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My task this morning is NOT to give an in depth presentation of the issues affecting young people in prison nor an understanding of the complex nature of law & order paradigms and trends in criminology. My task is to present some of the issues surrounding privatisation of prisons, the companies involved and the experiences in Victoria, elsewhere in Australia and overseas. The challenge for you, for the government, for citizens, is to learn from the disastrous situations occurring in many private prisons, and to take a stand to ensure that they are not repeated - this time on young people held in juvenile prisons in Victoria.
Just two and a half years ago Victoria had NO private prisons. Since August 1996, we have seen Victoria become the private correctional capital of the world. The government peddles its privatisation agenda by telling us its about 'greater efficiency', 'greater accountability', that service standards will improve, and that private corporations can run prisons better and cheaper than the State. So, 'where is the evidence?'
In 2.5 years since the opening of the first private prison in Victoria, NO monitoring reports about the performance of the private prisons have been placed before parliament. The most crucial parts of the contracts are withheld from the public, cloaked in secrecy because of this government's unsustainable and dangerous mantra of commercial confidentiality. Where is the accountability? Where is the monitoring data and public scrutiny? The denial of access to information has limited citizens ability to engage in an informed and vigorous debate regarding privatisation and government policies, and appears central to the ability of companies to entrench themselves and expand their grip on prison populations. Government also becomes immune from the implications of their decisions and practices because no information is available. Writs of defamation have never been a part of the debate around young people. Now everything I, or anybody else, says in the discussion may be liable to a defamation writ.
What's happening in Victoria is unheard of throughout the world. Victoria has 45% of all adult prisoners in private prisons, compared with 4% in the US and 8% in the UK. With the government's latest announcements, including privatising the Melbourne Custody Centre, plans for a private juvenile prisons and another 600-bed private adult prison, Victoria is being forced down a path that is proving disastrous and deadly. Why the hurry? Surely with such a significant policy shift, time should be taken to assess the changes made, before committing to more and more private prisons. In the short period of time, since the blight of private prisons has been with us, 12 people have died in Victorian private prisons alone - 10 men have died in Port Phillip Prison - when averaged out, that is one death every 7 weeks! Two women have died in the Metropolitan Women's Correctional Centre in Deer Park.
But I'm getting a head of myself. We need to begin with a critique of juvenile detention, and of the situation for young people in our society. According to Lynn Atkinson; speaking at the National Conference on Juvenile Detention (1994, Canberra)
The 200-year history of white Australia has given us blueprints for present concerns and dilemmas about juvenile detention. ... There is a failure of punitive detention to impact on recidivism or to address at an individual or systemic level the underlying issues which have propelled many ... young people into the justice system and into custody .. .it is clear that juvenile detention has been a repository for the marginalised and the powerless .... The growing involvement of the private sector in juvenile corrections today is an issue which should be placed clearly on the agenda for discussion and debate.
The growing reliance on imprisonment as a solution to systemic social problems such as the massive reduction in, and continuing deterioration of funding to state schools, inaccessible health care, unlivable wages and unemployment, combined with mounting corporate interests in an expanding punishment industry, has led to the emergence of a late-twentieth century prison industrial complex. As politicians, the mass media, and conservative organisations represent crime as the most serious problem of our time - even though crime rates have been relatively stable - the public responds with fear and with acceptance of the exponential expansion of the penal system.
So, why do we buy this myth of crime-out-of-control, of juvenile-crime-waves when there is no hard data to support such accusations? One answer can be found in the economic-political landscape. In 'the prison-industrial complex', where fear of crime drives investment and crime control is a source of profit. Like the military-industrial complex that dominated defence policy during the cold war, this crucible of private companies and governments exercises a powerful influence on crime policy. There is nothing unusual or improper in a private business or individual making money from a government program. But there is an ethical difference when the source of private profit is the growing number of prisoners and the consequent growing numbers of deaths in custody. In such a situation there is no incentive to provide 'best practice' service delivery since the real recipients of the 'service' have no choice of service provider. If we accept that the community benefits from keeping people out of prison, there is a clear conflict of interest in handing to a private corporate organisation, which benefits from increased prison populations, at least partial control over the length of stay of prisoners.
Nils Christie, a Norwegian criminologist and the author of Crime Control as Industry, claims that companies that service the criminal justice system need sufficient quantities of raw materials to guarantee long-term growth. An economist looking at almost any industry might make the same simple statement. In the criminal justice field, the raw material is prisoners, and industry will do what is necessary to guarantee a steady supply1. For the supply of prisoners to grow, criminal justice policies must ensure a sufficient number of incarcerated Victorian's, regardless of whether crime is rising or the incarceration is necessary.
In a 1994 article, the Wall Street Journal asserted that "Like the military-industrial complex, the prison industrial complex is an interweaving of private business and government interests. Its twofold purpose is profit and social control. Its public rationale is the fight against crime"2. The prison-industrial complex, is based on an "iron triangle" between government bureaucracy, private industry, and politicians. The three entities create interlocking financial and political interests to push for a particular policy. In this case, that policy is the expansion of the criminal justice system. The more fear can be inflamed, the more intense public passion about crime becomes and the easier it is to gain votes by proposing harsher sentences and more prisons. It is also easier for private companies to get new business, and for retailers to expand the market for home security devices, and through it all, this fear is being used to get additional "raw material" to feed the growth in prisons.
While there are many things we share in common with other western systems of justice and punishment, there are also things which make our experience unique. No other country can lay claim to beginnings as a penal colony, yet our current approach to criminal justice and prisons gives little consideration to this, and may in fact create an over-reaction in an attempt to further distance ourselves from those beginnings. Similarly we often mimic, adopt and impose the policies of other western countries, particularly the United States, without any consideration of the differences in history and culture. Without that cultural basis as justification of those policies, we can often be more extreme, more rigid, and more punitive in there application.
Social issues such as unemployment and homelessness are defined within a framework of fear - often referred to as 'the ecology of fear' - which promotes a law and order paradigm to express both the causes and solutions. It comes about from an unwillingness to deal with the systemic inequalities produced by capitalism, patriarchy and racism which cause social injuries such as poverty.
In refusing to make any public investment in the underlying social issues, we are forced instead to make increasing investments in physical safety and social control. As laws and policing become the main activity of the State in dealing with social issues, we see increasing numbers of people criminalised. Four years ago, just to make sure that we are identified either as citizen or as criminal, the Victorian Government mandated that all citizens must give their name and address to police when asked, otherwise they commit a criminal offence.3
Victoria was renowned for being one of the safest Australian States to live in, with the lowest crime rates of any State and the lowest imprisonment rate. Numerous government's; both Liberal and Labor, have colluded with commercial sections of the media to instill an irrational and unfounded fear of 'others' - of anyone black, young, in a group, out late, Asian, gay, poor, homeless, ill - all of it manufactured to 'justify' law and order repression's. 4
Whilst each of us are responsible for our actions (certain illnesses and intoxication's excepted), equally, society is responsible for how we have been treated, how it has responded to us, which advantages have been given or denied us. In this way the prisons and the prisoners are of society's creation. This is apparent in the behaviours society criminalises ... self medication with alcohol is okay, self medication with heroin is not, child stealing is a crime, providing its not the State doing the stealing, sexual assault in the street is a crime, in prison (and the home) the reality is often, it is not, fines and debts to the government land you in prison, corporate debts merely leave you bankrupt. The people responsible for this wear anonymous corporate suits and the tragic and grief stricken realities of prisons and prisoners' lives and deaths never seem to touch them.5
The more frightened society becomes, the more frightening we perceive prisoners to be. Lost in it all is the fact that the most frightening and abusive things happen in homes, by people who profess love and protection. Sexual assault of children in the street is minuscule compared to the sexual assaults that go on for years, of children in the privacy of the home and institutions. Women who are viciously bashed, bludgeoned and murdered are overwhelmingly killed by male partners.
Who are peddling these fears and myths? Who benefits from them?
Uncomfortable with confronting the logical outcomes of a society based on power and powerlessness - where the intersections of gender, culture and class determine the abusers and the abused - what better way to deflect the gaze from our rotting cores than to manufacture a myth of prisons which are barely containing monsters and misfits. A myth which allows us to collectively heave a sigh of relief because these monsters are not amongst us.
The prison privatisation agenda of governments has also been successful in changing the focus of debate from what goes on in prison, to who runs them. The debate on what prison is for and what it actually does has been hijacked. Governments are desperately washing and wiping their hands to rid themselves of one of their most difficult tasks: the punishment of citizens who breach criminal laws. By privatising prisons they have turned prisoners into commercial commodities attracting exemptions from all sorts of questions: in parliament, under freedom of information and in courts. Now that profits are at stake, not the lives of women, men and young people in prison, anyone who says nasty things about the companies can expect to be sued for damaging the corporations "commercial reputation". The only other source of accountability - the media - is also gagged. Mention defamation to most media outlets and all of a sudden the story gets too hot.
There is a massive drive from all major political parties for more and more law and order policies. These laws are directed largely at Indigenous communities, young people and the poor. Since the 1980's Australia has been adopting unthinkingly, or perhaps more insidiously for short-term political expediency, law and order agendas and strategies from the USA - zero tolerance, mandatory imprisonment, surveillance equipment, chemical weapons, boot camps, leg irons, hog-tying and the prison-industrial complex. In a world terrifying itself by its greed and hatred, it is no wonder that security and monitoring are the fastest growing industries, second only to tourism.
These private prison companies started and have bred in the south of the US, with the highest incarceration rates in the world, where the remnants of slavery exist, where unions are weak, with the highest and increasing use of the death penalty, and where now that prisons are full, chain gangs are back. These private prison companies are not an apparatus of the State, they have an agenda of their own - the maximisation of profit. They have absolutely no vested interest in running prisons or turning out prisoners in a way that assist them never coming to prison again. This would be corporate suicide.
As I've said previously, Victoria, has the horrific notoriety of having the highest proportion of prisoners held in private prisons of any jurisdiction in the world. Prisoner transport, court security, health, education, training, and labour have all undergone similar privatisation and contracting out processes. Profit has become the driving imperative of imprisonment.
Australia's first private prison was only established in 1990 in Queensland. Borallon Correctional Centre is managed by Corrections Corporation of Australia (CCA) the subsidiary of Corrections Corporation of America. In only eight years Australia has seen the building and operation of eight private prison in four states with two other states and one Territory actively pursuing private prisons. Almost no State in Australia is untouched by the mania to commodify prisoners lives as a source of profit. The mass privatisation of prisoners in Australia has also had a profound effect on the public sector's management of public prisons who are now forced to operate on a profit driven model. Public corrections agencies are increasingly becoming corporatised and seeking to compete for contracts against private companies.
What have we learnt from private prison operation in Victoria?
The Metropolitan Women's Correctional Centre (MWCC) opened in August 1996 and is owned and operated by CCA. It was the first private women's prison in the world outside of the US. This 125 bed women's prison has constantly been overcrowded, resulting in double and sometime triple bunking in management and protection areas, there are no consistent activities nor programs for the children living with their mothers in the prison. There has been two deaths in custody since the prison opened. Incidents of self harm and overdoses average at six per week. The drive for increasing profits have ensured that there are limited educational opportunities, insufficient programs for skills development, poor pre-release support and no adequate detox or harm minimisation programs even though over 85% of women inside have drug and/or alcohol dependencies prior to going to prison. The rate of internal violence within this prison has sky rocketed. There have been a number of protests in the prison largely over the degree of violence. On one such occasion (April 1996) there was a 'riot' at the prison resulting in the SESG (Security and Emergency Services Group), the prison paramilitary squad, in full riot gear - helmets, shields and weapons - attending the prison and tear gassing three women who were already handcuffed in a prison van, in the prison grounds. After the gassing (this was the first time that gas has been used against women prisoners in Victoria's history) these three women were placed in wet cells. Hog-tying has also entered our prison system and has been used on women at the MWCC.
The Port Phillip private prison opened in September 1997 and is operated by Group 4. Since it opened there have been ten deaths in custody, a number of fires, riots, massive internal violence and again very limited educational programs, no detox and no harm minimisation programs. The experience of the womens prison has been magnified many times over at Port Phillip Prison. The prison was built with obvious hanging points in 580 of the 600 cells in direct violation of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. Prior to the opening of the prison, the company representatives were warned that the multiple hanging points, if not immediately removed, would result in ongoing deaths in custody. Within seven months, four men had died of hanging and countless other hanging attempts had been made. It was only after the fourth death and massive community outrage that the government and Group 4 announced that they would remove the hanging points.
Families of the dead men, have so far been denied access to the facts and reasons as to why their sons, husbands and fathers have died. Each family's grief is overwhelming and they are forced to relive their tragic experiences after each subsequent death at the prison. Instead of acting quickly to end the mounting death toll; the Corrections Minister, Bill McGrath, the Department of Justice and the private operators of the Prison, Group 4 all sought to normalise, trivialise and conceal this ongoing and profoundly shameful and criminally negligent situation.
The introduction of private prison operators has been disastrous here, and the story is repeated overseas. High Plains Youth Centre in Colorado was operated by Group 4 who runs Port Phillip Prison.
It's not just the USA where problems are occurring. The recent release of the report on Medway Youth Centre contracted to Rebound (Group 4) in England8 found:
The Jena Juvenile Justice Centre (USA) operated by Wackenhut has been plagued by problems. Problems identified by Justice Department attorney Iris Goldschmidt included:
Goldschmidt said "the counsellors Jena planned to hire did not appear to have the experience needed for juvenile prisons ... the facilities behaviour management plan was flawed and its restraints policy, which includes using mace and an irritant dust, was inappropriate." This youth prison is now being managed by the state after a U.S. District Judge ordered that no new offenders be admitted there9.
In Louisianna, the Corrections Secretary, replaced the private operator of the 620 bed Tallulah Correctional Centre for Youth. The decision was prompted by two separate incidents in which 15 inmates were locked in their cells and another set fire to his clothes. Federal investigators found that the prison remained dangerous because of inmate-on-inmate assaults and sexual abuse. A year earlier, a Justice Department investigation found that guards routinely beat the young inmates. A lawsuit filed in July 1998 on behalf of 12 inmates alleged they were frequently beaten by guards and assaulted by inmates bribed by corrections officers. Other complaints included "meals are so meager that many boys lose weight. Clothing is so scarce that boys fight over shirts and shoes. Almost all of the teachers are uncertified, instruction amounts to as little as an hour a day and until recently there were no books. Up to a 4th of the inmates are mentally ill or retarded, but a psychiatrist visits only one day a week. There is no therapy. Emotionally disturbed boys who cannot follow guards' orders are locked in isolation cells for weeks at a time or have their sentences arbitrarily extended"10.
Eight boys formerly jailed at a CCAm privately run juvenile prison in South Carolina, claim in separate lawsuits that prison employees squeezed their crotches when the boys' hands and feet were bound behind their backs. The teenagers claim CCAm employees often choked and hog-tied boys at the prison. The boys also allege workers improperly used pepper spray on them. After allegations of misconduct, the Governor ended the state's contract with CCAm11.
A private youth development centre (run by Correctional Services Corporation - CSC) which opened January 1997 in Florida has been criticised by a judge for inflicting cruel and unusual punishment. In July, young boys alleged they had been locked in solitary confinement, stripped down to their underwear or left naked, and prohibited from sitting down or falling asleep. They complained of being locked in their cells for up to 16 hours a day. The Judge concluded that the facility was at best unsuitable for many of the 350 teenagers in its care - and at worst, abusive12.
Rebound Program of Denver, a company that runs juvenile rehabilitation programmes, has had a contract in Florida cancelled due to inadequate performance. The contract was terminated after only 18 months. At another Rebound-run facility in Colorado, a report found "a consistent and disturbing pattern of violence, sexual abuse, clinical malpractice and administration incompetence at every level of the programme". At the time, Colorado's corrections division admitted that it had to lower its expectations of contract performance as it was dependent on the company to provide places13.
I believe we have a responsibility to young people in this State and must say NO to the governments proposal for a private youth prison and the expansion of juvenile prison beds. Do we want a 'Matthew' to die here? The companies that I have been talking about, are currently operating in Australia and will be tendering for the Victorian Juvenile Prison in a couple of months. As such its vital that we learn from past and current experiences as we are talking about young peoples lives.
Australia is establishing a role of importance in the world community by being consumed by privatisation and corporatisation. We are going further and fast down that track, relinquishing social responsibilities as we go. Australia has not been able to accept and deal with our history of invasion, colonisation, penal servitude, convict and racial history. Adoption of the model of corporatisation continues our history of the suppression of the minority, powerless groups. Australia is being consumed by private prisons, private monopoly and control of all criminal justice and punishment functions. This sets precedent for the imposition of these models and the ability of government to forfeit responsibility, everywhere.