The shroud of secrecy in Queensland prisons

Over two years ago On Line Opinion published an article by me which concerned the official secrecy that has shrouded unsolved murders committed inside Queensland’s Sir David Longland Correctional Centre and how the Queensland Department of Corrective Services had used existing legislation to prevent the news media having access to the prison system as part of an official cover-up.

The report, “A veil of secrecy makes justice in jail a different kind from court justice,” (posted Friday, April 4, 2003), described how 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 remained unsolved.

The report also described the “questionable death” of Michael James “Micky” Adams, 23, who 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 been contemplating suicide. His death remained questionable because of the methods employed to commit murder inside the place the prisoners call the killing fields of Queensland.

That 2003 On Line Opinion report went on to describe how prison murders were made to look like suicide inside the killing fields:

Prison deaths fall into two categories - natural and unnatural death. An unnatural death can be defined as murder, suicide or drug overdose. All deaths by drug overdose and suicide by hanging remain questionable because prison murders can be staged to look like suicides or drug overdoses. The term "unnatural death" is more appropriate than the official version of suicide or drug overdose.

The “sleeper hold”, which cuts off blood to the brain by exerting pressure on the carotid artery, is a legacy that resulted from practices employed by guards to control unruly children in Queensland juvenile institutions.

The products of state-run juvenile institutions carried the practice into the adult prison system where it is now used as a weapon for murder - a technique employed to render victims helpless before they are strung up to give the appearance of suicide by hanging.

A shorter version of that On Line Opinion report was also published in a 2003 edition of The Walkley magazine but despite that coverage, the QDCS remained a law unto itself and continued to deny media access to its prisons. Without transparency the cover-ups continued.

During May 2004 On Line Opinion published two more articles by me: “Abu Ghraib one day, Queensland the next” and “Abuse in prisons makes prisoners more violent upon release”, in which the Queensland prison system was again placed under the spotlight in the electronic media. The reports described how cover-ups and the denial of media access to Queensland prisons had contributed to a violent environment comparable to the atrocities committed by American army personnel inside Abu Ghraib military prison. (“Abuse in prisons makes prisoners more violent upon release” was the category winner in Best On Line News Wire Report - Electronic Media at the 2004 Queensland Media Awards.)

It was ironical that when the founder of an advocacy service for women prisoners, called Sisters Inside, used the same comparison, between Abu Ghraib and the Wolston Women’s Prison at Wacol, to explain the conditions women prisoners were forced to undergo as part of their incarceration and also the scandal surrounding Cornelia Rau's detention, QDCS banned the organisation from its prisons.

Debbie Kilroy, the founder of Sisters Inside, had been awarded an Order of Australia for her contribution to the advocacy and re-socialisation of women prisoners in Queensland, but despite those achievements, QDCS was determined to maintain the secrecy that surrounds its prisons and bristled at any criticism of that secrecy.

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.

Day, who had already been convicted of two prison murders himself, was murdered by another prisoner, Jason “Waxy” Nixon, who used a sock filled with cakes of soap to batter him to death. Nixon had also been convicted of the 1993 prison murder of Bart Voesmaer.

Sinister implications of the Day murder involved a culture of complacency towards prison murders when it was revealed that two officers from the Queensland Ombudsman’s Office walked past the enclosed exercise yard when Nixon was attacking Day but they left the MSU without informing officers on duty. Another aspect of that complacency is the fact that prisoners within the MSU are under 24-hour CCTV surveillance. The murder was captured on tape but the officer in charge of the CCTV monitors was reading a book and making personal telephone calls while the murder was occurring.

During its tenure as Queensland’s top maximum-security prison that culture of complacency towards prison murders has allowed the SDLCC to achieve the highest prisoner mortality rate for unnatural deaths of any Australian maximum-security prison. It 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. And the people who run the system have become immune from outside scrutiny after governments legislated against media access to the taxpayer funded institutions.

In December 2004 On Line Opinion published a three-part series, “A Journey through the Belly of the Beast”, in which the Queensland prison system was again critically analysed. That analysis resulted from a submission made to the Uniting Care Centre for Social Justice and its report on the Queensland prison system.

In response, Queensland Police and Corrective Services Minister Judy Spence dismissed the damning report as unsubstantiated allegations based on interviews with ex-prisoners and the views of some service providers. Ms Spence told the Queensland media:

The report - with its questionable methodology - focuses on the rights of criminals and contains many old and recycled claims about the treatment of prisoners, which have already been independently investigated and found to be without substance.

Some of the “many old and recycled claims about the treatment of prisoners” that the Honorable Minister had dismissed in a cavalier fashion concerned over 30 men who had died unnatural deaths in a place they call the killing fields of Queensland. The minister’s assertions that those old and recycled claims had “already been independently investigated and found to be without substance” flies in the face of evidence tendered in the Brisbane Supreme Court on June 16, 2005 when Andrew Thomas “Mugwah” Kranz, 33, pleaded guilty to two unsolved prison murders.

The court was told that both murders occurred at SDLCC but if Kranz had not confessed to the 1994 stabbing murder of David Edward Smith, 21, or the 1997 hanging murder of Michael James Adams, 20, both murders would have remained unsolved.

Prior to Kranz’s guilty plea, the murder of Michael James “Mickey” Adams was officially classified as a prison suicide. His questionable death was first raised as a possible murder in On Line Opinion on April 4, 2003. That possibility continued in a series of prison exposes during 2003, 2004 and 2005 here in On Line Opinion.

These prison exposes have reinforced a need for transparency in the Queensland prison system and the overhaul of legislation that restricts media access to places like the killing fields of SDLCC. They also reveal a sinister foreboding for the general public if young men like Mark Day, Jason Nixon and Andrew Kranz can enter the Queensland prison system and become serial killers overnight in those gladiatorial environments.

Andrew “Mugwah” Kranz has been in jail for 13 of the past 15 years. After being released from jail in June 2002 he robbed a firearms instructor, raped a 15-year-old homeless girl in Toowoomba, and kidnapped a truck driver from Brisbane at gunpoint. While in protective custody at Townsville CC in 2004 he stabbed two prison guards. It was shortly after this incident that he confessed to the two unsolved prison murders.

At Brisbane Supreme Court on June 16, 2005 Justice Deb Mullins described Kranz's crimes as "absolutely horrific" and sentenced him to double life sentences for the prison murders with at least 22 years to be served before consideration for parole. He was also given 12 years for rape to be served cumulatively.

As Andrew “Mugwah” Kranz becomes another statistic of the Queensland prison system, the killing fields at SDLCC still remain shrouded in secrecy. The unnatural deaths and unsolved murders that have occurred over the last decade are not without substance but legislative tourniquets continue to restrict media access and deny the public’s right to know. On Line Opinion has successfully circumvented that tourniquet on a number of occasions but the Queensland prison system requires transparency so the general public can accurately assess what the system is actually producing.

If the system remains shrouded in secrecy and continues to mould and produce overnight serial killers like Day, Nixon and Kranz, then God help future generations of Queenslanders because the expanding prison system has the capacity to create many more who could go undetected until they get back on the street. It is that potential and the capacity of the Queensland prison system to remain a law unto itself that restricts Queenslanders and the media from accurately gauging that potential.