Those who have done serious jail time know prison is a dangerous place

Those who have done serious jail time know prison is an inherently dangerous place, where prisoners know how to improvise with the limited options available.

Those who depict prison as offering resort living have never been there.

Jails, particularly maximum security, are dangerous places where building alliances, understanding rules and reading cues are crucial to getting by.

In part two of a three part series, we look at the hazards confronted by those in maximum security.

Law of the jungle

Those who have done serious jail time know prison is an inherently dangerous place, even if modern security measures mean conventional weapons are hard to come by.

Knives don’t get through and the last gun smuggled into the Victorian system was in the gangland war era of the early 2000s when a pistol found its way into Port Phillip Prison.

It was there so a violent career criminal could murder crime patriarch Lewis Moran, a plot which was foiled by authorities.

But, even under heavy scrutiny, prisoners know how to improvise with the limited options available.

A bottle of water can become a dangerous weapon when left in the freezer for a few hours then used with force.

Prisoners know how to improvise with the limited options they have available.

One Melbourne underworld figure found that out the hard way last year when he was bashed in an attack organised by a young Middle Eastern organised crime figure on the way up.

“He was on the phone. His head was splattered, needing 15-plus stitches,” an underworld source said.

That man’s “muscle” was later stabbed with shivs in an ambush as control of the drug trade inside that prison was quickly altered.

A mix of some basic materials heated in a microwave oven can produce a skin-burning substance known as prison napalm.

Prisoners will fill plastic sauce bottles with their faeces then spray it at enemies.

Jailhouse knives, known colloquially as shivs, are crafted using all manner of items like toothbrushes, combs, sharpened pieces of cutlery and even bones retrieved from meals.

In 2019, volatile NSW inmate Richard James Reay used a makeshift clothesline to strangle cellmate Geoffrey John Fardell after an argument over their TV at the Mid North Coast Correctional Centre in Kempsey.

Richard Jason Reay murdered Geoffrey Fardell, with whom he was sharing a cell.

When he wanted to kill Carl Williams, Matthew Charles Johnson pulled apart an exercise bike and used its stem to fatally bludgeon the drug boss.

As with Williams, there are plenty of cases which have reinforced that a big name is no absolute guarantee of safety.

Gavin Preston – murdered last year in a gangland execution in the Melbourne suburb of Keilor – was a feared enforcer over a long period behind prison walls.

But he wound up bloodied and lucky to live when a falling-out with an old mate resulted in a gang attack in which he was bashed and stabbed inside maximum security Barwon Prison.

Tommy Ivanovic, a well-connected figure in the city’s underworld, was bashed inside the same jail in 2017.

Tony Mokbel was once one of the biggest players in Melbourne crime but was left close to death in an ambush at Barwon by two younger, fitter men associated with the emerging G-Fam crew.

Carl Williams was murdered in jail.

Sydney Middle-eastern organised crime figure Bassam Hamzy was bashed in the exercise yard of the Goulburn Supermax in February last year.

The assault, in what is regarded as one of Australia’s most secure correctional facilities, was allegedly ordered by his rivals on the outside via a chat function on a Triple J radio station app.

The jungle drums can be very dangerous, even for those who have been in the system for a while.

Trips in and out of prison can be misconstrued as someone helping police, a potential capital crime inside.

Years ago, false word spread that an inmate in a Victorian jail on serious drug charges was talking to police.

The big, strong man was transferred to another prison where, within hours, he was choked and stabbed to death using a knife which had been stolen from an officer’s station days earlier.

Investigators were later told a major organised crime figure paid the legal fees of one of the killers.

CCTV vision showing a prison brawl between Bassam Hamzy and Talal Alameddine that occurred inside Goulburn Supermax during October 2018.

Fake police statements were distributed inside the Victorian system years ago to endanger a prominent crime boss.

They were intended to create the impression he was an informer, which can be a capital offence behind bars.

Those who belong to a gang can find themselves with a degree of protection in the system.

G-Fam has good representation in Victoria and there are various outfits based along ethnic lines where affiliates back each other.

Bikies are mostly kept together but their rival gangs are placed in separate prisons to avoid violent conflict and other security threats.

In 2022, members of the Comancheros rode in a rowdy convoy to the walls of Melbourne’s Port Phillip Prison.

It was what authorities believe was some kind of show of strength for the benefit of members inside, and may also have been a warning to anyone tempted to break ranks.

But there are times when even those kind of affiliations can become a perilous proposition.

One bikie involved in a recent trial told of feeling “on the outer” as an unspoken sense of isolation emerged.

“They’re still under the instruction of hierarchy. So, even if I’m personally okay with them, it doesn’t mean that things are okay,” he said.