" Managing " Prisons !

It is abundantly clear that the New South Wales prison system is dangerously under sourced.  We know that three prisoners are being crammed into cells designed for a single inmate and at the end of each court day the crop of newly convicted and sentenced prisoners is unable to find a prison bed.  Often they are held for days in court cells or moved around suburban police stations with the cops being responsible for buying in McDonalds or Kentucky Fried Chicken to keep them fed.

The state prison population reached 12,700 in July.  It increased by twenty-one percent since 2001 and on present indications it is expected to hit 13,500 by early 2017.   That will be an unsustainable figure and the state government allocated $ 3.8 billion for prisons in this years June budget.

The reason we have this overcrowding is complex.  The state closed several old and archaic prisons that were little changed from the days of transportation.  There was an expectation that prison numbers were dropping, but this coincided with a sharp increase inn the numbers held on remand.  It seems that the courts slowed and more cases were contested.  Perhaps the quality of defence lawyers improved.  Somehow many court cases seem to take a lot longer these days and serious crime in rewarded with longer prison terms.

It doesn't take Nostradamus to predict the outcome if we allow our prisons to degenerate into " hell holes ".   The overseas experience is clear.   Riots !   Fires !  Rebellions  !   Killings !   The festering conditions of too many people crammed into too little space must have an impact on the unfortunate warders tasked with guarding them and it doesn't take long for the rule of strength to rise to the top within the prison population itself.

We are already seeing that with Islamic State sympathisers gathering their numbers to form attack gangs to forcibly convert other prisoners to the Islamic religion.   A ruthless and numerous clique are able to impose intolerable threats to those they are unable to mentally withstand a threat to their lives.  We have seen an instance where boiling water was poured on such a prisoner and an Islamic code carved into his body with a razor blade.

The danger is that this form of coercion can quickly get out of control.   We know the problems of separating rival gangs in the prison system but the number of Jihadists is growing quickly and fanatacism makes them impossible to control.   Those converted often serve their new masters slavishly.

The state has a duty of care for those the law insists in putting under their control.  Along with incarceration comes a requirement that the prisoner will be housed, fed, clothed - and kept safe. That person has been put in the care of prison staff for the purpose of rehabilitation and has the expectation that on release they will be physically unharmed.    They certainly have a right to retain their original notion of religion.

One prisoner in the New South Wales prison system is at high risk of having that duty of care violated.   Renas Lelikan if a thirty-eight year old Kurdish journalist.   When he returned to Australia he was accused of being a member of the PKK - the Kurdish Workers Party - which is in conflict with Islamic State and is consequently classed as a terrorist group.   Lelikan was accused on fighting for the PKK, convicted and given a prison sentence.

Strangely, the PKK are allies with the very forces Australian troops are training to fight against Islamic State, but because our laws do not discriminate against which side fighters from this country join, all are classed as terrorists - and face prison.

So we have the weird situation that a man who supports what we consider the " right " side in this conflict is in prison and under threat from a vast number of Islamic State sympathisers who have every intention of causing his death because they see him as their enemy.

If this man is murdered in prison, the state will most certainly have failed in its duty of care.   Every single day he remains in the general prison population increases the risk and it is totally unacceptable if the state simply sits on its hands and pleads overcrowding as its inability to act.

That duty of care responsibility rests on the shoulders of those who head the command structure !