Source : Perth Now news
Prisoners in Western Australia are being compensated with gratuity payments for sleeping on mattresses on the floor of overcrowded jail cells.
The Department of Justice have been contacted for comment, but a spokesman told the ABC prisoners received up to $10.15 for each week of their alternative sleeping arrangements.
Earlier this year, six inmates launched legal action against the state over the inhumane conditions they endured at Hakea Prison.
A report from the Office of the Inspector of Custodial Services revealed prisoners were being held in cramped, unhygienic cells that were infested with pests.
The inspector said while conditions had slightly improved, they remained “entirely unacceptable”.
“Men at Hakea are still being held in conditions that do not meet the basic level of decent treatment required under national and international human rights and standards,” Mr Ryan reported.
The Inspector of Custodial Services issued a Show Cause Notice in June over deteriorating conditions at Hakea, Casuarina and Melaleuca prisons.
The inspector first identified issues at Hakea in 2024, which have now since broadened into system-wide pressures, with similar risks evident across multiple jails.
Increasing prison populations, capacity constraints and worker shortages have contributed to overcrowding, lockdowns and restricted access to services and programs within the prison system.
“Compensation does not address overcrowding or its broader impacts,” Acting Inspector Jane Higgins said.
“A sustainable response requires reducing population pressures and ensuring prisons can provide safe, decent and lawful conditions.
“The show cause notice was issued because overcrowding had become a serious risk to safe and decent prison conditions, and while there have been some improvements, the underlying pressures remain.”
The state of WA prisons has also seen serious offenders have their sentences reduced because of “inhumane overcrowding”.
Mihael Vrhovsek was recently sentenced in to 16 years in prison for attempting to kill his former partner after he strangled her outside her apartment in 2024.
A document provided to the court showed Vrhovsek received numerous gratuity payments because he had been subjected to unacceptable overcrowding in prison.
Supreme Court Justice Alain Musikanth acknowledged Vrhovsek suffered real hardship during his incarceration at Hakea where there was “a chronic shortage of space, significant and inhuman overcrowding”.
District Court Judge Linda Black also reduced a man’s prison sentence last year because of the conditions at Hakea.
She said the prison’s population exceeded its official capacity and severe overcrowding had led to 80 men sleeping on mattresses on cell floors near toilets.
She said the conditions were cramped, unhygienic, undignified, and had resulted in prisoners being injured.
Shadow Corrective Services Minister Adam Hort said these payments were an extraordinary admission that the Labor government had lost control of the prison system and was now trying to pay its way out of a crisis of his own making.
“The most alarming part is that a Supreme Court judge has now taken Hakea’s “significant and inhumane overcrowding” into account as a hardship during sentencing,” he said.
“West Australians will rightly ask whether Labor’s failure to provide sufficient prison capacity means offenders could spend less time behind bars, while also missing the rehabilitation programs needed to reduce reoffending.
“Victims deserve justice, prison officers deserve safe workplaces and the community deserves a prison system that protects them. After nearly a decade in government, Labor is failing all three.”
Corrective Services Minister Tony Buti said one of his first actions in taking over the portfolio two days ago was to ask for an urgent briefing on payments for prisoners.
“Addressing prison overcrowding is one of my key priorities, as is the protection and safety of the whole community,” he said.
