Victorian private prison deaths
MELBOURNE — The Port Phillip (private) Prison in Laverton North started receiving men in mid-September. In just five months, there have been many very serious problems, in particular five deaths in custody in the past nine weeks.
At no other time in Victoria's history have there been five deaths in custody in such a short period of time at the one prison (with the exceptions of the Jika fires where five men died and the fire at Fairlea Women's Prison where three women on remand died).
In addition, there have been reports of at least one incident of self-harm and/or attempted suicide per day since the prison opened — almost 100 incidents!
The Port Phillip Prison, like the Fulham (private) Correctional Centre, has been built with hanging points in the majority of cells; 580 cells at Port Phillip and 490 cells at Fulham have horizontal metal bars on the inside of the windows and a solid shower screen — both hanging points.
Since mid-March, concerns have been raised about such hanging points with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commission, the Office of Correctional Services Commissioner, Australasian Correctional Management (Wackenhut), the operators of Fulham, and Group 4 Correction Services, the operators of Port Phillip Prison.
Group 4, ACM and the Victorian government are explicitly violating a critical recommendation of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
The government is claiming that because Muirhead cells (strip cells) have no obvious hanging points, they have complied with recommendation 165 which explicitly states: "Corrective Services authorities should carefully scrutinise equipment or facilities provided at institutions with a view to eliminating and/or reducing the potential for harm. Similarly steps should be taken to screen hanging points in police and prison cells."
A Group 4 executive, Stephen Twinn, told the corrections working group of the Federation of Community Legal Centres last July 25 that the six horizontal bars placed on the inside of cell windows were there to "waterproof the building". In Port Phillip Prison the shower screens provide additional hanging points; it was from the shower screens that two young men (George Drinken and Adam Irwin) were found hanging.
Numerous coroner findings in Victoria, South Australia and Queensland have also recommended the removal of hanging points in both prison and police cells.
With the opening of Fulham and Port Phillip Prison, one-third of all adults prison cells in Victoria are now replete with integral hanging points. Yet the government is claiming it has implemented recommendation 165. Correctional Services commissioner John van Gronigen even stated, after the fifth death in custody at Port Phillip, that he is "satisfied with the prison's management".
There have also been reports of widespread violence, standovers, relentless lock-downs, long delays for visitors and several near riots in Port Phillip Prison.
The following people have died in custody at Port Phillip Prison: George Drinken, aged 28, on remand, was found hanging from the shower fitting in his cell on October 30; Adam Irwin, aged 20, on remand, was found hanged with an electrical cord from the shower fitting on December 16; Vienh Chi Tu, aged 20, on remand, died, it is believed, from a drug overdose on January 4; and another two men have died in the prison, allegedly of "natural causes".
Cheryl Black died in the private Metropolitan Women's Correctional Centre in March. This brings the total number of deaths in private prisons in Victoria to six.
Another fundamental problem with the Port Phillip and Fulham is that they are systematically understaffed. There has been a high turnover of custodial and some medical staff. There are concerns that newly recruited staff have received only two weeks' "on-the-job training".
Corrections minister Bill McGrath has admitted that staff at the Metropolitan Women's Corrections Centre were inadequately trained to perform their duties. It appears that the same can be said for Fulham and Port Phillip.
There are only eight staff working during night shifts at the Port Phillip: eight staff to monitor and respond to emergencies in a prison with almost 600 male prisoners consisting of remand, high security, sentenced, intellectually disabled and vulnerable prisoners and protection prisoners. The vast majority of staff have no experience in corrections.
Large sections of the management contract, and all of the operating manuals and interface plans for the three private prisons, are still deemed to be commercially confidential, i.e., secret. Therefore, the public is denied access to important information relating to the actions and procedures which the companies are bound to put into place to prevent and respond to deaths in custody.
Statistics about incidents of self-harm and attempted suicides have been concealed on the basis that this information is now "information of a business or financial nature" and thus commercially confidential.
The families of the men who died in Port Phillip Prison have found it virtually impossible to get information about how and why their sons died. A coroner's inquest into the five deaths is more than a year away. The inquest into the death of Cheryl Black has not yet been listed for hearing with the Coroner's Court.
Group 4 has contracted a private detective, John Barclay from Cobra Executive Protection, to undertake an "independent" investigation into the deaths of the first four men to die in custody at Port Phillip. This is the first time a private detective has been contracted by a prison to investigate a death within the prison.
When the corrections working group of the Federation of Community Legal Centres met with Barclay on January 6, he had been investigating the death of George Drinken for more than two months, yet he did not have a copy of the edited prison contract, nor any awareness of the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody or previous coroners' findings.
We have concerns about the independence of Barclay and the probity of privatising deaths in custody investigation processes.
If you are concerned, write to Bill McGrath, minister for corrections (Victoria), 55 St Andrews Place, Melbourne 3000, phone (03) 9651 0333, fax (03) 9651 6910 or John van Gronigen, Commissioner of the Office of Correctional Services, GPO Box 123A Melbourne 3001, ph (03) 9627 6600 or fax (03) 9627 6611; and/or organise a speaker on deaths in custody and private prisons to address your trade union, school or community group.
[From the People's Justice Alliance, PO Box 1567, Collingwood Vic 3066.]