WA prison reform 'too little, too late'
By Sean Martin-Iverson
PERTH — Earlier this month, WA justice minister Peter Foss announced a new suicide prevention strategy, the first acknowledgment by the government that there is a problem in WA's prison system. While welcomed by human rights groups, it is regarded as fundamentally too little, too late.
The government is establishing a panel of review and crisis care centres developed at Casuarina and Canning Vale prisons.
After the minister's period of silence, and too many unnecessary deaths in custody, it is difficult to see how this response can be labelled as an initiative, according to WA Deaths in Custody Watch Committee chairperson Glenn Shaw.
According to the Watch Committee, fewer than 10% of the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody have been implemented in the state.
"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", said Shaw.
Amnesty International expressed support for the plan, but hopes that it is the start of a deeper process of prison reform.
Amnesty believes that "improvements in prisoner rehabilitation, social and health care delivery for prisoners should be a particular focus of long-term attention. Since many prisoners are Aborigines, young people and those with a history of drug abuse or mental health problems who serve increasingly long sentences, suicide prevention can only address crisis symptoms, not the underlying causes of deaths in custody."
Amnesty, the Watch Committee, and the Australian Medical Association have all called for the operation of prison medical and welfare services to be transferred from the Ministry of Justice to competent authorities, and for health care strategies in prisons to be designed and implemented by professionals.
The Watch Committee's Kath Mallott told Green Left that the crisis in WA's prisons (the death toll is 12 so far this year) is fundamentally due to inadequate medical and psychiatric services, combined with a high rate of incarceration.
There have been no long-term programs to deal with prisoners who are deemed at risk of suicide. Instead, the policy has been to throw them into medical observation cells, which Mallott described as "padded cells without the padding" and the "absolute worst thing you could do to someone who is depressed or suffering from high levels of anxiety".
According to Dr Heinz Schurmann-Zeggel of Amnesty International, "About 30% of all prisoners in Western Australia at some stage injured or tried to kill themselves".
Mallott said that WA incarcerates more of its citizens than any other state. Both the Court government and the previous Labor government had a "lock 'em up" policy that puts far too many people in jail who shouldn't be there. There is a tragically high number of Aboriginal people in prison, many for defaulting on fines, as well as young people on drug offences.
"The situation won't improve until the recommendations of the royal commission are instituted, which can apply to both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. Prison should be seen as an absolute last resort", Mallott said.
On June 16, members of the Watch Committee left a meeting with Ministry of Justice officials in protest at attempts to silence the vocal prison group, which has repeatedly called on Foss to resign.
Mallott was accused of intimidating ministry and prison staff through constant questioning of the adequacy of health services and the high number of deaths. Shaw said the Committee had no intention of backing off.