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It's the same old story at Port Phillip, with the authorities seemingly content to sit on their hands while more inmates fall victim to the system.
The latest death, a 24-year-old prisoner found dead after a suspected drug overdose, being the ninth death in custody since the privately run prison started receiving prisoners last September. It was only a few months ago (June 1998) that the Government finally accepted some blame for allowing hanging points in the state's newest private prison.
The Government was warned by the Parole Board, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission and the Federation of Community Legal Centres before the prison was opened that the six horizontal bars across windows must be removed.
At least two families of men who died from hanging at the Port Phillip Prison intend to sue the State Government and the private operator, Group 4, for negligence. The Federation of Community Legal Centres is investigating a joint action on behalf of the families for an alleged lack of duty of care, claiming the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Deaths in Custody were ignored during the design of Victoria's private prisons.
Bill McGrath has told the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, taxpayers would pay $300,000 of the $1 million needed to remove the hanging points, but side-stepped the issue of liability, saying it was difficult to assess. Unbelievably, he commented, "Because of the number of hangings it was necessary to eliminate hanging points from cells", but went on to claim the deaths were more of a "management issue". Smoothly passing the buck, Mr McGrath said Group 4 Securitas could be penalised $100,000 or more because of concerns about its management of the troubled jail.
Dozens of reports of attempted suicide and at least 40 self-mutilations, allegations of endemic drug abuse, understaffing, inexperience, cost-cutting and industrial action culminated in March with a riot and fire in Scarborough South which caused $250,000 damage. Group 4 were served with a default notice in June, and are likely to be penalised when the contract is assessed in September. It is envisaged that the amount would be similar to a $100,000 performance penalty imposed on the American- owned Metropolitan Women's Prison at Deer Park. (Although not revealed, Corrections Corporation of Australia was penalised $100,000 in 1997 because of a problem with illicit drugs and the number of self-mutilations.) Group 4 has since submitted what it calls a "cure plan" to the Government in response to Victorian Premier, Jeff Kennett's threat that Group 4's contract to run Port Phillip could be terminated unless improvements are made to ensure contract compliance. With 9 coronial inquests now pending and the detection of at least one staff member alleged to have been bringing in drugs to the prison, it's hard to see how the Government can allow Group 4 to continue in its role as prison management.
The number of deaths in custody in Victoria is now at a 10-year high in Victoria, with a recently convened watchdog group (Victorian Deaths in Custody Watch Committee) questioning whether the rise was linked to the privatisation of the prison system.
Fifteen men have died in the state's prisons in the past year, nine at Port Phillip. You be the judge.
Cheryl Black was found dead in Cell 4, B Wing, Unit A1 of the CCA-owned & operated Metropolitan Women's Correctional Centre (MWCC) at 7.05 am on 30th March, 1997.
It was Easter Sunday, and Cheryl Black had become the first woman to die in custody in Victoria's first private prison. In fact, she was the first woman to die in custody in Victoria in the last three years.
Cheryl Black had been institutionalised for most of her life. Cheryl was intellectually disabled and suffered from a number of illnesses, including epilepsy, asthma and emphysema. Cheryl was also a victim of abuse, both sexual and psychological. A psychiatric report in 1993, described her as a tragic case. What is tragic is that someone like Cheryl Black should find herself in prison in the first place, and that she should eventually die there.
With the commencement of the inquest, it quickly became clear that Cheryl had been shuffled from one institution to another for most of her life. Even in the last few months of her life, she had been passed from caseworker to caseworker. Cheryl was described as a difficult "client". No doubt there were some who breathed a sigh of relief when Cheryl was taken off their hands and placed on remand at MWCC on 3rd March, 1997.
Robert Moreton of the Victoria Police Prison Squad made it clear that this question of whether Cheryl should have been placed in prison, was not within the scope of his investigation, and flagged it as a separate issue to the circumstances surrounding the death of Cheryl Black. As was the case with the inquest into the death of Paul Prosser, the causal relationship between death and imprisonment was not to be investigated. One should have the right to ask whether Cheryl would still be alive today, had she been placed in more appropriate accommodation.
The inquest into the death of Cheryl Black began at the Coroner's Court in South Melbourne on 16th June 1998. Members of PJA, Women In Imprisonment and the newly formed Victorian Deaths in Custody Watch Committee, held a memorial outside the court entrance. Some spoke a few words and flowers were placed under a portrait of Cheryl, a reminder that real people lie behind the government statistics on deaths in custody.
Both the Villamanta Legal Service and the Corrections Working Group of the Federation of Community Legal Centres were refused standing to appear in the inquest, on the basis that they did not have a sufficient interest in the outcome (ie., they were not a family member or spouse and did not have a direct interest, in that they were not a party open to having an adverse finding made against them as a result of the inquest. Parties who are represented at the Inquest are Department of Human Services (the Disability Division managed Cheryl's casefile and made arrangements for Cheryl's welfare), Office of Corrective Services Commissioner, Corrections Corporation of Australia, the Mercy Hospital (who held the contract for provision of medical services at MWCC in March 1997), and Kelvin, Cheryl Black's partner.
For two days medical staff and officers from MWCC testified as to their dealings with Cheryl during her last few weeks inside MWCC. Evidence was given regarding medication administered to Cheryl, maintenance of her medical records and the level of inter-departmental communication regarding Cheryl's background and medical history. Testimony was also given on management methods and prison procedure; the operation of the cell intercom system causing the most confusion among all concerned.
Proceedings were adjourned after the first day until 14th August, the Coroner calling a further witness; the systems technician at MWCC, to interpret the computer logs of both the intercom system and the door movements to Unit A1. Following the testimony of the both the systems technician and the investigating officer from the Police Prison Squad on the 14th August, the inquest was again adjourned until a date yet to be determined.
The Coroner has once again called for further witnesses to be made available when the inquest resumes, in an effort to solve the many mysteries which appear to have arisen in this inquest and have so far defied explanation.
We urge every one of you to attend the inquest when it resumes. Many issues have already arisen throughout the course of evidence, which may give cause for concern, and although they may not be found legally to be the cause of Cheryl's death, we have to ask whether it is likely they were a contributing factor. And how we go about preventing this from happening again.
To be advised of developments in this inquest and for information on prison issues tune in to Doing Time - 5pm Mondays
On the 20th July 1998, Victorian Coroner, Jacinta Heffey, handed down her findings in the inquest into the death of Paul Mark Prosser at "D" division in the Metropolitan Reception Prison Coburg, on 14th December 1996. At approximately 7.42pm on that date, Paul, 23 years of age, was found hanging from the electrical conduit in his cell, by a pair of shoelaces.
Paul had been arrested on the 4th December whilst on bail. In the police cells at Broadmeadows Police Station, he attempted to hang himself with a blanket. The following morning, he attempted to choke himself while left alone in an interview room. After appearing in the Magistrates Court later that day, Paul was remanded to the Melbourne Custody Centre, where he was placed in a padded cell overnight and considered to be at risk of self-harm, although not a suicide risk.
On 5th December 1996, Paul was admitted to the Metropolitan Reception prison, where he was classified and sent to D Division.
Paul suffered from acquired brain injury as a result of a motorcycle accident, causing some incognitive impairment and mood swings. He had been at Pentridge previously and had spent the entire time in G Division, housing the Acute Assessment Unit, and the Psycho-Social Unit.
From the time that Paul arrived at Pentridge on 5th December 1996, he expressed to prison staff, forensic, medical and nursing staff, other prisoners and his family, his desire to be transferred to G Division.
The Coroner determined that there were three issues arising for determination in terms of how the death occurred:-
1. Whether the deceased's death might, on the balance of probabilities, have been avoided had he been transferred to G Division either on reception into the prison or at any time thereafter.
2. Whether it was reasonable, based on the deceased's history and presentation, ... not to transfer the deceased to G Division on admission or at any time thereafter.
3. If it was unreasonable not to transfer the deceased to G Division, whether the staff responsible for recommending such a transfer omitted to do so for a reason unconnected with the deceased's mental state.
In relation to the first issue, the Coroner found that it was less likely that Paul would have committed suicide had he been transferred to G Division.
Regarding the second issue, the Coroner made a number of findings:-
a) The decision to place Paul Prosser in the mainstream prison was made on inadequate information, and that if there were time constraints in terms of obtaining records, placement should have been provisional only. The decision to place a prisoner who, to the knowledge of the assessing person, has had previous placement in a psychiatric unit, should not have been made without access to all the information.
b) The decision to place Paul Prosser in the mainstream prison was wrong and it should not have been made.
c) Subsequent assessments by prison staff were flawed and inadequate. Paul Prosser should have been placed in AAU on reception, or at the very least, referred to a psychiatrist.
On the third issue, the Coroner declined to hand down a finding, on the basis that it had not been supported by any evidence in the inquest other than "speculation and hypothesis".
Despite her findings that the prison was more than lax in it's assessment and placement of arriving prisoners, the Coroner, in summing up, found "the deceased and no other person contributed to the cause of death." The Coroner was acting on the premise that even if Paul had been transferred to G Division, he still may have taken his own life. But that is something we will never know. We only know that Paul wanted to be in the AAU, and he should have been in the AAU. Instead he died.
Coroner Heffey' s recommendations at the conclusion of her record of investigation; regarding availability of full medical histories in the shortest possible time, provisional placements, appropriate safeguards, monitoring and assessments, implementation of procedures for facilitation of information from family and friends; were duly forwarded to the Attorney-General, Office of Correctional Services Commissioner, and Department of Human Services, but until they are actually acted upon, and implemented within the prison system, cases like that of Paul Prosser will continue to haunt the Government.____
* The Government of Western Australia has announced that it is to seek expressions of interest from companies wanting to build and run a new 750 bed medium security prison at Wooroloo, east of Perth. The facility is expected to be open in the year 2000. The Deaths in Custody Watch Committee responded to the announcement by saying that "it should be seen by the prison population of this state as a death sentence".
* The W.A. government has short listed five consortia to bid for a $20m, 25 year lease-back contract. A new development for the Ministry of Justice at Fremantle will include five courtrooms, judges’ chambers, libraries, registry and associated administrative premises.
Shortly before midnight on Sunday, 31 May 1998, prison officers conducting routine checks found the dead body of 22-year-old Dean Kieran Lauder hanging inside a cell at Canning Vale Prison, near Perth, the state capital of Western Australia. At the time of writing this report, prison officials had not confirmed reports that Dean Lauder was found dead alone in a medical observation cell used for prisoners who need special supervision. While investigating police quickly issued a press statement saying they suspected "no suspicious circumstances", local media reported that an "inhuman prison regime" may have contributed to his death. In line with current policy, the Minister responsible for
prisons refused to comment on Dean Lauder's death which raises the state's prison death record to an all-time high level.
The Justice Minister's silence on the increasing prison death rate heightens concerns about allegations that lack of care, inadequate medical and social welfare services for prisoners and indifferent or harsh treatment have contributed to many of these deaths. The seriousness of the situation is reflected in a January 1998 decision by the State Ombudsman to initiate a major inquiry into prison deaths on which a report is expected to be tabled in Parliament in September 1998.
An Amnesty International delegate who visited two of the state's prisons in March 1998 was told by prison officers and administrators that they share public concerns about the failure of the prison system to prevent recent deaths in custody. A spokesman for the Prison Officers' Union
pointed to stretched resources in prisoner care and inadequate training of prison officers to cope with the 30 to 40 per cent of prisoners in Perth who are identified as "at risk of self-harm". Three quarters of male prisoners who died during the past 15 months had been imprisoned at the Casuarina and Canning Vale prison complexes near Perth. Almost half of them had not yet been convicted when they died.
While prisoner numbers have remained stable since 1996, deaths in prisons have increased by 130 per cent. On average, four people died in Western Australian prisons each year since 1980. That number rose to at
least 11 in 1997, with another 11 prisoners reported dead in the first five months of 1998. Seven of those who died since January 1998 have been found hanged and are considered to have committed suicide.
Among them was 18-year-old Neil Holt who died at Canning Vale Prison in January after reportedly being bashed by guards, and restrained with chains joining his hands and feet and having a mask placed over his head. The use of physical restraints, although supposed to be a last resort measure, appears to be no exception in prisons where officers face "chronic overcrowding" and a lack of resources that could help reduce tension between prisoners and staff.
On 3 June 1998 a Coroner's Inquest found that Victorino Bongay Vivas, another young prisoner, probably hanged himself "on or about" 29 July 1996 with a prison sheet from a tree in the grounds of Wooroloo Prison. His threats that he would kill himself had not been taken seriously as he was due for release three weeks later. The inquest report offered no explanation why his decomposed and decapitated body had not been discovered for more than six weeks after he went missing, leaving a suicide note in his cell. The Coroner was critical of prison proceedings which led to the prisoner being severely punished over a minor disciplinary incident.
Community organizations claim the Government Minister responsible for prisons consistently rejected calls for a reform of the prison system. Media reports in early June 1998 suggested that the Government believed police and coroners' investigations into individual deaths provided an adequate response. In April 1998 the Government announced plans to build a new prison outside the state capital in order to relieve some of the pressures on the existing prison system which officials said includes "chronic overcrowding". Amnesty International is not aware of any official Government announcement of plans to directly address recent deaths in custody. However, the Ministry of Justice has scheduled a media conference on the issue for 5 June 1998.
A senior Ministry of Justice official in charge of prison operations told Amnesty International in early June 1998 that research studies, commissioned before the recent increase in prisoner deaths, identified a wide range of problems in prisoner care, particularly of prisoners at risk of self-harm, and that the Government would consider recommendations for reform from mid-July 1998. No further details were available on these recommendations.
The Ministry's research suggests that about 30 per cent of all prisoners in Western Australia have at some stage injured or tried to kill themselves, either inside or outside prison. Prison officers interviewed by Amnesty International consider that the prison system is not equipped to address social and drug abuse problems which may be aggravated during imprisonment. Their concerns about deficiencies in officer training and prisoner medical care appear to be confirmed by the Ministry of Justice research, particularly with regard to drug abuse, the ability of prisoners to handle stress and the use of medical observation cells. These cells have been the subject of severe criticism because they lack any furniture or facilities, and because prisoners placed in them have complained they were used for punishment and isolation rather than protection or close supervision.
Coronial inquests, a 1991 judicial inquiry into deaths in custody, and reports by volunteer organizations including Amnesty International have sufficiently warned the Government about key problems associated with prison deaths. While the factors contributing to such deaths are complex, the rising rate of people who die in Western Australian prisons indicates that these problems have not been effectively addressed. Ten years after a Royal Commission began its inquiry into deaths in custody, a higher rate of prisoners are dying in Western Australia than ever before and anywhere else in Australia, some under circumstances giving rise to concerns on the adequacy of their care.
Standard Government response to prison deaths in Western Australia has been to refuse requests for comment or information pending routine police and coronial investigations. This frequently leaves deceased prisoners' relatives waiting for more than a year before evidence in the hands of the authorities is being made publicly available at a Coroner's Inquest.
The fact that prison officers have rarely been found responsible for a death in custody does not relieve the Government of its obligation to address factors known to the authorities that may well have contributed to the current increase in prisoner deaths, particularly suicides. Amnesty International therefore urges the Western Australia Government not to await the outcome of the Ombudsman inquiry before initiating steps to improve medical care, prison officer training and staffing levels, as well as procedures to ensure effective supervision and humane care of prisoners identified as "at risk".
Supervision of prisoners in special purpose cells should go beyond the actual time spent in these cells and extend to the initial phase of the prisoner's return into mainstream regimes. In addition, supervision should review the degree to which special regimes may in effect be more punishment than rehabilitation or necessary and appropriate security measures. It is in prison officers' interest to ensure that protective measures for individual prisoners do not create new risks.
In line with a recommendation by the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody on the independence of prison medical services, Amnesty International believes that the operation and funding of prison medical and welfare services should be shifted from the Ministry of Justice to other competent Government authorities.
*At the press conference on Friday 5th June, the ministry of Justice announced it would be setting up a panel of review regarding the provision of appropriate health care to inmates in Western Australian prisons. The announcement met with the following response from the Deaths In Custody Watch Committee (WA)
..."There is more to addressing this question than to permit the Justice bureaucracy to address health care issues. This government seems intent only to increase the rate of incarceration to a level that must, by extension, see an increase in the rate of custodial self harm and custodial death. A 'panel of review' is all well and good, but it must operate in the public domain. The Ministry must immediately commission this panel and discipline it to the Royal Commission Recommendations". "We continue to contend that less than 10% of the 212 custodial recommendations of the Royal Commission's 339, have been implemented"
"We believe that it comes too late for too many in Western Australia and we again call for the Ministry of Justice to be separated from corrective and custodial services. Further, we call for the custodial element to be staffed by suitably qualified professionals in the disciplines of penology and criminology at the highest level" ... injured or tried to kill themselves. 'Surely, the two units at two institutions cannot address an epidemic of this size and it must be evident to even a politician that the deaths in custody are but the tip of a huge health care iceberg."...
* The Queensland Coalition Government is to sell its state owned, privately run prisons to help recoup the $195m cost of building new prison accommodation for the increasing prison population. The Arthur Gorrie Remand and Reception Centre at Wacol, near Brisbane, has been run by Wackenhut’s Australian subsidiary since July 1992. Borallon Correctional Centre has been run by Corrections Corporation of Australia since 1990. Both companies approached the government with the sale idea. If, as expected the companies buy the facilities that they manage, the state’s first privately owned and managed prisons will be created.
* The Queensland Premier has promised an additional 2,997 prison cells over the next three years. Plans include a new maximum security prison, two juvenile detention centres, three other new prisons and the expansion of existing facilities.
* The new director of the Arthur Gorrie Centre is Kevin White, who is leaving the most troubled prison in New Zealand to take up the post. After serious riots and allegations of brutality at Paremoremo maximum security prison, west of Auckland, White has recently introduced what criminologists have called the most oppressive regime imposed this century.
*Northern Territory Chief Minister Shane Stone has recently returned from New York, enthusiastic about applying aspects of that city's policing policy in the Territory. Police commissioner Brian Bates says one way to apply it might be to charge itinerants instead of moving them on.
The Northern Australian Aboriginal Legal Aid Service says applying zero tolerance policing to itinerants will risk more Aboriginal deaths in custody. Youth advocates in central Australia are also concerned about talk of introducing a system of injunctions against potential offenders.
Mr Stone says he is impressed with a Los Angeles system of injunctions which would focus on people considered to be potential offenders - and remove their civil rights. But Central Australian Youth Justice has accused the Chief Minister of creating hysteria about law and order, rather than tackling social problems. The group's Ariel Couchman says young homeless people who congregate in public places will be targets. Ms Couchman says Alice Springs has an alarming rate of youth suicide and such policies will only make it worse.
* A private company is claiming that it can design, build and run a prison in Tasmania for $2m a year less than it would cost the state to run the existing Risdon Prison. The government wants to close and replace Risdon. Members of the Legislative Council Select Committee into Corrective Services visited Victoria’s three private prisons and found them to be well run. The Committee is reviewing the state’s prison system and considering whether privatisation would be a better option. It is also considering a proposal to have prisoners serve sentences at weekends or in their annual holidays.
*Life prisoners at Risdon will get the right to take their own lives by lethal injection if Tasmania First has its way. The controversial proposal is part of Tasmania First's law and order policy platform released in June.
Tasmania First outgoing president John Presser said serious offenders serving life sentences and about whose guilt there was no reasonable doubt, should be allowed to kill themselves.
* The premier of New South Wales, Bob Carr, has pledged to build new prisons to meet the demand for new places that will arise from his policy of ‘zero crime’ in the state. The private sector will be invited to bid for the contracts to design, build and run any new facilities. Carr told the Sunday Telegraph on 10/5/98 that "We’ve toughened the penalties, we’ve given police the powers - it’s over to the judges and the magistrates to throw the book at the criminal. We’ve just got to build more prison accommodation". Carr blames the rising crime rate on chronic unemployment, family breakdowns and the proliferation of drugs in society. New south Wales currently has one privately managed prison, Junee Correctional Centre, run by Wackenhut since 1993.
* Australasian Correctional Services, Wackenhut's Australian joint venture company, is to redevelop the immigration detention centre at Villawood in Sydney for the Australian Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (DIMA). The company won a contract to run the existing facility in December 1997. The contract to finance, design, build and maintain the new facility will be worth $22.5m. The Government. will pay an annual charge for using the new, expanded facility which will hold up to 300 detainees. Wackenhut manages three other immigration centres for the DIMA.
*The Australian National University has set up a new Centre for Commercial Law specialising in legal problems arising from the commercialisation of government services. There are plans to establish an international consulting group to include experts from New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, United States and Japan.
*Proper investigation of failures in government services were being frustrated by unjustified claims of 'commercial in confidence' or 'cabinet in confidence' according to Phillipa Smith, the former Commonwealth Ombudsman. Giving an Australian Senate Occasional Lecture in April, Ms. Smith renewed her call for the Ombudsman's Office to be given wider powers to allow proper investigation of contractual arrangements between the government and the private sector.
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