Supermax prisoners win challenge
By Karen Fredericks
BRISBANE — The Queensland Supreme Court ruled on July 28 that the Maximum Security Unit (MSU) at the Woodford Correctional Centre near Brisbane was operated unlawfully for nearly two years. In response, ALP prisons minister Tom Barton said he made "no apology" for illegally holding the "worst of the worst" in indefinite solitary confinement. In a touching display of bipartisan solidarity, the Coalition agreed.
The ruling is the latest stage in a struggle by prisoners in the MSU against the inhuman regime of solitary confinement, sensory deprivation and utter social isolation they have suffered since the unit began to be used to house escapees and prison rebels in mid-1997.
In April 1998 the entire 20-man unit went on a hunger strike for several days, demanding a judicial inquiry into the lawfulness of the unit following legal advice from the Prisoners Legal Service. Coalition prisons minister Russell Cooper threatened PLS staff with criminal prosecution for "inciting prisoner unrest" with their advice.
When the Department of Corrective Services first proposed a high-technology super maximum security unit in 1995, it was to be for short-term stays, to provide "time out" and intensive psychological intervention for prisoners with "behaviour problems". According to DCS policy, no prisoner would spend more than six months there.
PLS solicitor Karen Fletcher, who represented the seven men who initiated the legal challenge, told Green Left Weekly the nature of the unit changed as a result of politicking by Cooper: "Brendan Abbott and the others who escaped from Sir David Longland prison were recaptured some months after MSU opened. Cooper responded to media hysteria by shoving the escapees straight in there and changing the policy to allow prisoners to be kept there indefinitely."
The Supreme Court declared the unit had been operated unlawfully because of the indefinite confinement. Just prior to the case being heard earlier this year, the government hurriedly introduced legislation allowing prisoners to be kept in solitary for no more than six months without a new order by DCS.
Two of the seven prisoners PLS have now been placed back into the mainstream prison population. The other five have been kept in the MSU.
Fletcher said the struggle against the MSU would continue. "Labor's legislation is a little better than no legal framework at all — which is how the unit was operating before. Prisoners are now entitled to a review after six months in the unit, but that review is not independent or external. There is no obligation on the department to take account of psychiatric or other medical factors or to consider the purpose being served by placement of prisoners in the regime.
"In my opinion the main purpose of this regime is now to enable politicians to rave on about the 'worst of the worst'. It is not making the world any safer — in fact, after a few years in the MSU, I think most people would become quite anti-social and even dangerous."