A journey through the 'belly of the beast' - Part 1

The belly of the beast - inside Queensland’s prison system

Society expects its prisoners to take their punishment unflinchingly after they have been consigned to the incarceration process. At the same time they expect prisoners to return to society somewhat chastened and rehabilitated by the experience. Society is uncaring as to how that transition should occur and relegates that responsibility out of sight and out of mind to Queensland prison administrators.

Queensland prisons have become society's garbage can: places where unwanted rubbish is dumped. They have become places where ministerial portfolios are gauged by the amount of adverse publicity generated. Responsibility is delegated to somebody with a shotgun and a roll of razor wire, who has a mandate to ensure the streets are not sullied by the unwanted presence of a felon before he has done his time. Rehabilitation has become a four letter word that is alien to a system that relies on revenge and retribution in answer to the public's perceived notion of what they want the incarceration concept to accomplish.

Queensland prison administrators are repudiating the idea that they're responsible for rehabilitation because the growth in prison populations, the reduction in prison programming and the warehousing concept of the incarceration process makes the idea untenable. They have limited their mission to the security and custody problems of their institutions (no escapes, no drugs and less violence). The performance evaluations of prisons or prison administrators are rarely tied to rehabilitation, lowering recidivism, or the relative success of prisoners so it is difficult to measure these outcomes. Prison administrators now devote their budgets to cement, bricks and steel to build more facilities to house Queensland’s growing prisoner population.

The abandonment of prison as a last resort was replaced with the "get tough on crime" approach that Queensland politicians unashamedly used in a vote-grabbing exercise to woo the electorate. Cynical observers regarded the exercise as being an elaborate smokescreen to mask the real intention and purpose of imprisonment in Queensland.

Zero tolerance incarceration became the buzz word of Queensland “prisoneaucrats” who oversee the new-age prison system of the 21st century - a warehousing process where sensory deprivation labours under the masquerade of security and containment. Fresh air and sunlight is a privilege and not a right in some Queensland prisons. Retribution has replaced rehabilitation. And education is at the bottom of the priority list. It is a system where maximum security prisons are seething cauldrons of anger, frustration and discontent that belie an underlying current of tension and raw violence which can explode without warning.

There is no privacy in prison. Random cell searches, strip searches, body searches (squat and cough) and lock-downs are an integral part of prison life. All activities within a prison are geared to the security restrictions enforced within the prison and there is no control whatsoever as to what prison authorities may dictate as being policy on any given day.

A prisoner has no control over his own life. Helplessness and vulnerability have become prerequisites of the incarceration process that disempowers and totally crushes any initiative or individuality. Everyday prison life becomes one continuing battle to retain a dignified sense of balance between institutionalisation and subservience.

By the same token, correctional officers operate facilities that exclusively focus on prisoner management and control. They do little more than control the movements of prisoners through the institution, directing them to enter or exit cells, stand in line, or walk through metal detectors. Their fundamental role within the incarceration process of the 21st century is that of an electronic gate-keeper.

Queensland's prison population has increased by 142 per cent over the past decade and 60 per cent of inmates re-offend after release: The highest recidivism rate outside the Northern Territory.

Former Supreme Court judge and Community Corrections Board chairman, Bill Carter, said that, given the state of the system, the astonishing thing was not that most ex-prisoners re-offend but that some did not. Only 11 per cent of prisoners who take part in rehabilitation programs re-offend but the report says thousands are unable to access programs in jail.

Without completing programs, prisoners cannot go through gradual-release schemes or gain parole. They serve their whole sentence and are released straight on to the streets without ongoing supervision or support through post-release programs.

Part 2 will be published next week.