Emergency Management Days (EMDs)

What are EMDs? 

Corrections Victoria can take days off your sentence if while you are prison you suffer “disruption or deprivation” beyond the usual disruptions and deprivations of imprisonment because of: 

• An industrial dispute (for example, prison staff going strike); or 
• An emergency in the prison (for example, a COVID-19 pandemic lockdown); or 
• Any other circumstances that are “of an unforeseen and special nature”. 

Every day that is taken off your sentence for one of these reasons is called an Emergency Management Day (EMD). 

EMDs come from section 58E of the Corrections Act 1986 (Vic). Section 58E says EMDs are only available for people who were on good behaviour at the time of the disruption or deprivation. Good behaviour means “no involvement in any prison incident” – it does not include medical incidents, self-harm, injury or accidents. 

Section 58E also says you cannot get EMDs for an emergency, riot or serious security incident that was caused by a person in prison, regardless of whether you were involved.

How many EMDs can I get? 

The limit of EMDs you can have comes from regulation 100 of the Corrections Regulations 2019 (Vic). Those limits are:

EMDs for COVID-19 pandemic

At the start of the COVID-19 emergency, Corrections Victoria implemented an automatic consideration process for EMDs. Through this process, EMDs were granted at a ratio close to or equivalent to one day for each day that the disruption and/or deprivation has occurred.

Corrections Victoria determined that disruption or deprivation meant “restrictive regimes or having out-of-cell time significantly restricted due to COVID-19”, such as being placed in quarantine on reception into prison, being locked down due to COVID response or being denied any of the Prisoners Rights protected by s47 of the Corrections Act – see chapter xx. Corrections Victoria decided that EMDs were not automatically considered for changes to programs or not having visitors.

Use these links for more information on EMDs: