Overcrowding leading to increased violence in Queensland prisons

The traditional method of punishing misbehaving prisoners by sending them to ‘the hole’ has been mostly scrapped in Queensland prisons.

Prison officer Greg who was bashed by an inmate at Woodford jail in 2018.

The traditional method of punishing misbehaving prisoners by sending them to “the hole” has been mostly scrapped in Queensland prisons to prevent overcrowded inmates from acting up to get some alone time.

Overcrowding in facilities has become so bad that solitary confinement is now viewed as a time to find some peace and quiet for prisoners who are forced to share a cell with a retrofitted bunk bed or mattress on the floor.

A rise in the number of correctional officers has also been attributed to the issue of overcrowding and guards are being assaulted daily in the state’s jails.

Long-serving prison officers say they have never seen so many assaults. Together Union secretary Alex Scott, which represents the state’s approximately 3500 correctional officers, said most cells were “doubled up”, contributing to rising tension.

“There’s basically an assault a day,” Mr Scott said. “If that happened in any other workplace, it wouldn’t be accepted.

“Overcrowding is across the board and it basically makes every problem worse.”

In April, there were 8421 inmates being held in Queensland’s 15 prisons, compared to a daily ­average of 7206 for the same month in 2014.

Last year, an officer at the Woodford Correctional Centre was brutally bashed and hospitalised after he told a prisoner he would have to remain in his shared cell.

Mr Scott said detention units were being used as cells and prisoners often preferred to be held in tighter security so they could be alone.

“We’ve heard of people coming out of MSU (maximum security units) and assaulting someone just so they can go back into MSU by themselves again,” he said.

Corrective Services Minister Mark Ryan, who has spearheaded the introduction of legislation to increase penalties for prisoners who assault officers to up to 14 years in jail, said violence inside correctional centres was unacceptable and the government was working to fix the issue.

“To support correctional officers, the government has taken action to strengthen laws, increase staffing levels, provide more safety equipment and more training, and expand prison capacity,” he said.

Construction will soon be completed on a 400-bed expansion of the Capricornia Correctional Centre, and a new 1000-bed ­­facility will be built west of Brisbane. But the union fears budgets are being put ahead of safety and has encouraged its members to ­refuse to turn up to work if they believe it is unsafe.

Mr Scott said violence had increased recently as prisoners became agitated after their supply of illicit drugs, usually smuggled in by visitors, dried up when contact visits were suspended due to the coronavirus restrictions.

Some have resorted to having associates on the outside drop packages of drugs over the ­prison walls using drones.