By Sean Martin-Iverson
PERTH — WA's prison system is in crisis. There have already been 10 deaths in custody since the beginning of the year. In 1997, 12 died. Deaths are likely to continue to rise as overcrowding intensifies and funding is slashed.
Plans for private, profit-driven prisons in WA will aggravate the problems. According to Glenn Shaw, chairperson of WA's Deaths in Custody Watch Committee, the state's prisons are overflowing because "there are too many people who should not be there. They include young people on drug related charges, people suffering psychiatric illnesses and the high number of Aboriginal people who continue to be imprisoned for minor offences."
Medical and counselling services are woefully inadequate, heightening the risk of suicide. On April 8, a prisoner in Casuarina Prison hung himself after being denied parole. He did not receive counselling yet was considered a high risk for suicide.
Many Aboriginal prisoners suffer lasting trauma from their forcible separation from their families and communities in early childhood. A Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody study shows that more than 50% of Aborigines who died in WA's prisons were separated.
Only 10% of the commission's 212 recommendations for changes to the criminal justice system have been implemented in WA.
Aboriginal deaths in custody extend beyond the prison system. Since 1989, 12 Aboriginal people have died during police pursuits, and four while in police cells. Most recently, on April 17, an Aboriginal man was detained, without charge, by Kalgoorlie police for being intoxicated. Despite the "sobering-up shelter" being open at the time, he was put in a police cell, where he later died.
"Clearly, the police have not yet learned the most basic lessons about their legal duty of care and their responsibility to ensure the safety and well-being of any person who is locked in a police cell", said Shaw.
The Liberal state government refuses to seriously address deaths in custody. Attorney general Peter Foss claims deaths in custody are not related to prison management, while the justice ministry's director of offender management, Athol Jamieson, described WA's prison death toll as "a blip in the statistics".