A journey through the 'belly of the beast' - Part 2

This is the second of a three part series.  Part one can be read here.

The October 8, 2003 murder of Mark Day inside the Maximum Security Unit at Sir David Longland Correctional Centre (SDLCC) drew unwanted media attention to the place prisoners call the killing fields of Queensland. During its tenure as Queensland’s top maximum-security prison SDLCC has achieved the highest prisoner mortality rate for unnatural deaths of any Australian maximum-security prison.

SDLCC is the new-age gladiator’s school of survival where over 30 prisoners have died unnatural deaths during the last decade. It is a place where young prisoners have learned that murder and heroin addiction are accepted norms of prison life, because the people who run the system have become immune from outside scrutiny after governments legislated against media access to the tax-payer funded institutions.

SDLCC opened its gates for business in 1989 and the first death occurred January 26, 1990 when Scott Wallace, 30, was murdered inside C Block.

It was in the killing fields where David Smith, 21, begged prison guards to place him in protective custody on September 28, 1994 because he feared for his life. Prison guards refused Smith’s request and then revealed his intentions to other prisoners. Smith’s body was found a short time later in his B5 cell with multiple stab wounds. His murder remains unsolved.

It was in the killing fields where a senior prison guard rested his foot on the chest of a dead prisoner while drinking a can of Coke and yelled to the remaining prisoners locked in their cells, “Next time don’t leave a mess fellas. String ‘em up and save me the paper work.”

Michael James “Micky” Adams, 23, was another casualty of the killing fields when he was found hanging in his B7 cell on September 12, 1997 shortly after he had received a visit from his family who claimed he had been in good spirits. There was no indication Adams had contemplated suicide. His death remains questionable because of the methods employed to commit murder inside the killing fields of SDLCC.

It was in the killing fields where Wayne David Woods, 28, already on strict Protection inside 5KA at SDLCC, was found dead.

The eight cells for strict protection prisoners inside K Block were partitioned from all other protection prisoners and the cell-block was impregnable. Woods was housed inside 5KA with three other high protection prisoners including Mien Duy Tran who had been transferred into the block on October 13, 1997 as a high protection prisoner from Rockhampton Correctional Centre.

On the October 22, 1997 Woods expressed fear for his life after allegedly selling Ajax as heroin and was locked away in his cell during the afternoon. The incident was recorded in the Minutes of an SDLCC Management meeting and a memo was circulated to all SDLCC staff working in the Protection Blocks: “Anyone loitering around fishbowl (the cell-block observation points) may need a counsellor i.e. fears for safety.” Three days later on October 26, 1997 Woods was found dead. His death was recorded as suspected suicide.

The sister of the dead prisoner, Debra Woods, tried to obtain information about her brother’s death but Queensland prison authorities refused to tell her anything. When she began receiving anonymous phone calls warning her against continuing with her inquiries, Ms Wood contacted Professor Paul Wilson, author, criminologist and Bond University lecturer. Professor Wilson in turn contacted Ian Stewart at the Queensland Department of Corrective Services.

“My brother is not a saint,” Ms Woods told Wilson, “but he knew he was going to die and he told the family this was going to happen if he was moved to Sir David Longland.”

Woods’ premonition not only happened as he predicted but it occurred inside the seemingly impregnable 5KA high protection cell-block inside the killing fields of SDLCC.

Another bizarre twist to Wood’s death occurred five days after his death when Ms Woods opened a letter dated October 30, 1997, from the Brisbane North Community Corrections office. The letter stated that Woods had been released on parole on October 28, 1997, but had not reported to parole officers and was ordered to do so immediately. Woods had died in SDLCC on October 26 – two days before he was due to be released.

“I don’t know whether Wayne was murdered or committed suicide or was pushed into committing suicide,” Debra Woods told Paul Wilson, “but a 28-year-old man shouldn’t have to die just because he is sent to prison.”

Prison deaths can be classified as natural or unnatural. An unnatural death can be categorised as murder, suicide or drug overdose but the ability to make jail murders look like suicide or drug overdoses has continued to dupe investigators. Drug overdoses have become one of the official causes of death inside prison but “hotshots” (the deliberate substitution of high-grade heroin to induce the overdose) are nearly impossible to detect.

Another murder technique unique to Queensland correctional facilities is the “sleeper hold” which can render a person unconscious after pressure is applied to the carotid artery halting the blood supply to the brain.

The “sleeper hold” - a legacy that resulted from practices employed by guards to control unruly children in Queensland juvenile institutions - flowed on to the adult incarceration process with the steady influx of graduating juvenile offenders. The “sleeper hold” can render victims helpless before they are strung up to give the appearance of suicide by hanging.

Lee Picton, 26, had served 10 months of a 4-year sentence when he was transferred into the killing fields of B Block at SDLCC during 1999. A couple of months later he was carried out in a body-bag. His murder remains unsolved.

Here is an extract from personal diary notes written at the time of Picton’s death inside B Block:

June 14, 1999 and the stretcher went up the Spine of B Block again. The smell of death accompanies it. Word filtered down and by lock-up and we all knew Lee Picton was dead. They found him laying on the floor of the B6 shithouse. There is an air of expectancy. An urgency. This place is like a morgue. Everyone wants to get away from it. Back to the solitude and safety of their own cells. Then they came in and locked us away. At 2.45am the noise of the screws unlocking and slamming the grates outside the cells in B6 woke me from a deep sleep. The screws were searching for weapons or evidence. So much for the crime scene protocol. They rumbled around like a herd of elephants playing Sherlock Holmes.

And then the collective punishments began.

All prisoners in B6 were placed on Section 39. One set of clothes. Only bare essentials. Even Jake Smith who came out of DU on Friday June 18 and returned to B6 underwent same punishment regime. He wasn’t even in the Unit when Picton was killed. Collective punishments were utilised to try and break the code of silence.

The Squad came into our Unit decked out in their Ninja Turtle suits expecting trouble as they began strip-searches and cell ramps. The result of another unnatural death in B Block.

Fine defaulters were not excluded from the body bag tally of Queensland’s killing fields either.

Scott Lawrence Topping, 22, was serving time for $1200 worth of unpaid traffic fines when he was raped and murdered inside Woodford Correctional Centre, Queensland, on September 12, 1997. Topping had three weeks left to serve before his release.

Another fine defaulter, Linda Jane Baker, 28, was found hanged in her cell at Townsville Jail on September 9, 1999. She had been serving 11 days for failing to pay an unlicensed driving fine.

Circumstances surrounding the unnatural deaths of Topping and Baker are symptomatic of the secrecy that envelops the Queensland prison system. A self-serving secrecy the Queensland Department of Corrective Services has persistently fostered by applying censorship tourniquets that suppress politically sensitive information ever reaching the media. The Queensland Corrective Services Act 2000 has been specifically designed to reinforce that process by restricting the media’s access to Queensland prisoners. It is those restrictive practices that have allowed the killing fields of Queensland to flourish.

In the pursuit of election issues Queensland politicians have consistently embraced law and order policies but the end result of those policies, the juvenile and adult incarceration process, has been generally ignored because prisoners don’t vote. Legislative power that has been routinely bestowed upon the QDCS has allowed that bureaucracy to reinforce and perpetuate censorship policies that restrict media access to prisoners for its own self-serving interest and shrouds the entire prison system with a veil of secrecy. The threat of that legislative power is regularly employed by departmental lawyers.

Coronial Inquiries into the murder of David Eames in Townsville prison in 1991 and the death of Mervyn Patrick at Wacol in 1994 revealed how Queensland prison authorities consistently and knowingly covered up failings within the system. Those cover-ups continued to contribute to an increased body count of unnatural deaths inside prison.

Despite those growing concerns the spiralling unnatural death rate continued unabated inside Queensland prisons. The significant impact that deaths in the killing fields of SDLCC had on numerous prisoners was contained in an unpublished report "Unnatural Deaths at SDLCC" by long-term prisoner Greg Clark.

A comparison of the unnatural deaths at SDLCC was made to the death rate of Australian soldiers during the Vietnam War and Clark drew the conclusion that it was far more dangerous to serve time in SDLCC during the 1990s than it was to have participated in the Vietnam War.

Clark also compared the desperation and helplessness that causes many suicides in prison to the Holmes-Rahe Life Events Rating Scale and found that stress in maximum security prisons is far greater than stress experienced outside prison. Similar concerns about the unnatural deaths in SDLCC were contained in a letter sent to the Queensland Ombudsman by lifer Ronnie Thomas.

Another long-term prisoner, Paul Dow, revealed some alarming statistics in his paper "Some Do Listen to the Screams of Help". Dow found that 33 prisoners had committed suicide over a 4-year period in Queensland prisons and 123 had attempted suicide. Dow also uncovered 364 incidents of self-harm during the same period.

Dow attempted to have his investigative report published but Alison Hunter, the then Director of Planning, Research and Offender Policy at the Queensland Department of Corrective Services, refused permission for “ethical” reasons:

In respect of your paper on self-harm or suicide while in Correctional Centres, the only information which can be supplied is that which is publicly available. For instance, the Queensland Corrective Services commission (QCSC) reports annually on the number of deaths in custody that have occurred. This information is published in the Annual Report. A copy of this document should be available through your Centre library.

Additionally, the QCSC has a formal process to approve any research in Correctional Centre. Applications to conduct research must be made through the QCSC Research Committee. For ethical reasons, approval will not be granted to currently serving prisoners to conduct research in relation to Correctional Centre issues.

The Queensland Department of Corrective Services viewed the controversial research as “politically sensitive” and a potential embarrassment to the Department. The extent and the events surrounding the death rate inside Queensland prisons became a prohibited subject forbidden to be ventilated outside Queensland prison perimeters.

Dow made another detailed submission to the Queensland Department of Corrective Services and outlined the significance of his investigative research from a prisoner’s perspective but in a letter dated October 21, 1997, Alison Hunter bluntly refused the request for publication:

In response to your letter of 15 October, 1997, I wish to advise that the Queensland Corrective Services Commission will not grant approval for the publication of your paper entitled “Some do listen to the screams of help.”

As I advised in previous correspondence dated 15 August 1997, the QCSC has a formal process to approve research projects proposed by staff or students. For ethical reasons approval will not be granted to currently serving prisoners.

The report was subsequently smuggled out of the prison and published in a West Australian university newspaper.

Repeated calls for a public inquiry into all Queensland prison deaths have been steadfastly refused. The Queensland Prisoner’s Legal Service first called for an Inquiry in a July 21, 1995 letter to the then Minister for Police and Corrective Services, Paul Braddy, but it failed to motivate the government into action:

The Service is deeply concerned by yet another death at the Sir David Longland correctional Centre. What causes even greater worry is that six (6) deaths have occurred in the Centre in the last ten (10) months.

In 1993 the Service publicly expressed their concern for the five (5) deaths in custody which had occurred at the Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre during its first twelve months (12) months of operation. It appears that we now have the same problem occurring at a State Correctional Centre, however the number of deaths are greater and in a more concentrated period.

Apart from the standard internal investigations which are routinely conducted by the Queensland Corrective Services Commission and the Corrective Services investigation Unit (CSIU), no other attention has been given to what is obviously a major problem within the Centre.

If internal investigations were as effective as what the Kennedy Review had intended, then we would not have the number of deaths presently on record at the Sir David Longland Correctional Centre.

Since 1995 Queensland Governments of both political persuasions have consistently ignored pleas for an inquiry into the rising prison death toll. That inaction continues to contribute to the unprecedented body bag tally that has turned SDLCC into the killing fields of Queensland.

If the Queensland government remains steadfast in its determination to support QDCS policies that restrict media access to prisoners then the time has arrived for a Royal Commission to make those tax-payer funded institutions transparent. The unnatural deaths of Scott Topping, Linda Baker, Lee Picton, David Smith, Wayne Woods and Mickey Adams combine with a growing list of unsolved murders inside the Queensland killing fields that reinforce the proposition.

The families of the victims from the killing fields of Queensland are owed no less.