The Sydney Morning Herald
Death by default
Date: 28/07/2000
An extraordinary spate of deaths in custody has brought the spotlight back
to WA's tough stance on law and order, writes David Reardon.
MAYBE Simon Otero was just another crim. And maybe it was guilt over his -
still unproven - criminal acts which drove the 19-year-old to slip a noose
around his neck. Whatever the reason, after spending less than 24 hours
inside Perth's Hakea Remand Centre, Otero was found hanging in his cell by
prison guards. He had not been convicted of any crime but was in custody
awaiting trial.
That was last month. Now his case will never be heard, and Otero goes down
as just one more West Australian jail death - another personal tragedy all
but ignored by a society with little compassion for those behind bars.
In fact, Otero's suicide is remembered only because he is one of no less
than eight WA prisoners to die in custody in just seven weeks spanning May
and June, the worst spate of deaths since 1989 when a royal commission on
the issue was set up.
The WA Government appears unconcerned, describing it as a "run of bad luck"
and a "statistical variation" which should correct itself over the year.
The WA Deaths in Custody Watch Committee, church leaders and criminologists
disagree, blaming the deaths on overcrowding, mismanagement and hardline
law-and-order policies. And it inevitably refocuses attention on WA's
mandatory sentencing regime even though none of those who died was being
detained because of it.
So far this year 10 men, including six Aborigines, have died in custody.
Three of the latest eight deaths were from natural causes but five men
committed suicide by hanging - a fact which infuriates Watch Committee
director Kath Mallott, who points out that one of the royal commission's
fundamental recommendations was for all hanging points to be removed from
cells. "How many more young men will have to die before this Government
acts on the recommendations?" Mallott asks.
But WA's Attorney-General and Justice Minister, Peter Foss, dismisses the
Watch Committee as "frothing at the mouth" and "quite wrong" in its
criticism. Foss says prisoners had been found to be more susceptible to
suicide than the general population and simply reducing hanging points was
not the answer.
"I think that the royal commission recommendation on hanging points has
killed more prisoners than anything else ... You don't need a hanging point
to hang, you can hang yourself lying on the floor," he says.
Foss says safe cells - those without any hanging points - are so sterile
that they are a form of torture for prisoners. "We found that people were
not telling us if they were suicidal because they didn't want to go into
safe cells."
Foss claims WA is around the national average for deaths in custody. "I
don't like any number of deaths in custody but I am not going to apologise
and say we have a problem when we don't. It may just be a statistical
variation so I would not assume that something is going wrong. We have had
a look at all the deaths [but] there doesn't appear to be any neglect. I
think we have actually had a run of bad luck."
Foss acknowledges the high rate of imprisonment of indigenous people in WA
(they account for 40 per cent of the prison muster) but says the State has
not been successful in attempts to divert Aboriginal offenders to
community-based programs.
But Professor David Biles, a Canberra criminologist who headed up research
for the deaths in custody royal commission, says it is the failure to keep
people out of jail which has pushed up prison suicides around Australia:
"In WA, with around 3,000 prisoners, you would expect around nine deaths a
year. But eight deaths in seven weeks is just off the chart. It is absurd."
A report just released by the Australian Institute of Criminology recorded
85 deaths in custody in 1999, 10 fewer than the previous year. But
Aborigines, who make up 2 per cent of the population, accounted for almost
one quarter. There were 19 Aboriginal deaths last year, seven of them in
the Northern Territory and WA, where mandatory sentencing laws exist. The
highest number of deaths was recorded in NSW, with 31 including eight
indigenous prisoners.
Biles says that though many of the commission's recommendations have been
acted on, the number of deaths remains high because State governments are
pursuing tougher crime and sentencing laws. "The basic recommendation of
the royal commission was that prison should be used as a last resort. But
the opposite has happened. In the last 15 years, the number of prisoners in
Australia has doubled from 9,500 in 1987 to around 21,000 this year," he says.
"This is not because of an increase in crime but because of political
pressure. Governments came up with all these tough-on-crime slogans such as
'truth in sentencing', 'three strikes and you're in' and 'mandatory
sentencing'. So there are more people in jail and as a result, deaths in
custody have also increased."
While prison populations around the nation are growing, WA's rate is
highest with 208 prisoners for every 100,000 people. Victoria has the
lowest incarceration rate, with only 84 prisoners per 100,000 people.
The imprisonment rate for Aboriginal men in the West is much higher again,
with 5,602 indigenous males in jail for every 100,000 people. Aboriginal
women are also well above the average at 507 per 100,000.
As a result, Aboriginal men, like 39-year-old Fred Riley, make up about
half of WA's deaths in custody. Riley was three years into a minimum
15-year sentence for aggravated armed robbery when prison guards found him
lying on the floor of his cell at Casuarina Prison last month. He had
suffered a stroke and was rushed to Fremantle Hospital, but died six hours
later.
His widow, Marie, told the Herald she was furious that authorities had not
notified her that he was in hospital. By the time she was alerted, her
husband was already dead. She says her husband had never had much of a hope
of coping in the community after being first locked up at 14. In the past
25 years he had never known more than three months of freedom.
Maree McIntosh, whose 18-year-old son Gregory hanged himself in Albany
Prison in 1998, believes that because most Australians are frightened and
angry about crime rates, they are largely unconcerned if prisoners die in
jail. A convicted armed robber and drug addict, her son was about to be
locked in solitary confinement as a disciplinary measure when he committed
suicide. She says he was petrified of going into the isolated cell.
"They are there to be punished and I accept that. My son knew right from
wrong even when he was on drugs, but he didn't need to be treated like an
animal ... A lot of people say big deal, he was just a waste of taxpayers'
money, just someone else we don't have to pay for. But Greg was still a
human being. He was still my son."
Glenn Shaw, from the WA Aboriginal Legal Service, believes a contributing
factor is that the Justice Ministry employs only one full-time psychologist
for more than 3,000 inmates. He claims distressed prisoners wait up to
three weeks for an appointment.
"The prison officers, in the main, do a damn good job. The problem is that
the management is found wanting because they don't know how to handle
problem situations," Shaw says.
"Troubled prisoners are either doped to the eyeballs or put in isolation -
where they are away from watching eyes, the pressure mounts and self-harm
is the first option."
WA's prisons came under fire last year when the Human Rights Commissioner,
Chris Sidoti, attacked the Justice Ministry for keeping prisoners locked
down 23 hours a day for six months after a Christmas Day riot at Casuarina
Prison.
But Foss says the same regime criticised as oppressive in Australia was
normal for medium-security prisoners in Britain. And, he adds, the number
of deaths had dropped last year under the strict regime. "You get deaths in
custody when you are soft. Now that we have eased the regime, the deaths
have gone up again."
Those who've died
May 7: Aboriginal Leslie Wesley, 32, found hanged at Casuarina Prison while
awaiting sentence.
May 7: Aboriginal Fred Riley, 39, found on the floor of his cell after
suffering a stroke. Died in hospital.
May 22:Aboriginal Jason Paul Matthews, 30, collapsed in a work area at
Casuarina Prison. Medical staff unable to revive him.
May 23: Bradley James Savory, 27, hanged himself at Albany Regional Prison.
May 26: Aboriginal Kirk Lawson, 25, collapsed and died soon after from
natural causes at the Eastern Goldfields Regional Prison.
June 5: Scott Davidson, 26, found hanged in his cell at Casuarina Prison.
June 15: Simon Otero, 19, found hanged at Hakea Remand Centre. He was
behind bars for less than 24 hours.
June 25: Gerhardus Theron, 39, found hanged in his cell at Hakea Prison.
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