Alex Bainbridge, Hobart
Prison reform activists have slammed the Tasmanian government for not listening to their concerns prior to a siege at Risdon Prison in the north-east of Hobart. Prisoners held a prison officer captive and took control of the prison's reception area in the siege that went from May 7 to May 9.
Caroline Dean from Prison Action and Reform told Green Left Weekly that the group had been trying to alert the government for many months before the siege occurred that there were problems in the prison.
" We have warned the attorney general's department over many months that [the situation] was reaching crisis point at the prison", Dean said. "Prisoners feel that they have not had their voices heard by the management and that their complaints haven't been taken seriously, let alone addressed.
"The siege was just a symptom of all those tensions. As far as we're concerned, it was a desperate act by desperate people who weren't being listened to. The responsibility for this must fall squarely at the attorney-general's feet."
University of Tasmania criminologist Rob White agrees. He told GLW that the siege "indicates there is a clear need to improve both the living conditions of prisoners and the working conditions of the custodial officers.
"These issues have been around for years and years and the time for action has always been now.
"Rather than trying to scapegoat prison advocacy groups or criminalise further the actions of prisoners, it is imperative that the government address the underlying issues — and the issues are really about human rights and treating people like human beings rather than caging them like animals."
Those of the prisoners' demands reported in the establishment media focused on the quality of prisoners' food and the call for resignations by attorney-general Judy Jackson and the director of prisons, Graeme Barber.
"They are not asking for floor heating and breakfast in bed on Sundays; they just want to be treated like human beings", Louise Jenkins, the fiancee of a Risdon prisoner, told the May 9 Hobart Mercury.
In addition to denying claims of poor quality food, the government has claimed that the new prison being built near the existing prison will solve many of the problems. "We're literally re-building the system from the ground up new buildings and a new operating model", Jackson wrote in a letter to the May 18 Mercury. "This will make it possible for us to manage inmates according to their needs and to provide a broader range of rehabilitation programs."
Not so, says White. When asked if the new prison could solve the existing problems, he argued that more urgent and fundamental changes were required.
"Firstly, if you violate human rights today, you don't wait until tomorrow to rectify the situation", White told GLW. "We need change today."
"The second point is that prison reform is not a matter of bricks and mortar. It is about changing the social infrastructure of a corrections system. In Risdon, one of the key problems has been a heavy reliance on a containment philosophy instead of a rehabilitation philosophy.
"The government and prison authorities have been totally defensive and their response [to the siege] has indicated no movement whatsoever towards either a rehabilitation philosophy or a philosophy of restorative justice."
Similarly, Dean told GLW that Prison Action and Reform don't believe that the new prison will solve Risdon's problems. "We have a systemic and cultural problem and, if that is not addressed, the whole cultural problem will just move into the new prison."
Dean also pointed out that the aftermath of the siege is concerning because "the government has clearly tried to scapegoat and blame us".
Since the siege, Dean has been denied access to the prison, without satisfactory explanation. This has prevented her from continuing her professional role as a tutor to one of the prisoners.
"Why are they stopping us from doing this?" she asked. "Why are they so scared of what we're exposing?"
Dean told GLW that prison management went to great lengths to make it difficult for prisoners to communicate with Prison Action and Reform. Nevertheless, she vowed: "We will continue to fight to change this appalling system".
"Every time the blame is shifted away from the system itself and put onto groups like ours, the day-to-day human rights abuses that are occurring at Risdon Prison are not being addressed."
"The fact is, you could release over 50% of prisoners — those who are in for non-violent crimes", said White.
"The point I'm trying to make is that, in general, prisons don't work — they never have. Most of the people in prison shouldn't be there and don't need to be there because they're not really a genuine threat to the rest of society.
"So it's a lot more constructive and productive to keep people in the community and to see punishment as a way in which offenders can learn about the harm that they have perpetrated while at the same time putting something back into the community."
From Green Left Weekly, June 1, 2005.
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