Corrections officers, prisoners injured in Alice Springs Prison G-Block riot

Corrections officers and prisoners were injured after a chaotic prison riot in Alice Springs just two weeks after a brazen breakout attempt. Read what will be investigated following the ‘scuffle’.

Alice Springs correctional officers suffered minor injuries and two prisoners were taken to hospital after a riot in a maximum security facility.

Corrections Commissioner Matthew Varley said no officers were significantly injured during the riot involving 27 prisoners from G-Block about 9.30pm Sunday.

G-Block is used to house both vulnerable people, and a mix of sentenced and remand medium to maximum security prisoners.

Commissioner Varley said one officer was taken to hospital with a “bruised and injured knee” while others received minor cuts and bruising during the “scuffle”.

He said two prisoners were treated for minor injuries and lacerations in hospital.

NT Corrections Commissioner Matthew Varley. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

Commissioner Varley said the alarm was raised when a medical incident was reported to officers.
“It was assessed that that wasn’t – on face value – a legitimate incident and may in fact been a risk to our officers in terms of asking them to enter through the door,” he said.

Commissioner Varley confirmed United Workers Union secretary Erina Early’s allegations that prisoners pulled apart bed frames and smashed the locks to get out of their dorms.

“During the incident, the prisoners set fire to mattresses in there, several utilising broken fans and electrical equipment to ignite toilet tissue and clothing to set fire to those mattresses.

“Our officers intervened and quickly extinguished those flames.”

He said more than 60 additional officers were called to help respond to the incident, alongside 16 rostered night shift staff.

Corrections Commissioner Matthew Varley said 27 prisoners broke out of their dorms on G-Block.

Commissioner Varley said a specialised investigation into the incident would be conducted and the prisoners involved had been referred to police.

He said the riot was linked to a particular cohort of prisoners whose behaviour had required management over the past few weeks.

He said the group came from the same cell block as the attempted Boxing Day escapees, but they were not necessarily the same cohort.

“I also want to assess the fact that the infrastructure and the door locks failed on this occasion,” he said.

“They are significant and high security door locks, but nonetheless, we will make proper assessments to understand what occurred and why those doors failed.

“To that end, I’ve asked for assistance from the Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Logistics to commission an immediate security review of G-Block and its infrastructure to understand whether there are any other vulnerabilities that we need to address.”

United Workers Union secretary Erina Early said 27 prisoners were involved in a security incident in G-Block around 9pm, Sunday.

Ms Early said CS gas — a riot controlling agent commonly known as tear gas — was deployed on the prisoners.

It is understood the incident was brought under control by 1.30am Monday.

G-Block was most recently the scene of a failed attempted breakout on Boxing Day, and was at the centre of two previous riots in 2022 and 2018.

Corrections have been contacted for comment.

The incident comes as the prison system struggles under rising prison numbers, breaking its all time population record last week.

Though Commissioner Varley did not attribute prison conditions to the cause of the riot, a report into the 2020 Darwin prison riots warned that within a tense institutional climate, “it only takes a small incident for individual prisoner feelings of frustration or sense of injustice to morph into collective disobedience or a riot”.