" Age " and " Life Terms " !

We have just opened a new, updated version of the " Supermax " at Goulburn prison to accommodate the growing number of prisoners who will end their life behind bars because of terrorism or calculated murder.  Despite the crimes these people have committed, we are a humane society and they receive medical care and sometimes that requires treatment in a hospital.   It is not a comforting thought that ordinary citizens might find themselves sharing a ward with a convicted murderer.

Perhaps one of the best known inmates of the Supermax is the Belanglo Forest backpacker killer Ivan Milat - and he is now seventy-four years old.  His condition deteriorated to the point that hospital treatment was necessary and the prison authorities have released details of the procedures in place to ensure both the safety of the public and the security necessary to prevent any possibility of a prisoner escape.

The state maintains a secure, inmate only annex at the Prince of Wales hospital at Randwick.  It is staffed by a mix of hospital workers and Corrective Services staff and is safely isolated from the main building.   Prisoners are taken from their cell to hospital in a prison van with adequate external security measures in place and maximum internal security is maintained for the duration of their stay.

Corrective services has not commented on the reason Milat is in hospital, but it is believed to enable diagnostic tests to be carried out and it is expected he will be returned to prison in a matter of days. Milat was convicted in 1996 and given seven life sentences for the brutal murder of seven backpackers whose bodies were discovered in a state forest between 1989 and 1993.

In the conventional prison system most prisoners are returned to society before they reach old age and signs of infirmity are usually taken into account when considering early release and parole.  That is not an option for those committed to the Supermax.   They are there for the term of their natural life and there is the expectation that they will die in that same confinement.  Every effort will be expended to try and maintain their good health until that naturally occurs.

The Supermax was conceived as a necessity to house the " worst of the worst " and keep them in isolation to prevent them contaminating other prisoners with their doctrine of war on society.  We have abandoned the death penalty as a punishment and this has been replaced by a form of ultimate detention until the end of life.  The nature of terrorism crimes is such that many people think that return of the death penalty would be a more suitable punishment that a life term and it would certainly be far cheaper than maintaining a prison like the Supermax.

It seems unlikely we will ever return to the death penalty.  The numbers contained in the Supermax continue to grow and eventually even more expansion will be needed.   The only saving grace is that eventually the life of those so contained must naturally come to an end.