a prisoner caught a taxi to Melbourne with only 22 days left on his sentence, and another who wandered into the bush before getting cold feet and returning a few hours later.

Mr Jose said knowledge was the prison’s first line of security.

Case managers monitor the lives of the prisoners and there’s full-time intelligence officers.

All are watching for dangerous collusions with other prisoners and triggers that might tip them over the edge, like if their wife on the outside is struggling. 

“Little things can trigger off prisoners,” Mr Jose said.

“They get close to release and they have concerns and sometimes they don’t think ...but the more we know about prisoners, the more we can manage them.”

Tony sits in a conference room next door to Mr Jose’s office in his prison-issued green tracksuit with a red checkered shirt over the top.

His identity can’t be revealed because of prison policy but he looks like the kind of guy you would go to the pub for a beer with.

Guilt haunts Tony every day and he’s unlikely to go out and rob a bank when released.

He crashed the car he was driving and killed his mate and — just like that — his world changed.

He was charged with culpable driving and at 22, found himself in one of the state’s hardest prisons mixing with murderers.

“The guys who are in for murder are the ones you can talk to. They’re the ones that have got a lot longer and they like things quiet,” he said.

He said he would never get over what he did.

“You’ve got to live with it every day,” he said.

He has friends who visit from time to time with tales of engagements and houses bought while he’s frozen in time.

“I still feel like I’m 22,” he said.

But the ice on the clock is melting with 10 months until his release and he’s already feeling anxious about life on the outside.

He said it was when he got out into the Beechworth community with prison programs that most helped with readjusting.

“They are always just saying thanks for coming to help, they’re thankful for us being out there,” he said.

“They make you feel more normal.”

He said the success of prisons like Beechworth hinged on the choices prisoners made, just like the choices they made that got them into the system in the first place.

“There’s the prisoners who are ‘Yes, I’ve done something wrong and I’m locked up and I’ll never be back’. 

“Then there’s the other guys who are in and out, in and out. They don’t care as much and they don’t have the same support when they get out,” he said.

“It’s up to the person who wants to be rehabilitated. There’s some who just know what to say to the parole board, they’re just doing their time.”