Inspector of Custodial Services releases damning report into conditions at three WA prisons
The Inspector of Custodial Services says three WA prisons are failing to meet basic minimum standards.
In short:
The Inspector of Custodial Services has released a report outlining deteriorating conditions at Hakea, Casuarina and Melaleuca Prisons.
He says prisoners are being subjected to "cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment".
What's next:
The WA government has been urged to undertake "high-level strategic reforms" as a matter of urgency.
WA prisoners are being subjected to "cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment" because the government has allowed the state's prison system to become "almost functionally broken".
That is the stark conclusion of a report released today by the state's Inspector of Custodial Services, Eamon Ryan, who said the same factors which led to a major prison riot in 2018 exist across three prisons today.
It has prompted him to take the unprecedented step of issuing a show cause notice — effectively a demand for the government to explain itself — over conditions inside Hakea, Casuarina and Melaleuca prisons.
At the core of the problem, Mr Ryan said, was a 37 per cent increase in the prison population since early 2023, without a commensurate growth in the number of cells or prison staff.
Eamon Ryan is the Inspector of Custodial Services in WA. (ABC News: Courtney Withers)
It is the fourth time an Inspector has issued such a notice. The last time the government was handed one was over concerns at Hakea in 2024.
The following year he found little improvement, and said the prison was continuing to breach national and international human rights standards.
'Terrible conditions'
For more than a year-and-a-half, overcrowding has forced some prisoners to sleep on mattresses on the floor.
An image of a cell with three beds at Hakea Prison in Perth, taken from an earlier report from the Office of the Inspector of Custodial Services (Supplied: Office of the Inspector of Custodial Services)
Mr Ryan said while visiting Hakea, he spoke to one of those prisoners, whose head was about 60 centimetres from the cell's toilet.
"I said to him 'how do you cope with that' and he said 'I sleep with a towel over my head so when the two other guys get up during the night I don't get splashed'," he said.
"I was appalled by that. That's terrible conditions, that is inhumane and degrading conditions.
"People shouldn't be held in those conditions and today we have 120 people in the prison system who are sleeping in that kind of arrangement."
The long-term problem for the state, he said, was that those people were not being rehabilitated in the way they should.
"If you release them from prison and you have treated them badly and you haven't given them any sort of rehabilitation, they're going to be worse," he said.
"And they're going to be standing next to you at the football, sitting next to you at the movie theatre or at the restaurant."
Opposition Leader Basil Zempilas said West Australians had cause to be horrified and alarmed over Mr Ryan's findings.
"What is this government doing about it? How can this government let it get to this and when will the conditions inside and for those people outside be taken into account by this state government?"
Comprehensive plan needed
Mr Ryan's one recommendation was for the Justice Department to develop and release a "comprehensive, costed reform implementation plan" with short, medium and long-term plans and a "clear and time-bound implementation schedule" for each.
He said the recommendation was aimed at "large scale strategic reform", which should address the causes of people being sent to prison, how they're rehabilitated and support systems upon their release.
The department noted the recommendation, saying it was for the government to consider.
In a statement, it said two teams had been developed to manage prisoner populations, including "risk management" and there was a "sustained recruitment program" to grow prison officer numbers.
"Through strengthened governance, targeted interventions and sustained investment in our workforce and infrastructure, we are making Hakea, Casuarina and Melaleuca safer and more resilient," Corrective Services Commissioner Brad Royce said.
A spokesperson for the department told the ABC News that the state government "had funded 580 new beds for the adult custodial estate and detailed planning for a further 512 beds".
Hard line on DV offenders
Corrective Services Minister Paul Papalia said the increased prison population was down to a “stellar performance” by WA Police in arresting family and domestic violence offenders, and courts taking a harder line on bail for those offences.
Paul Papalia says there is money in the state budget to divert people away from prisons. (ABC News: Keane Bourke)
“It is a challenge, undoubtedly, it’s not something that corrective services as a portfolio controls — who comes into the prison,” he told parliament.
“They are funded to do it, there is a plan and it’s being executed.”
He said that included initiatives funded by last month’s budget to divert people away from prison and to reduce rates of offending.
Premier Roger Cook said the budget also included $634 million for 373 extra beds at Casuarina and 320 beds at Acacia.
Mr Ryan described those efforts as “piecemeal” and not the “whole-of-system strategic reform” needed to address the scale of the challenge.