Names, names, names...

There seems to be a focus emerging on the use of multinational security conglomerates to provide services to Australian government detention centres and gaols.

Though the practice has been in place for many years the debate only now rages about the pros and cons of outsourcing such vital and sensitive security services to these overseas MacDonald's-like leviathan fast-security chains.

So can international security services also be applied across the board in Australia, a nation comprising unique multicultural specifications, and varied harsh and demanding climates, which would suggest that perhaps it may not be so appropriate for a one-size-fits-all model to absorb Australia's already dreadful & largely government-run, justice services?

As a young country, it's likely that the colony's foundations in theft, slavery, racism and human rights abuses have contributed to our malaise on the horrific record of deaths in custody and disinterest in raising standards of human rights.

There hasn't been any apparent attention subsequent to the privatisation inquiry to the need for especially tailored services to suit Australia's demanding requirements - which at present are generally poorly catered for by both the government and private sector services in their current form.

Those detention centres that do provide adequate or rehabilitative environments often fail to receive appropriate recognition and due research, and are lumped along with the veritable Abu Graibs of the federal and state governments' 'too hard basket' that perpetuate human rights abuses.

In a 2006 interview with Ulli Corbett, who presented to the UN Australia's first and exceedingly well documented torture report, she said that the submission of torture reports to the UN was required by each member country every 5 years, but to this date, that has been Australia's only one. After the submission of that report the funding for the deaths in custody watch committees, federally, was reallocated by former Howard government Attorney General Philip Ruddock. Despite PM Rudd's 'commitment' on improving Indigenous outcomes that funding has never been reimplemented even though the watch committees were one of the only recommendations of the RCIADIC that were ever put into place.


The international corporations in that too hard basket generally have names consisting of letters and numbers that appear meaningless, indistinguishable and undecipherable to your average Joe/Jo, but it would seem that most of them stem from the same roots.

The inquiry into the privatisation of prison services in NSW corrections has prompted heated discussion of the pitfalls of services provided by big companies in other countries (with fairly obviously, lower human rights expectations).

In the last month alone the success of outsourcing security has been disputed by groups such as Deaths in custody Watch Committee(WA), Justice Action, Greens MP Sylvia Hale and the PSA in Sydney who say privatisation bodes a human rights crisis now, and in the years ahead.

Recently DICWC(WA) spoke out strongly about privatisation after the death in custody of a Warburton elder Mr Ward, who was transported by a private security company GSL from Laverton to Kalgoorlie in a van in which the air conditioning had broken down. Mr Ward subsequently died and investigations of the circumstances surrounding his death are still underway and his inquest is still pending.

Justice Action have argued that the quality of services provided by private firms jeopardizes the welfare of prisoners and detainees through strict budget and shareholder considerations.

It would seem that international security giant Serco, also a likely contender for the *pending* privatized gaols in NSW, is set to receive the federal tender for detention services formerly provided by G4S.



However, while the affluent see no evil mindset in the big cities allows Mr & Mrs average home-owner/rate payer to blissfully close their eyes and place their trust in the quality of security and services in place, what they rarely see - courtesy of a mainstream media so regularly whored to the advertising sector, are those gaols that obviate the real attitudes of fly by night politicians with a focus only on the short-term, on winning votes, and no focus on the inherent threat to life that exists daily even in Australian middle class society's gaols.


Very few states have broached the model of reform that Western Australia had to, with the creation of the Inspectorate of Custodial Services and the separation of corrections from the department of justice to aid transparency, but it would seem that the operations of private prisons could potentially benefit prisoners with better funds for reform programs and less institutional corruption, provided that hierarchical structures are supported by a scrutinizing body such as OICS.

Though the theory of a closely monitored private sector security regime seems to be a working concept in WA, the words of one Aboriginal elder still ring long and loud in the Magnet's ears, that deaths in custody occur in WA regardless of whether the prison and security services are provided by the private or public sector.

This essential truth reaffirms that a quantum leap is necessary in the attitude of the average Australian before we actually understand and accept the need for a rehabilitative model, rather than our traditional colonial punitive model of detention, that dates back to an era when we were all in chains, of one sort or another.



For instance, after almost a century and a half of riots, killings, torture and rights violations, various royal commissions and inquiries, Fremantle Prison was not closed due to its abysmal human rights record, even though the state government had been completely aware of its shortfalls from the time it was first opened in 1855.


As a penal colony built on the slave labour of Aboriginal people, political prisoners, and impoverished people transported from cultures previously assimilated by the English army, the colonial government had no focus on the longevity of detainees. Decades passed, the Flipside changed, but life in the iconic Fremantle Prison, and authoritarian attitudes, remained the same.

Deaths in custody at the gaol rose to levels that demanded immediate action - but no action ensued by the government, and eventually in 1988 on a day it was said to be 52*C inside, the occupants took action themselves, the prison was subsequently decommissioned due to damage and substandard facilities and inmates were shifted to newer prisons.

Fremantle had no toilets, running water, or air conditioning, and electricity was centrally controlled, meals took place locked in the cells next to the bucket that served as the toilet. The limestone monolith was closed in 1991 due only to fire damage incurred during the prion's last riot, and sadly, not due to the well-established and known savage effects of the poor conditions and human rights abuses on those detained there.



If the media have a general avoidance of prison issues, already in the ever-lunching pollies' too hard basket, how can Mary Jones who lives down Ordinary Avenue grasp the suffering or broader social impact of someone's son, brother, mum, dad or granny who has been subjected daily to rape, beatings, intimidation, hot-shots and hangings, further to the punishment the court doled out, unless it happens to her kin?

The Sydney Morning Herald last week said the rapes(*few sexual assaults are ever reported) in NSW juvenile detention centres have doubled in the last twelve months and figures of those child detainees self-harming(which includes suicides) have risen from 88 to 180, which the PSA attributes to budget and staff cuts.