Latest / 360 with Katie Woolf / Darwin Lawyer John Lawrence says NT prisons are in a broken state with inmates living in almost unlawful conditions

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Darwin Lawyer John Lawrence says NT prisons are in a broken state with inmates living in almost unlawful conditions · 360 with Katie Woolf

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  Speaker 1: Now, a top Darwin lawyer has pleaded with the territory's
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  Speaker 1: judges to refuse to send defendants to pack to the
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  Speaker 1: rafters prisons that are bordering on unlawful in a report
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  Speaker 1: by the NT News. In seeking yet another adjournment in
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  Speaker 1: the Darwin Local Court yesterday, after being unable to reach
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  Speaker 1: his client, John Lawrence sc Judge David Woodroff to personally
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  Speaker 1: visit the grossly overcrowded Halts Prison to see the broken
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  Speaker 1: system for himself. John Lawrence SC joined me a little
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  Speaker 1: bit earlier this morning. Good morning to you.
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  Speaker 2: John, Good morning Katy.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your time, my pleasure. Now, John,
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  Speaker 1: you raised this concern yesterday in court. What prompted you
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  Speaker 1: to raise your concern?
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  Speaker 3: Well, like many others in the legal system, have been
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  Speaker 3: witnessing the deterioration of this component of it, which is
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  Speaker 3: the jail system, the correction system, and specifically Halt's Prison,
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  Speaker 3: And what's happened over the last year, maybe even more
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  Speaker 3: is gros deterioration in the conditions that are enjoyed by
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  Speaker 3: the prisoners either being sentenced in there or are sitting
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  Speaker 3: there on remand. And there are various reasons why this
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  Speaker 3: has occurred, but the place is now in a broken state.
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  Speaker 3: In my opinion, it's in dire conditions, it's dysfunctional, and
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  Speaker 3: it is bordering on being unlawful in that it's not
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  Speaker 3: providing what the law requires, what international law requires, and
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  Speaker 3: which moral standards require, which is prisoners that are kept
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  Speaker 3: in reasonable and appropriate conditions. And I can go on
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  Speaker 3: to describe the problems.
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  Speaker 1: So well, John, I guess firstly, what's causing this? Because
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  Speaker 1: you said it is over the last year or so,
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  Speaker 1: we're talking about it staff shortage. I mean, I know
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  Speaker 1: that you obviously are working for corrections, but from your perspective,
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  Speaker 1: what's causing this?
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  Speaker 2: There are a combination of things.
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  Speaker 3: One inevitably is resources, and there seems to be a
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  Speaker 3: chronic shortage of staff in corrections.
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  Speaker 2: Which they seem incapable of addressing.
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  Speaker 3: So this leads to in reality, if you've not got
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  Speaker 3: enough prison officers on the shift, then you have to
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  Speaker 3: lock down the prisoners in their cell so they can't
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  Speaker 3: go about, move about, attend programs if they're available, because
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  Speaker 3: you haven't got enough security to allow that to occur.
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  Speaker 3: So the effect of that is that many prisoners for
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  Speaker 3: many weeks, if not months now are being locked down
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  Speaker 3: for sometimes twenty two hours a day in various sections,
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  Speaker 3: and then this has been getting worse and worse and worse.
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  Speaker 3: Now in recent times we're also discovering that remember this
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  Speaker 3: jail was built and occupied in two point fifteen, and
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  Speaker 3: I gather it's the biggest capital outlay that any government
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  Speaker 3: in territory history has made. It's costing the community one
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  Speaker 3: point eight billion dollars and it's going to take about
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  Speaker 3: twenty five thirty years to repay it. So it's giant,
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  Speaker 3: and of course in many ways it's the symbol of
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  Speaker 3: the territory. You can see it, oh too graphically when
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  Speaker 3: you fly into Darwin. Anybody that flies into Darwin day
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  Speaker 3: or night sees this giant footprint. It's like our Eiffel
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  Speaker 3: Tower or our Statue of Liberty, only it's a huge joint. Anyway,
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  Speaker 3: it was built I suspect on the cheap because things
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  Speaker 3: are collapsing. The electricity is collapsing. There was electricity outages
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  Speaker 3: last week and last weekend. The televisions don't work, the
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  Speaker 3: computers don't work. You can't organize a visit because the
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  Speaker 3: phones don't work. So you've got all of those things combined,
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  Speaker 3: and you've got you've got a demograph of criminals, and
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  Speaker 3: a lot of these men in there are violent, and
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  Speaker 3: a lot of these men in there are in need
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  Speaker 3: of programs ordered by judges to address things like anger management,
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  Speaker 3: drug withdrawal, all of these kind of things, because part
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  Speaker 3: of a prison's purpose is actually to reabilitate criminals so
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  Speaker 3: that when they come out with any luck, they're not
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  Speaker 3: going to recommit crimes.
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  Speaker 1: And so John, from your perspective, based on what you
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  Speaker 1: have said, it sounds to me that you know that
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  Speaker 1: then these people, these criminals are not actually able to
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  Speaker 1: do those rehab progress.
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  Speaker 3: Absolutely that there's very few programs available. I think there's
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  Speaker 3: resourcing problem with programs themselves, so they're not actually up
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  Speaker 3: and ready anyway. Yep, So you've got a whole population
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  Speaker 3: in a seriously overcrowded prison. I mean, I was out
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  Speaker 3: there on Friday. What happened in this case was I
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  Speaker 3: couldn't get access to one client. Coincidentally, I went out
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  Speaker 3: in the afternoon to visit another client. I discovered when
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  Speaker 3: I was out there that there was no phones working,
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  Speaker 3: there was no television working, there was lockdowns all over
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  Speaker 3: the place. I got in to see my client and
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  Speaker 3: he was telling me that there was an undercurrent of violence.
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  Speaker 2: He was worried.
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  Speaker 3: He's not a violent criminal, he's in there for other offenses.
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  Speaker 3: But he was saying that people are so bored that
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  Speaker 3: they just resort to violence, gang violence, picking on people,
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  Speaker 3: et cetera. So he's running the gauntlet every day. So
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  Speaker 3: it's really an invidious situation and it needs to be acknowledged.
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  Speaker 3: It needs to be ventilated. The media need to play
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  Speaker 3: a greater role here. They need to investigate the actual
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  Speaker 3: situation in our prison so that the community know, so
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  Speaker 3: that the minister responsible can fix it up.
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  Speaker 1: I guess look at he's a difficult one in the
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  Speaker 1: sense that you know a lot of people. Unless you've
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  Speaker 1: got a loved one who is in the prison, or
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  Speaker 1: unless you're actually dealing with people who are in the prison,
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  Speaker 1: or you know somebody who works there, a lot of
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  Speaker 1: us have no idea what's actually going on out there.
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  Speaker 3: Now.
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  Speaker 1: My understanding is that, as you've mentioned, it has meant
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  Speaker 1: that you've not been able to get in contact with
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  Speaker 1: some of those clients. What impact does that have really on,
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  Speaker 1: you know, on the broader community, but also in terms
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  Speaker 1: of people being able to go through those legal proceedings, well, it.
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  Speaker 2: It delays them bottom lane.
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  Speaker 3: The system cannot work if prisoners cannot get access to
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  Speaker 3: the legal representatives so that they can take instructions, resolve
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  Speaker 3: the case, plead them guilty, plead them not guilty, and
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  Speaker 3: move on to the next stage.
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  Speaker 2: So everything's clogged up.
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  Speaker 1: Now, John, you had said, as I understand it, yesterday
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  Speaker 1: in you know in court, that that you know you
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  Speaker 1: wanted you wanted the judge to go out there and
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  Speaker 1: visit the place to see it for himself. What was
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  Speaker 1: what was the response?
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  Speaker 3: The judge didn't take up that suggestion. I don't think,
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  Speaker 3: but who knows. He may he can. And I've encouraged
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  Speaker 3: other judges because I know for a fact Supreme Court judges,
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  Speaker 3: at the very least they can just go out and
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  Speaker 3: this happens in other judishs. Judges can they have the
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  Speaker 3: authority unlike most people. Parliamentarians can as well. They can
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  Speaker 3: just lob up at the prison and say I want
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  Speaker 3: access now, and I want to have a look around
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  Speaker 3: this prison because part of my job is making judicial
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  Speaker 3: orders that will detain men and women young and old
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  Speaker 3: in this facility. And you have a duty of care
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  Speaker 3: to make sure that that's complied with. And so I
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  Speaker 3: want to make sure that I'm following the law and
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  Speaker 3: detaining them in here. And my view is that if
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  Speaker 3: a judge went to the prison now, he would realize
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  Speaker 3: that the conditions are in fact unlawful, and they're unlawful
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  Speaker 3: in various ways. They're certainly unlawful civilly because the minister
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  Speaker 3: is breaching, breaching grossly her duty of care and keeping
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  Speaker 3: prisoners in the conditions that they currently suffer under. For instance,
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  Speaker 3: the overcrowding thing. That client that's on Friday, he's in
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  Speaker 3: a cell for two and he's number three and he's
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  Speaker 3: sleeping on the floor, and the other tour in bunk beds. Now,
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  Speaker 3: this is going on all around the prison. There are
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  Speaker 3: even prisoners sleeping on mattresses in the reception area. Now
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  Speaker 3: that's just not on. Yeah, and it's probably unlawful. And
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  Speaker 3: unless somebody puts their hand up, puts the foot in
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  Speaker 3: the door, makes a statement says not good enough, fix it,
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  Speaker 3: it's going to deteriorate. And you know it's Mount Etna.
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  Speaker 3: You know, a prison in situation like that, full of
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  Speaker 3: men with backgrounds such as that is a volcano. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: we live in the ice age. There are a lot
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  Speaker 3: of prisoners in there who are recovering, if you like,
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  Speaker 3: or withdrawing from ice addiction. And that's not a pretty sight.
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  Speaker 1: John. I know that there'll be some people listening this
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  Speaker 1: morning who will be thinking to themselves, do you know what?
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  Speaker 1: They've broken? The law? Their prisoners. We don't expect them
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  Speaker 1: to be in a luxurious location, and we expect that
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  Speaker 1: prison's going to be uncomfortable for them. I mean, what
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  Speaker 1: would you say to those people that are listening thinking, oh,
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  Speaker 1: come on, you know it's a prison.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, And now I can understand that, and it's prevalent.
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  Speaker 3: There's a lot of frustration, there's a lot of anger,
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  Speaker 3: crimes not being solved. And this is actually one of
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  Speaker 3: the reasons why. Because the people that are going to
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  Speaker 3: come out of a prison in conditions like that, it's
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  Speaker 3: odds on they're going to recommit crime. They're not going
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  Speaker 3: to come out with a lesson, learn and a rehabilitative.
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  Speaker 2: Component to them.
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  Speaker 3: But the other thing I would say is Winston Churchill,
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  Speaker 3: the great conservative politician and war leader. He famously said
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  Speaker 3: that our attitude to our prisons as a society is
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  Speaker 3: ultimately the measure of our level of civilization.
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  Speaker 2: And you know, he was conscious that.
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  Speaker 3: You know, you can beat them up, you can throw
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  Speaker 3: rotten fruit at them, you can stitch the legs together
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  Speaker 3: and throw the key away, but that doesn't reflect well
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  Speaker 3: on a village that are personal. We'd like that lives in,
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  Speaker 3: you know, I'd like to have a more intelligent and
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  Speaker 3: a more effective as well as a more humane approach
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  Speaker 3: to our prisons. And what we've got now is nothing
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  Speaker 3: short of catastrophic and scandalous. I mean, it's beyond the
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  Speaker 3: pale what I'm describing here. This was never like this
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  Speaker 3: twenty years ago, thirty years ago, probably even ten years ago.
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  Speaker 3: This is deteriorating rapidly, and who knows where it's going
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  Speaker 3: to end.
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  Speaker 1: John, I know that you had said as well, or
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  Speaker 1: I understand that you'd said in court as well, that
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  Speaker 1: you know, we can't keep sending defendants there. If somebody
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  Speaker 1: is accused of committing a serious crime right now, where
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  Speaker 1: should they go?
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  Speaker 3: Well, the prison should be made appropriate, that's all I mean.
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  Speaker 3: This isn't about people being remanded in custody for the
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  Speaker 3: legal reasons. This is about when they're remanded they should
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  Speaker 3: be remanded in a facility that is appropriate in legal
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  Speaker 3: like they do in Spain, like they do in Japan,
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  Speaker 3: like they do in Scotland. You know this, This doesn't
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  Speaker 3: have happen in most other jurisdictions. And the greatest example
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  Speaker 3: of that, of course, tragically is don Dale, which is
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  Speaker 3: a remand and a sentence facility where children are kept
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  Speaker 3: and the conditions that children are kept in there, and
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  Speaker 3: seventy percent of them are on remand and one hundred
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  Speaker 3: percent of them are Indigenous children, the conditions that they're
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  Speaker 3: kept in is disgraceful and quite frankly beyond belief because
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  Speaker 3: they're occupying bearing a prison which was a condemned adult prison.
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  Speaker 3: It was destined to be bulldozed while we built this
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  Speaker 3: prison I'm talking about, and yet they reopened it and
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  Speaker 3: threw kids in there. So you've got and you've got
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  Speaker 3: kids as young as ten and eleven occupying cells in
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  Speaker 3: the maximum security block which were previously occupied by rapists, killers, pedophiles,
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  Speaker 3: Children lying in cells for twenty two hours a day,
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  Speaker 3: children who are already cognitively impaired. All the expens to
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  Speaker 3: know that most of these kids are you know, mentally
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  Speaker 3: damaged by virtue of the conditions from which they've came, which.
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  Speaker 2: Is flight and fear, you know, guadal Canal.
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  Speaker 3: They've come out of horrendously dysfunctional households where they become
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  Speaker 3: behaviorally compromised, which leads them into committing crime. So what
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  Speaker 3: we're doing there is catastrophic, in my opinion, unbelievable. And
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  Speaker 3: again it was never going on ten years ago or
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  Speaker 3: twenty years ago.
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  Speaker 2: This is where we've got to.
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  Speaker 1: Now, John, Look, a lot of people that listen to
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  Speaker 1: this show will be victims of crime, and a lot
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  Speaker 1: of them will be victims of, you know, crime that
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  Speaker 1: has been committed by people that occupy both don Dale
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  Speaker 1: and also also Halts. And again I know that they'll
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  Speaker 1: be listening thinking, you know, what do we do? What
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  Speaker 1: do we do instead?
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  Speaker 3: Well, what we should do first and foremost, which would
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  Speaker 3: be great and it's more than possible, is reduce the crime.
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  Speaker 3: And you reduce the crime by working out what creates
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  Speaker 3: the crime, what motivates fourteen year old kids to steal
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  Speaker 3: cars and steal stuff from shops and assault people. And
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  Speaker 3: once you've worked those kind of things out, then you
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  Speaker 3: should address them. Now, what we do know for a
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  Speaker 3: fact is what we're doing right now in the adult
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  Speaker 3: jail and particularly in the juvenile facility. Everybody that's in
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  Speaker 3: this theater, whether it's the judge, whether it's a prosecutor,
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  Speaker 3: whether it's a prison officer. You ask anybody, they will
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  Speaker 3: all agree as one that when these kids come out
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  Speaker 3: of don Dale, it's six to four on, they're going
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  Speaker 3: to recommit offenses and there's going to be more and
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  Speaker 3: more victims feeling more angry and more frustrated. So what
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  Speaker 3: we're doing at the moment compounds the criminal situation. Now,
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  Speaker 3: that's stupid, it's incredibly costly, and it's really quite inhumane.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, this country sticks out like no I know,
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  Speaker 3: no other country in the common law world that we'd
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  Speaker 3: have children of eleven years of age kept in facilities
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  Speaker 3: like that, no other country.
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  Speaker 1: John. I can hear some of our listeners yelling at
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  Speaker 1: their radios thinking to themselves, you know, what do we do.
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  Speaker 1: We have been the victims of crimes. You know, I've
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  Speaker 1: had an elderly lady call in the station one morning
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  Speaker 1: whose car had been stolen allegedly at the hands of
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  Speaker 1: an eleven year old. You know, it's her vehicle, her
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  Speaker 1: transportation obviously to be able to get her to and
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  Speaker 1: from everywhere she needs to go, you know, her independence.
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  Speaker 1: Right now, it does feel like things are a bit broken.
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  Speaker 2: It is. It's a broken system.
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  Speaker 3: And what's happened to that lady and all of us
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  Speaker 3: that have been hit by criminals is we are the
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  Speaker 3: harvest of neglect. You know, governments have turned a blind
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  Speaker 3: eye to addressing the causes of it and trying to
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  Speaker 3: fix it up by putting money into programs by reability,
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  Speaker 3: and kids can be reabilitated very easily. They are green wood.
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  Speaker 3: Most of them want to be reabilitated. Most of them
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  Speaker 3: go to security and that kind of thing, and learning
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  Speaker 3: and getting relationships with youth officers that are qualified, so
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  Speaker 3: that can be done. But again, you know, one can
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  Speaker 3: only but sympathize with victims of crime. But all I'm
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  Speaker 3: saying from my perspective of being at the co face
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  Speaker 3: for over thirty years, is that we are reaping this
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  Speaker 3: Harvard stuff neglect. Politicians are interested in getting votes and
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  Speaker 3: getting into government and staying in the government. That's all interesting.
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  Speaker 3: And one thing that gets them in is exploiting the
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  Speaker 3: including the media.
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  Speaker 2: Coverage of this issue, which is hang them high.
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  Speaker 3: You know, throw the key away, We'll get tough, will
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  Speaker 3: appease your anger. Well, it hasn't worked. It's cost us
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  Speaker 3: a fortune and we need to turn it around. We
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  Speaker 3: need to get smart.
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  Speaker 1: John. What of the Holtz Prison? What needs to happen
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: there with the overcrowding and what you know from what
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  Speaker 1: you were saying, it sounds like it could potentially be
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  Speaker 1: quite a dangerous situation.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I guess resources for and foremost the minister has
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: to demand from cabinet that they have to. I mean
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  Speaker 3: they have to replace staff. If they can't get staff,
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  Speaker 3: they've got to get them. They've got to increase wages.
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  Speaker 3: They've got to increase the qualifications that are required as well.
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  Speaker 3: So you need the resources injected. You need a will
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  Speaker 3: on behalf of them. Look, three weeks ago, Katie appeared
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: in the Coronial in question and Aboriginal death and custody
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  Speaker 3: another one. Now that's a plague that is unique to
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: this country. Aboriginal deaths in custody. We had a Royal
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  Speaker 3: commission in it thirty year ago and it gave all
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: kinds of recommendations. And since then there's been over five
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  Speaker 3: hundred Aboriginal deaths in custody again a thing unique to
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: this country. Now, that case was a classic who was
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: a thirty one year old man Aboriginal man on remand
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  Speaker 3: in a cell on his own, previously been classified as
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: at risk, lifted off, at risk, being seen by other
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  Speaker 3: prisoners to be sullen, sad told one prisoner, who's going
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  Speaker 3: to kill himself? He was putting a cell on his
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  Speaker 3: own with a double bunk bed which was almost designed
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  Speaker 3: as a hanging point, and he hung himself. Now that's
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  Speaker 3: the second hanging death in this new prison, which is
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  Speaker 3: a lot more than what was going on when we
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  Speaker 3: had the Royal Commission. So this is the reality of
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  Speaker 3: where we're at. So it needs urgency. It needs politicians
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  Speaker 3: to address this with real urgency and will to help
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  Speaker 3: the whole community.
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  Speaker 1: Well, John Lawrence SSA, I really appreciate your time this morning.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you very much for coming into the studio and
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: speaking with.
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  Speaker 2: This my pleasure. Thanks very much,