High Risk Prisoners !

Events at Kempsey prison this month have thrown the spotlight on the need for special arrangements when housing radicalized young men who have switched their allegiance to Islamic State. By an error of judgement a prisoner who had served in the Australian army ended up sharing a cell with a man convicted of terrorism charges.  This led to a fight in which the terrorist carved the IS slogan - e4e - into the ex-soldiers forehead and poured boiling water over his face.

It was a clear breach of prison guidelines to house a prisoner with the highest security rating with another low security rated prisoner and as a result the Superintendent of that prison has been stood down.  In this case, open antagonism between the two men should have sent warning signals that trouble was brewing.

The Inspector of Custodial Services is developing a new protocol for housing high risk prisoners.  There are twenty-nine in this terrorist category - and twenty-four of these are contained in the Supermax at Goulburn.  Their visitors must undergo a security check for past criminal history, their permitted phone calls and letters exchange must be in English or an approved foreign  language and their is minimum contact between inmates.

The Supermax was specially constructed to provide maximum security for the most dangerous prisoners in this state, but the category of crime is vastly mixed.  Some are serving sentences for murder, others are notorious rapists while others have been transferred from more normal prisons for attacks on prison officers.   They have little in common - except a propensity for violence and the desire to break out of confinement

Radicalized terrorists have a very different agenda.   They have a desire to kill and mutilate anybody who is not of their faith. Nomatter how tough a prison, it always develops a clandestine communication network and the exchange of prison "currency " allows the distribution of illicit luxuries - amongst which the mobile phone reigns supreme.  This will not be curbed until the authorities see sense and allow the installation of technology that creates a mobile phone "dead zone " around prisons.

Forward planning depends heavily on whether Islamic State continues to spawn adherents, or whether events in the Middle East war eventually winds down.  If the numbers of terrorists in Australian prisons continues to increase we will have a growing danger that far exceeds the normal criminal risk of housing prisoners. Religious fanaticism probably needs a special prison to contain that risk.

We once had a secure prison named "Katingal ".   It was hated by civil rights champions who described it as an "Electronic Zoo " !  It certainly served it's purpose and over the years that it housed our most dangerous prisoners there was never an escape. Every inch of that prison was under constant electronic surveillance.  Security at all times was paramount.

Eventually, the civil rights champions got their way and Katingal was bulldozed.  The Supermax was supposed to be another Katingal - with a more friendly face.    Perhaps now we need to have a rethink because the type of prisoner conditioned to behead innocent men, women and children on the streets of cities and towns simply because they follow a different religious belief is an advanced form of depravity that deserves an ultimate form of detention.

If a trickle of those radicalized becomes a flood, perhaps we need the type of prison they deserve. !