Statistics compiled by the union from Hakea staff over the past six months show there has been five indecent and sexual assaults, 177 physical assaults, 160 self-harm incidents, 12 attempted suicides, nine fires lit, 45 weapons found and four rooftop incidents.
The union also recorded 28 incidents involving “chemical agents”, two deaths in custody and two major prison disturbances.
Union assistant secretary Beven Hanlon emailed Hakea senior management this week and said there were more than 1000 prisoners in Hakea, but it was consistently running at 30 to 40 staff short every day.
“We are seeing more and more staff getting injured at work, more and more violence at work which is increasing against staff,” he said.
“The extremely high self-harm statistics is a massive red flag for any manager that is concerned about health of their prison,
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“It is our members that respond to these situations, it is our members that have to cut these people down and perform lifesaving first aid or find these prisoners almost beaten to death and then perform first aid on their blood-covered bodies.”
He blasted a request by management to ensure prisoners spent more time out of their cells without the promise of additional staffing and accused Corrective Services of prioritising budget over the safety of prison staff and prisoners.
“Sadly this type of decline in a prison service is nothing new, however, it is normally driven by the private sector in their chase for profits over people,” he said.
“It is not often this extremely short-sighted approach is driven by the public sector.”
“Why does Hakea [management] hate their staff so much?
Hanlon told WAtoday that if the issue wasn’t resolved quickly, like through pay incentives such as those on offer to guards who work in Banksia Hill and Unit 18, a major incident could happen and take Hakea offline for months.
The Department of Justice said Greenough would retain some capacity for women to be received from court, for visits and release.
“The placement of women prisoners relocated from Greenough will be carefully managed in
consideration of their welfare and cultural needs,” Royce said.
“They’ll continue to have access to programs and services at their new facilities.”
Source Agencies
