Overcrowding in Casaurina Maximum Security Prison Perth
Is it true that crime should be dealt with by punishment rather than healing?
Is the problem with prisons poor management or prisoner behaviour?
Is it true that private companies should profit out of prisons?
Should foreign multinationals run prisons and other public sector services?
Do prisoners owe society or is it society that owes them given influences, inequality and structural violence?
This is a quote from the link below. My thought was spending money on peace education as a preventative strategy in addition to expanding beds in prisoners. It appears the prison system in Western Australia (WA) is at capacity. It would be interesting to understand the reasons why this is? What are solutions to reduce the prison population?
“…Mr Logan said the overcrowding of WA’s prisons had been caused by the poor management of the situation by the former Barnett Government, which promised a new $600 million prison at the State election.”
I’ve just watched a documentary called ‘Lockdown Oz: Maximum Security’. I have worked with Corrective Services in Queensland at a minimum security prison. I was a secretary taking shorthand at a meeting. I remember coming into the prison and the big gates closing behind me, clunk and lock. It was very daunting. It made me reflect on what it would be like to lose your freedom. Another time I clowned at a Dention facility that was a maximum security prison, I saw how refugees were treated similarly to prisoners. I contemplated the vulnerablity and lack of rights of people when they have no say. There is no democracy in jail and increasingly rights are diminishing.
This is the documentary click here: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2qtg76
In the documentary the narrator framed the prisoners as very dangerous, that incidents happened all the time and that it is not a good place. He even mentioned an Al Qaida trained inmate, that sounded unusual. It all created drama and the sense that they deserve to be locked up. Apparently the jail has a reputation for being the toughest prison in the country. However, I noted whilst this person was there a few incidents happened, interestingly they were suicide or health related. There had been violent incidents, it would be interesting to understand the drivers of the conflict. Not just physical descriptions but psychological drivers and life under incarceration.
One incident happened where this guy tried to cut his own throat. They ran to prevent him self harming. I saw women nurses treating him and saw the blade slashes. He was refusing treatment and defensive with all the guards around him. They took him into isolation and observed him. There he lay on his bed. I saw him put his head in his hands. I suddenly burts out crying. I just wept and wept. I knew his pain instantly. I can feel the tears right now as I write this. I saw the notes on walls where they just want to die to be free. I understood. No-one put their arm around him to comfort him. He was isolated and watched he was not supported to help him release the painful feelings. I felt so sad for him. My heart wanted to reach out and help him. I wondered how I can help others.
They may be big burly men but they are suffering very deeply and they miss female company as the calendars showed and books on women. I wondered about them wanting to mastabate given they are sexual. Can you imagine them wanting to do this privately and having cameras on them. Is this a violation of the rights to be alone and not watched. The fact a woman was watching I think is inappropriate.
Why do they have females at the prison? That in my view is unacceptable for the women and for them. As it places temptation before men who haven’t had sex and would feel hungry. One woman apparently was raped brutally and tortured it was reported. I look to the prison authorities and the dysfunction of men not being able to have sex with partners. Rape is a power issue so he clearly felt powerless as did the woman who would never recover from the attack. Workplace health and safety clearly was not assured and it created a risk to women’s safety. I noted women are still there. I would ask why?
I listened to the head of the prison, who appeared a very nice man actually. He said the punishment is the sentence not their time in jail. He had a policy where he encouraged the staff to interact with prisoners and indicated they would be safer. Now that is an interesting statement and testifies to building relationships with people rather than isolating them and demonising them for crimes. He is alluding to what pacifies them in feeling respected and not bullied. He indicated they were treated as how the wardens would want to be treated and this revealed respect. He said in other jails that is not the case. The poor men when they leave jail continue to be demonised as society finds out they have offended and people are suspicious of them. They do not get jobs and are second class citizens. So having done their time they are punished their whole lives. No forgiveness. There has to be reintegration into society. I do not think they should reveal to human resources previous crimes, as anyone can steal. If you don’t treat a person with respect then they will resent you and go back to that life. That is not what society would want.
(I felt overnight to add these sections, there is repetition but I will allow that for reinforcement)
I question that there are two prisons privatised in Western Australia. I believe Casuarina is government run. I am concerned about the trend to off load government services to foreign or Australian private sector companies. What this does is make it 1) a business 2) not accountable to the public (families) and 3) secrecy citing business interests. I puzzled over the workshop in the film with tools such as chisels, saws, screw drivers and the narrator saying they were violent. Well clearly those in the workshop are perceived as safe enough to be allowed tools. There must be a viewpoint that for the most part they are cooperative. I then considered overnight if this becomes privatised, if those products they make are sold as a commercial enterprise then the issue of exploitation arises. Cheap labour. We have seen this in Work for the Dole of unemployed people where they are forced to work below the minimum wage with the argument of training. I do not agree with this. There is also the line that they must pay back society. What if – it was the very conditions in that dysfunctional society that created the problem – parents fighting, low socio-economic, low education, low self esteem, violent role models, games, films etc. Is it society they owe or does society owe them? No-one ever asks that question. It is assumed they are violent and must be punished. Does the punishment work? It would be interesting to interview them and follow their lives post jail.
If people are abused in prisons they feel vulnerable. Abuse can be discarded as an ‘eye for an eye’ to teach them a lesson, to scare them from reoffending as guards want to be ‘top dog’. Moreover, abuses and bullying can be covered up as we saw in the detention centres – Christmas Island, Manus and Nauru given private companies. Some of the guards are ex-army or ex-police and would have a heavy hand as power dynamics are of master – servant and suppression. Does this type of system reform men or does it embitter them? What of indigenous men who have a completely different code in the bush. If they are isolated and not emotionally healed then they may reoffend as patterns didn’t change inside or outside. If society rejects them then they will turn to where they belong and fall in with those who understand and accept them. This type of work should be about psychology and healing.
I noted there were different types of prisoners, some were drug dealers, drug offences, others committed robbery, some paedophiles, others rapists and murders. These are different categories of crime driven by different psychology. Is it wise to put them together or could they be sectioned off so programs that address these specific issues and behaviours are targetted. These groups could become support groups in a process of recovery and reintegration. They seem to be lumped in together as prisoners inmates and called that. One female guard had very fearful views of them calling them animals and sharks as if they were unreformable, it is who they are rather than what they have done. I noted she didn’t have any psychology to understand why they had committed the crimes. I wonder if they were trained in conflict resolution? It is important to note they are not committing those crimes in the prison in that moment, they are charged with crimes that occurred in the past. Is it true that past behaviour predicts future behaviour? What if the violence arose through certain conditions. Can that be identified on their file? What were the triggers, what were the beliefs, what was the background, how do they feel about who they are, how do they regard respect, what was good in their life, what hurt them and importantly, what works for them? etc. These are deeper questions that have to be understood. it is not soft stuff it is the real stuff if you want to change behaviour, you must deal with the socio-emotional factors formulating who they think they are. For example an aggressive man is fearful, a rapist fears the power of women, a robbery identifies with moeny as success and possessions, a drug dealer is seduced by greed, a man who uses violence to control does not know self awareness, he reacts to his impulses triggered by feeling less than the other and needing to assert his power to gain what he believes is his dignity. So things are not as they appear on the surface. I believe those watching over the men should not be guards but social workers with additional training on how to guard them. I believe then you will see real reform. It is the nature of people to cooperate, it is the nature of people to be kind, it is the nature of humans to be loving. When they do not demonstrate these feelings it is because no-one has demononstrated this to them or they have been told it is weak and they will be vulnerable. This is a false teaching which does not serve men. Men need to not keep busy but to stop and breathe to feel what they have long suppressed. The suppressed emotions do not go away but can break out in times of stress. The only way to integrate negative emotions is to sit and feel them and allow them without reaction then the emotions actually release. Men can learn breathing techniques as quieten the mind, to trust the moment, to find peace. There are very few jails in the world that understand this as they are run by bureaucrats with compliance and enforcement mindsets, not healing and self awareness as the pathway to living into society in freedom.
Casurina jail is near Perth in Western Australia, a few hundred kilometers away. Apparently half of the prison population are indigenous. I noted none of the guards were indigenous. They are desert aborigines most don’t speak English and for them it is another planet when they are incarcerated. They don’t get visitors. An interesting comment from one of the indigenous prisoners explained without connection to country they feel they have no identity. I found that fascinating as they feel the country and they are one. They need to be on their tribal lands. We so have no idea who they are and how they feel. The prison guards were all white, some British with no relatedness to the these men. I question why indigenous guards are not there.
There was a scene in the documentary where guards were training with machine guns. I thought of Nazi Germany. They are licenced to kill. I find that really concerning.
I also question how we deal with people who have committed crimes. I note they work in the prison. They are paid $50 per week. I wondered if the training they received and products they made were commercialised. This means people could be profiting from their labour. I believe in equality no matter if a person is in prison or not. The crime is not the person. No person should be exploited for their labour. If the prisoners have a choice to engage in work or not that should be free will and paying them more than $50 per week, to be paid a reasonable amount so they can support their families and built up income to support them when they are released.
According to this documentary the prison was built to house 400 inmates (refer 5.16 in film) The article below says 691. I wonder if that is misinformation supplied by Corrective Services? They said at the time of the documentary that overcrowding caused riots at Christmas 1998 tension exploded, they were violent, bloody, used bricks as missiles. They were described as a pack of animals. Three or four officers were chased by 60 prisoners with iron bars trying to kill this officer. The running battle lasted 5 hours, 50 staff and prisoners required medical treatment, yet no-one was killed. It was due to overcrowding was blamed for the riot and tempers clearly flared. Christmas is a time for families and they would feel their isolation more intensely. There was no narrative around how the men felt and the deeper issues of why they rioted. In the article below the prison population in now 1,000. I am shocked to learn this and given Corrective Services know the prison is housing 2.5 times more people than it is built for, that must be culpability. It would not surprise me if conditions influenced a desire to escape.
The report is scathing about conditions according to the article below citing crowded conditions, housing those on remand with inmates, unsafe food preparation, delays in medical treatment, unacceptable risks and not commensurate with international standards. The issue of privacy and dignity was evident with continual surveillance even in the shower. There has to be an Senate inquiry into this. This is appalling and it has to be a violation of human rights. I am these days concerned about prisons, detention centres and any other form of policing over people and the way people are treated. I have concerns about violence directed towards prisoners and I can only imagine in some prisons, a hard line without any understanding of people’s feelings and needs. I certainly heard the prison guards express how hard it was and the importance of vigilance, I certainly could imagine it wouldn’t be easy from their perspective. So how to reconcile these different worlds in order to achieve peaceful outcomes?
If I ran a prison firstly I would not allow overcrowding. I would resign. I would then blow the whistle on it as a human right. I would teach them peace through meditation, to calm them down and to help them with techniques when anger comes up. I would teach them inquiry to question their own thoughts so when they saw issues come up they would know it can be dealt with on paper rather than projecting out anger onto other people. I would give them the tools to transform negativity and conflict and to know themselves as who they really are, not the image they have as a prisoner. I would call them by their names (not prisoners) and learn about their lives and backgrounds. I would help them to learn how to express how they feel so unconscious suppressed traumas surface and release, breathing is a good technique for integrating unintegrated emotions not dealt with. I would work on building empathy towards others and show them uplifting films (no violence). I would teach them nonviolence and show them the life of Gandhi and those who were truly courageous as role models. I would encourage education and to learn new skills to empower them and inspire them, so each day is interesting. I would teach conflict resolution so if tempers flares they learn how to work it through and hold discussions to really help the prisoners know each other and learn, as wisdom is inherent in every person. I’d love to explore how they would do things differently now they have had time to reflect. I would not place people with mental health issues with regular prisoners, I would have those people treated and given special programs to deal with the trauma.
For me, love cares, shares, reveals and heals. This is not an idealistic statement it is the truth of human nature when we focus there. I see no-one as intrinsically bad but I believe they have bad influencers, role models and fall into with the wrong crowd. I also know lack of love is the space for violence. When love, compassion and caring are felt then violence can’t happen. There may be a small percentage who are unreformable (damaged severely, or born) and they would need to be monitored and given case workers to really work with them to manage behaviours, impulses and desires to harm. Health and safety would be the number one focus. Safety would require a focus on peace building, empathy and conflict transformation as the tools of rehabilitation as that is what many need to learn. Most of us do not learn how to deal with negativity, violent thoughts, frustrations, anxiety, fears and anger. Each person would be different but they can be taught how to be empowered to deal with their own issues.
I note that the head of the prison was concerned about overcrowding. He clearly didn’t agree with the government. I wonder if he is still there given he appears a wise leader. It is noteworthy that the prisoner behaviour is affected by crowded conditions. If they become violent they are penalised not those responsible in the system that has enabled overcrowding. I am not convinced by the political responses in the article.
So here is the article. I would like to acknowlege the ABC who I am finding are really covering important stories. They bring to light these issues that would normally be ignored.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-22/toilets-used-as-cells-in-dreadful-casuarina-prison-overcrowding/8831774
Casuarina Prison toilets used as holding cells due to ‘dreadful’ overcrowding
Updated
Inmates at one of Perth’s biggest jails are being denied “dignity and privacy” in a facility so overcrowded that a toilet is sometimes used as a temporary holding cell for prisoners, a new report has found.
Two prisoners are routinely being crammed into what were designed as small single cells at Casuarina Prison — conditions the Inspector of Custodial Services described as “dreadful”.
The report also found detainees were being denied appropriate health care, food for prisoners was being prepared in a potentially unsafe way and inmates’ hopes of mounting a successful appeal were being dented by the level of overcrowding.
The facilities at Casuarina were initially built to house 691 prisoners, but they are now home to nearly 1,000 inmates after its population boomed in the past decade.
Inspector Neil Morgan warned there were “unacceptable risks” as a result of the huge number of inmates at the facility and the high prisoner turnover.
“The prison cannot even attempt to meet international standards,” his report stated.
“Prisoners at Casuarina are locked in their cell at night for 12 hours or more.
“Cell sharing in these circumstances results in an inherent loss of dignity and privacy.”
Mr Morgan said he was particularly concerned about remand detainees routinely being housed with sentenced inmates, something he said fell short of international expectations.
Routine medical screenings were also being unduly delayed and existing facilities were inadequate to meet the physical and mental health care needs of prisoners.
The report also revealed that meat for prisoners was allowed to defrost for 24 hours without refrigeration and food in storage was left unprotected, while cooks had not undergone basic hygiene training and kitchens lacked soap dispensers.
The Department of Justice admitted Casuarina faced a “range of operational challenges” but said progress had been made towards improving the facility’s operations.
“There is no doubt a rising remand population has impacted Casuarina’s available resources, affecting its performance, management of offenders and ability to deliver services,” Acting Corrective Services Commissioner Tony Hassall said.
“With support from key stakeholders we are working to address this, having initiated two key projects earlier this year that will benefit Casuarina and the wider prison estate.”
New prison plans scrapped
Earlier this year, the McGowan Government confirmed it had scrapped plans for a new Perth prison due to the former Liberal-National administration not including money for it in the budget.
The Government has instead pledged to stem the growth in prisoner numbers, something Mr Morgan said was an “admirable objective” but would be difficult to achieve.
“The goal of pegging the prison population can only be achieved with strong political resolve, strong planning with viable alternatives to imprisonment and a clear sense of direction,” the report stated.
Corrective Services Minister Fran Logan indicated the prospect of funding a new jail would not be revisited, but said he was confident the situation could be improved by changes to prison management and more minor spending.
“We have been able to find some money that I think will be able to alleviate some of the problems,” he said.
“The constraints that are placed on the prison because of the overcrowding is probably the most concerning thing.”
Opposition Leader Mike Nahan said the former government did “extensive work” planning for a new prison, but Labor had simply chosen to abandon that.
Note: I have added a few videos, the first I noted has AC/DC ‘jail break’ as a sound track. I realised after I watched it, it was compiled by a prisoner. The song says it all. It uses segments from the documentary I watched tonight. It is important that the prisoners have a voice, but how can they speak honestly when incarcerated. There could be ramifications. However, a survey of the prison populations serving jail terms and after release could be very revealing.
Another link: https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/triple-bunking-120m-for-overcrowded-wa-prisons-20171217-h066iw.html
The second video is a documentary on Maitland Jail, NSW.