Sunday Tele goes inside Parklea prison with new boss Paul Baker
He has worked in some of Britain's toughest prisons, but when new Parklea boss Paul Baker walked inside the Sydney jail he was stunned. He this week gave The Sunday Telegraph rare access to the privately-run prison, where he revealed what he saw and his plans to overhaul the troubled prison.
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He taste tests prison meals, mingles with prisoners in their cells and is installing a library in each wing. But accuse new Parklea prison boss Paul Baker of being “soft” and the former English primary school teacher will declare he is “hardening” up the notoriously violent prison.
Since Mr Baker took on the job of governor in April, the soon-to-be expanded 1160-bed jail — 1660-bed when the new sections open — has been undergoing a dramatic transformation.
All inmates must work. They have to demonstrate respect. And they also have to make their beds. There is also a zero tolerance to violence.
Most of all, prisoners are not allowed to “lay around doing nothing” — one reason the man inmates call “chief” is installing libraries across the jail prison complex.
“I don’t want them lying around doing bugger all,” he told The Sunday Telegraph during a rare visit to the privately-operated correctional centre.
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“I want them reading, working, being busy. I want them to get up, make their beds, go to work. If they’re not busy, that’s when they are likely to wreak havoc.”
As revealed in a recent state parliamentary inquiry into the jail, wreaking havoc is precisely what inmates have been doing.
Assaults, deaths in custody and contraband passed in to the prison were occurring with so much ease that prisoners at other jails dubbed Parklea ‘Telstra’ in acknowledgment of how effortless it was to obtain a mobile phone behind bars.
The assaults have continued since MTC-Broadspectrum took over from the previous contractors GEO, but Mr Baker — who notes there are fewer than before — is confident this will change as inmates became more attuned with the consequences of the new zero-tolerance regimen.
“We now know who all the key players are,” he said.
An anti-riot squad armed with gas and extendible batons has more than tripled in number from six to 20 with the Emergency Response Operator Course (EROC) officers — known by inmates as “the squad” — ready to crack down on unrest.
New hi-tech scanners have been installed at reception to tackle contraband, with the machines able to detect an unusual crease in clothing that might suggest a visitor may be trying to smuggle in drugs.
Last weekend, a joint prison and police sting netted 34 knives, box cutters and scissors, 20 strips of suboxone (a prescription drug used to treat opioid addiction), pot, syringes, smoking devices and alcohol being seized from visitors, resulting in 32 criminal charges.
As for discipline, Mr Baker has introduced a tiered reward scheme whereby inmates start out in a “silver” cell before being upgraded to the more desirable “gold” rooms if they behave well or downgraded to the more sparse bronze if otherwise.
While Mr Baker knew Parklea would be a challenge – “especially after I Googled it and found an article describing it as Australia’s most notorious prison” – he admitted it was a lot worse than he had thought.
Aside from the violence, Mr Baker was shocked at the breakdown in relations between staff and inmates.
“Staff were putting meals on the floor, opening the cell door and kicking the food in,” he said.
Mr Baker, who says he has carried on the 200-year-old English governor tradition of “tasting the prison meal” every day, said inmates needed to be given the opportunity to change.
“You don’t hold their hands, but you offer them the opportunities to change their identity,” he said.
“I want men to accept responsibility as a worker, as a family man, as a dad.”
Mr Baker, who has been involved with some of the UK’s toughest jails — including the “dark and violent” Wormwood Scrubs which is known for housing some of Britain’s most infamous killers and Leeds Prison — is credited with helping inmates stay out of prison through programs such as helping them get a job and housing upon release.
It is something he wants to introduce at Parklea.
To demonstrate his hands-on approach, Mr Baker has relocated out of the official governor’s office outside the jail perimeter to a new office in the middle of the jail.
And in a move that some prison officers initially described as “madness”, he will often wander in to an occupied cell during one of his daily walks around the prison.
The cell visits have continued despite an attempted assault.
“I knew something was not quite right when the inmate starting asking questions about Captain Cook,” he said, referring to that incident.
“He grabbed my lapel, but it wasn’t anything serious.”
Mr Baker admits the first six months have been rocky.
In part, this was due to the contract specifying the jail had to take in an “unlimited” number of remand prisoners – or “freshies” – although Mr Baker said he had negotiated to reduce it to around 25 a day, or 6000 a year.
Freshies are among the most challenging inmates to manage given many are addicted to drugs, suicidal or yet to come to terms with being incarcerated.
In contrast, GEO only accepted six a day.
Bored prisoners being locked in their cells for up to 21 hours a day — they are supposed to have at least seven hours outside — had triggered a spate of recent incidents, including prisoners lighting fires in their cells.
Mr Baker said the problem was due to weekend casual workers calling in sick, but declared new recruits were on the way.
Asked if he was confident he could turn things around, Mr Baker said he would not leave until he had.
“I want this to be the best prison in NSW,” he said.
As for being “soft”, Mr Baker noted he was about to tell a high-profile inmate with “bikie affiliations” that he would not permitted to visit his dying father.
“He’s not going to like it,” he said.
“But my role as governor is to protect the public.”
Originally published as Sunday Tele goes inside Parklea prison with new boss Paul Baker