LL:PR:A PRESSURE COOKER MAKES ITS OWN A RELEASE VALVE

[Deaths In Custody Watch Commitee (WA) Inc.]

media release
DEATHS IN CUSTODY
WATCH COMMITTEE (WA) Inc.
        
119 MATHIESON RD        ASCOT WA 6104
        
Tel:    61 (0)8 9277 1533       Fax:    61 (0)8 9478 4204
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]       
URL:    http://www.omen.net.au/~dicwc

Saturday, 26 December 1998

A PRESSURE COOKER MAKES ITS OWN A RELEASE 
VALVE

"Will this Premier ever listen?" asked the Executive Officer of 
the Deaths in Custody Watch Committee of Western Australia, 
Ms Kath Mallott.  "It is clear that the time is overdue for the 
appointment of a properly resourced, independent and public 
judicial inquiry.  An inquiry that must take as is starting terms of 
reference the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths In 
Custody and this government's failure to implement their 
recommendations by Mr Foss' not so super Ministry of Justice"  
Ms Mallot said in response to yesterday's events in Casuarina 
Prison.

"How many times must we ask, and the custodial system itself 
demonstrate, that it is in a state of crisis?  The Watch 
Committee is concerned for both the victims of this 
mismanagement; the prisoners and their custodians, and the 
families of all those who work and are incarcerated within the 
custodial facilities of Mr Foss" she said.

"The failure to offer adequate alternatives to imprisonment, 
indeed, the failure by the politicians of this State to use prison 
as an option of last resort, as is recommended by the Royal 
Commission into Aboriginal Deaths In Custody and the United 
Nations, has led us to this situation of gross overcrowding" Ms 
Mallott emphasised. 

"This Committee has asked a number of times this year for 
inquiry into Mr Foss' Ministry, as the prison death toll in Richard 
Court's Western Australia has risen to the highest level in 
recorded history.  It is not just the overcrowding but also a 
whole raft of other issues linked one to another" Kath Mallott 
said.  
 
"When will this government stop hiding behind its populist Law 
and Order rhetoric, and start addressing the causes of crime in 
a genuine effort to reduce the prison population?  We call on 
the government to abandon the failed simplistic 'lockem-up' 
response." 

"We urge all those in custody to continue to exercise restraint 
and dignity in spite of the systems negligence and in spite of 
these continuing shamefully overcrowded conditions under 
which they are incarcerated" the Executive Officer concluded.
===============================================
"To monitor and work to ensure the effective implementation 
of the recommendations of the Royal Commission Into 
Aboriginal Deaths In Custody"
===============================================

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