From the Vatican, to  jail’s harsh realities

The cardinal will be one of Victoria’s most vulnerable inmates after he is remanded in custody, forcing authorities to isolate him.

It is common for prisoners in Victoria to be bounced around the corrections system before they are sentenced.

George Pell will be among the most vulnerable prisoners in Victoria after he is remanded in custody, forcing authorities to isolate him from other inmates to prevent bashings and relentless intimidation.

It is standard practice for prisoners to be strip-searched, deprived of most of their possessions and issued with a prison uniform at the nearby Melbourne Assessment Prison.

Pell will be able to wear a religious necklace but all other jewellery will be held in a safe for his release and he will endure hardship he never could have imagined while in charge of the Vatican’s ­finances.

Corrections Victoria refused to comment on preparations for Pell but prisoners are normally assessed at MAP for physical and mental health issues and then shifted to another facility.

This is after he is initially processed in the cells in the County Court building, which is in the heart of Melbourne’s legal precinct in the CBD.

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As Justice Peter Kidd considers Pell’s sentence, and the Cardinal’s legal team prepares its appeal against the conviction, Pell will need to be in a facility that provides high-level security — almost certainly isolation — that keeps him away from the rest of the prison community.

He will be allowed only limited exercise and will spend the vast majority of the day and night in his cell.

Hopkins Correctional Centre in Ararat, 200km west of Melbourne, is considered a likely final destination, once Pell’s sentence is known, because of its emphasis on sex offenders, but maximum-security Barwon Prison — home to some of the most violent of prisoners — is also considered a modern, secure facility.

Cardinal George Pell.

That said, it was where gangland murderer Carl Williams was killed and drug boss Tony Mokbel was recently almost stabbed to death.

It is common for prisoners in Victoria to be bounced around the corrections system before they are sentenced, in part because of the large numbers of prisoners circulating in the state’s 14 prisons.

At 77, and in questionable health, Pell is entering uncertain territory, which includes indifferent medical care and a painfully slow prison bureaucracy, despite Corrections Victoria claims to the contrary.

If he falls sick, he can receive specialist care at Port Phillip Prison, another tough, maximum-­security facility, or in extreme circumstances in a secure facility at St Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne.

There is a popular misconception that prison life is easy. It isn’t.

The bureaucracy is ever present and severe restrictions are placed on who the prisoner can speak to, who can visit and when.

It will take months for Pell to work out properly how to access his friends and how to manage the $35 weekly allowance, which also covers phone calls. The allowance shrinks rapidly when prisoners make calls to mobile phones.

He will be able to put 10 people on his visitor list — and these names can be changed.

Once he is settled in prison, authorities may decide to place Pell in a unit with other sex offenders, where they can share cooking facilities and he will be given his own cell, possibly with his own computer. But they will be fearful that he will be assaulted by other prisoners.

Sex offenders are at the bottom of the social pile in prisons and wide open to physical and emotional retribution.