A Western Australia prisoner transport van forced Anna to endure hours in urine-soaked clothes. Why? Because she’s Aboriginal.

April 6, 2023 by Leave a Comment

Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: first as tragedy, then as farce.

                                                            Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

According to a report, “The transport of regional and remote prisoners”, released Monday, April 3, by the Office of the Inspector of Custodial Services of Western Australia, history repeated itself recently. The report describes “Anna’s journey”, a “transport welfare fail”. It then notes that the exact same failure happened to another incarcerated woman … two weeks earlier. The report opens, “This review was prompted by a few recent incidents that raised questions for us about the conditions under which prisoners were being transported across regional Western Australia. It was also undertaken against a historical backdrop of the tragic case of Mr Ward who died during a prisoner transport in 2008. We set out to seek assurance that the gains made since 2008 have been sustained.” The report ends, “There is a clear gap in the monitoring of … movement services at regional locations, which should be addressed by the Department. This aligns with the findings of the Coroner following the death of Mr Ward, and a recommendation for the Department to conduct regular reviews of transport contractor services in regional locations (Hope, 2009).” What does it mean that a failure in 2022, reported in 2023, “aligns” with findings and recommendations, issued in 2009, concerning an incident in 2008?

In 2022, Anna entered Greenough Regional Prison, for the third time. The staff at Greenough knew Anna. Flagged as living with schizophrenia, Anna was known to have an extensive psychiatric history, including frequent episodes of self-harm and suicidal behavior. This time, in her first week or so, Anna was reported twice for uncooperative and erratic behavior. She stopped taking her medications. Despite her non-compliant and erratic behavior, it was decided to move Anna to Bandyup Women’s Prison. The pre-transfer report described Anna as “satisfactory – no major concerns”. When staff tried to place Anna on a plane headed for Bandyup, Anna urinated on herself in the transport vehicle and refused to wear a mask. The trip was cancelled. As Anna was being returned to Greenough, staff issued a new plan, with no mention of schizophrenia or any other issues. The new plan was to transport Anna by van the 400 some kilometers to Bandyup.

A week later, Anna was bundled, shackled and handcuffed, into the security pod of an escort van, and off they went. The journey was 4 hours and 35 minutes. During that trip, early on, Anna, still handcuffed and shackled, urinated. There was no CCTV footage or cell phone call recordings. There was no documentation of anything out of the ordinary. Perhaps that’s because there was nothing out of the ordinary. Two hours in wet clothes, shackled and handcuffed in a so-called security pod. All in a day’s work … if the person is an Aboriginal woman.

Anna’s story ends in redundancy: “Prior to Anna’s transfer, another female prisoner departed Greenough in early April 2022 and urinated in the vehicle. Upon arrival to Bandyup, staff were made aware that this prisoner had urinated in the pod during the journey. Many of the issues we identified with Anna’s experience were also present in this earlier case …. It is concerning, and disappointing, that staff failed to learn from this earlier incident and implement measures, such as bringing a change of clothes or a towel, that would have helped protect the dignity and welfare of Anna during her journey a few weeks later.”

It is concerning and disappointing, and altogether predictable. Staff did not fail to learn, they did not even have to refuse to learn, because there has been no reason to. Throughout the report, the Inspector invokes the tragic case of Mr. Ward, who died in a prisoner transport in Western Australia. In January 2008, Mr. Ward, 46 years old, a respected elder, was taken on a 220 mile ride across the blistering Central Desert to face a drunk driving charge. Mr. Ward had represented the Ngaanyatjarra lands across Australia and at international fora. The people who drove Mr. Ward threw him into the back of a Mazda van, into the security “pod” with metal seating and no air conditioning. All male remand prisoners are considered dangerous, or “high risk”. That Mr. Ward was known to be cooperative and congenial was irrelevant. For his own safety and welfare, he had to go in the back. The trip took almost four hours. The temperatures that day were 40 degrees Celsius, 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Mr. Ward died of heatstroke. He died with third degree burns. Mr. Ward cooked to death, slowly and in excruciating pain.

In a 2001 government study, identical Mazda `pods’ were described as “not fit for humans to be transported in.” They were seen as “a death waiting to happen.”  In the intervening decade, there were other major reports, two in 2005, in 2006. In 2008, Mr. Ward was dumped into the oven of the back of that Mazda. When asked about the implications of Mr. Ward’s story, Keith Hamburger, the principal author of the 2005 report, responded, “That’s a matter of great concern because this is not rocket science, we’re dealing here with duty of care.”

A duty of care. In 2022, that duty of care meant two Aboriginal women, separately, abused. The list of Aboriginal women who died in custody, in Western Australia alone, is long: Maureen Mandijarra, 2012; Ms. Dhu, 2014; Cherdeena Wynne, 2019; JC, 2019. Many die in police custody, others in prisoner transport vans, others in their cells. Year after year, the Inspector of Custodial Services for Western Australia has described Anna’s ultimate destination, Bandyup Women’s Prison, the only women’s prison in Western Australia, as a hellhole. Speaking of Bandyup, the Inspector said, “I wanted to know how such an event could occur in a 21st Century Australian prison and to prevent it happening again.” First as tragedy, then as farce does not mean the second time is funny. For those forced to suffer, the pain is new, and yet not new, each time. The farce is in the expressions of surprise, discovery, concern of the perpetrators. It is concerning and disappointing … and happening somewhere right now.

 

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: Ngayarta Kujarra by Jakayu Biljabu, Yikartu Bumba, May Chapman, Nyanjilpayi Nancy Chapman, Doreen Chapman, Linda James, Donna Loxton, Mulyatingki Marney, Reena Rogers, Beatrice Simpson, Ronelle Simpson, and Muntararr Rosie Williams / The National Gallery of Victoria)

 

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In Australia, don’t `fix’ Banksia Hill Detention Center. Shut it down!

April 18, 2022 by 61 Comments

Today’s headlines read: “The juvenile prison where child was ‘treated like an animal’ gets funding boost”; “Banksia Hill juvenile detention centre gets $25 million to address ‘dehumanising’ conditions, cut incarceration rates”. Banksia Hill Detention Center is in Western Australia. It’s the only juvenile detention center in Australia that houses both males and females. The situation is so bad that, in January, Perth Children’s Court president Hylton Quail sentenced a 17-year-old child to Hakea Prison, an adult prison, rather than send to Banksia Hill. Hakea Prison is where 22-year-old Noongar man Ricky Lee Cound was kept in solitary and denied clearly needed medical care. On Friday, March 25, Ricky Lee Cound died. After weeks of self-harm and institutional refusal, Ricky Lee Cound died in a place that is preferable to Banksia Hill Detention Center, and today, Banksia Hill Detention Center received $25 million to improve its conditions. Don’t improve it. Shut it down.

In February, the same Judge Quail was presented with the case of a 15-year-old child. The boy had been held in Banksia Hill for 98 days. For 79 of the 98 days, the boy was held in what the judge called a “fishbowl” cell, where he had no privacy whatsoever. The judge described the exercise yard as a “10 x 20 metre cage”. For 33 of the 79 days, the boy wasn’t allowed outside the cell at all. The judge rightly called this “solitary confinement”. The boy received no education while in custody. The boy threatened self-harm and attacked staff. In fact, he was standing before the judge because he had attacked staff and damaged state property. Judge Quail responded to the situation, “When you treat a damaged child like an animal, they will behave like an animal. When you want to make a monster, this is how you do it.”

Today, Banksia Hill Detention Center received $25 million to address these conditions. Don’t address, don’t improve. Shut it down and build real alternatives.

The problems at Banksia Hill Detention Center go way back, continue to the present, and are hard baked into its design and purpose. According to the Office of the Inspector of Custodial Services’ 2020 Inspection of Banksia Hill Detention Center, “Aboriginal young people continue to be overrepresented at Banksia Hill, making up 74 percent of the population.” Even by Australian standards, where Indigenous young people typically make up 49% of those “under youth justice supervision”, 74% is high … and catastrophic.

And for girls, it’s especially bad. 80% of the girls are Aboriginal, a mix of sentenced and remand. While services for the girls had improved since the last inspection, the report notes that the improvement came from individual staff members, and not from any strategic or management plan. That means when the staff moves on, and they do move quite a bit, there’s no guarantee the improved services will remain. Further, a number of staff make it known, to the girls, that they don’t want to work in the female section. While girls form a minority of Banksia Hill residents, their numbers have been increasing, during a period where the general population has been decreasing. From 2017 to 2020, the numbers of girls generally doubled. Likewise, where they were 6% of the Banksia Hill population in 2017, by 2020, they comprised 13%. And yet, with all that increase, everything involving girls at Banksia Hill Detention Center was ad hoc.

Banksia Hill Detention Center has been open since 1997. It has gone through repeated cycles of “major redevelopment”, to no avail. That’s because the improvements, despite individual staff members’ best intentions or lack thereof of, were never meant to improve the lives of Aboriginal children. Don’t `improve’ the institution, yet again, with a fat purse. The children housed in Banksia Hill Detention have problems, but they themselves are not the problem. Shut it down. Build real justice by investing in real care.

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Photo Credit: National Indigenous Times)

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What happened to JC? Nothing. An Aboriginal woman died in “police presence”

September 27, 2019 by 25 Comments

People want to know why the police immediately used lethal force. Now the police express “sympathy and condolences” as they urge calm, ban takeaway alcohol sales, and made clear that JC’s death would be “classed as a death in police presence, not in police custody”. Meanwhile a family friend, Marianne Mallard, create a GoFundMe page to help the family pay for JC’s funeral.  If interested, you can donate here. Now the various stories about Joyce Clarke’s difficult and her loving life emerge. Likewise, now we hear, yet again, about how the police officer who shot and killed Joyce Clarke is devastated, on leave and receiving support and counseling from the police department. Yet again, we hear of the abysmal lack of any mental health support for Aboriginal and Indigenous people.

In November 2012, Maureen Mandijarra, a 44-year-old Aboriginal woman, died in police custody in Western Australia. In August 2014, a 22-year-old Aboriginal woman, called Ms. Dhu, died in custody in Western Australia. Ms. Dhu was Yamatji. Ms. Dhu’s family are from and continue to live in Geraldton. They live under the menacing sky of Yet Again. To this day, they await something like justice. In April 2019, Cherdeena Wynne died in police custody in Western Australia. Cherdeena Wynne was Noongar and Yamatji. Yet Again.

In Western Australia, Debbie Kilroy co-founded Sisters Inside to stop the abuse and incarceration of Aboriginal women, specifically, and Aboriginal people and communities, generally. Sisters Inside works to turn Yet Again into Never Again, but that requires a transformation of state. Meanwhile, this past weekend, Noongar woman Keennan Dickie was attacked, robbed, beaten, injured. She called the police for help. The police came, noted her injuries, and told her that, because she had outstanding fines, she’d have to go to the police station, once she healed, to report the assault and robbery. Keennan Dickie spent Saturday night in hospital. Still in pain, Keennan Dickie went to the police station the next day. They arrested her for unpaid fines and shipped her to Melaleuca Women’s Prison. As Debbie Kilroy noted, “We are seeing over and over again the arrest of women living in poverty who cannot pay their fines. It is not that they don’t want to pay their fines. We are seeing the criminalisation of poverty and the default response to that is prison.” Yet Again 

What is the value of an Aboriginal woman’s life, in Australia, in Western Australia, anywhere? Yet Again. Never Again. Yet Again. Never Again? Never Again.

 

 (Photo Credit: West Australian / Geraldton Guardian / Francesca Mann)

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What happened to Cherdeena Wynne? Nothing. An Aboriginal woman died in police custody

April 15, 2019 by 10 Comments

Cherdeena Wynne

In Western Australia, yet another Aboriginal woman died in police custody. Cherdeena Wynne was 26 years old, mother of three children, living with mental illness. According to Shirley Wynne, Cherdeena Wynne’s mother, at 3:30 on April 4, eight police officers entered Shirley Wynne’s home and, in the dark, wrestled Cherdeena Wynne to the floor, where they handcuffed her. According to Shirley Wynn, the officers kept calling Cherdeena Wynne by another name. Finally, after 20 minutes, the officers left the house and Cherdeena Wynne understandably terribly upset. Cherdeena Wynne ran from the house. Police encountered her blocks away from her mother’s house. Police handcuffed Cherdeena Wynne, for her “protection.” Cherdeena Wynne passed out. Officers uncuffed her, administered CPR. She revived and was taken to hospital, where she was placed in an induced coma and died, on Tuesday, April 9. Police are not investigating her death because, basically, nothing happened. It gets worse.

Cherdeena Wynne was the daughter of Shirley Wynne and Warren Cooper. Cherdeena Wynne was Noongar and Yamatji. In 1999, Warren Cooper was arrested. Warren Cooper died in police custody. Both Cherdeena Wynne and her father Warren Cooper were 26 years old when they died in police custody. Jennifer Clayton, Cherdeena Wynne’s grandmother and Warren Cooper’s mother, said, “It’s time for this to stop. I have lost my son and now I have lost a granddaughter.” Carol Roe, Jennifer Clayton’s cousin, agreed: “If kids die from natural causes you can go on, but the way our kids die we can’t go on. We are lost in the system and they don’t care two stuffs.” Carol Roe is Ms. Dhu’s grandmother, the same 22-year-old Ms. Dhu who died in custody in 2014, also in Western Australia. Ms. Dhu was arrested for unpaid parking fines. Ms. Dhu and Cherdeena Wynne were executed for the crime of being-Aboriginal-women.

Monday, April 8, marked the 28thanniversary of the publication of the findings of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. That Commission studied 99 Aboriginal deaths in custody between 1980 and 1989. Of 99 deaths, 33 occurred in Western Australia, one of six states. The Commission issued 399 recommendations. At this point, a third of the commission’s recommendations lay untouched and without implementation. In 2016, at a commemoration of the 25thanniversary of the Commission, Carol Roe said, “They do the talk, but they need to do the walk and take action and help us and support us. Set the people free for petty crimes, instead of locking them up. Eighteen years ago my nephew died in custody. Two years ago it was my granddaughter. When is it going to stop, our heart still bleeds … I think Australia and the world need to see how my granddaughter was treated. Dragged around like a kangaroo. They need to look at it, let the world see. Shame, shame on Australia.”

We have described the deaths of the following Aboriginal men and women in Western Australia before: Mr. Ward, 2008; Maureen Mandijarra, 2012;  Ms. Dhu, 2014. Two years ago, we described, after three years, there was still no justice for Ms. Dhu, her family, or Aboriginal women generally. Repeatedly we have seen Western Australia as the epicenter for the rising incarceration of Aboriginal women and the expanding and intensifying abuse of Aboriginal women in the various forms of detention in Western Australia. None of this is new.

Currently, there is no accountability and no justice for the deaths of Aboriginal and Indigenous women and men in Australia’s prison. Cherdeena Wynne was handcuffed in police custody when she fell unconscious. The police decided not to investigate. Nothing happened, less than nothing. It’s time for this to stop. Stop sending Aboriginal women and men to jail for drunken behavior, sleeping rough, unpaid fines, mental illness, being Aboriginal. It’s time, it’s way past time, for this to stop. 

Ms. Dhu

 

(Photo Credit 1: The Guardian) (Photo Credit 2: ABC)

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Three years on, still no justice for Ms. Dhu, her family, or Aboriginal women generally

August 1, 2017 by 16 Comments

Ms. Dhu, who died in police custody, August 2014

In Australia, for Aboriginal women and their families, the wheels of justice do not turn at all, but they do try to grind the people into dust. On August 4, 2014, a 22-year-old Aboriginal woman, called Ms. Dhu, died in custody in Western Australia. She was being held for unpaid parking fines. Ms. Dhu screamed of intense pains and begged for help. She was sent to hospital twice and returned, untreated, to the jail. On her third trip to the hospital, she died within 20 minutes. Reports suggest she never saw a doctor. Her grandmother says she “had broken ribs, bleeding on the lungs and was in excruciating pain.” That wasn’t enough. In her death, Ms. Dhu joined a long line, actually a mob, of Aboriginal women who have died in custody in Australia. Ms. Dhu’s family joined a longer line of Aboriginal family members seeking justice. Three years later, Ms. Dhu’s family still struggles for peace and something like justice concerning the circumstances of their loved one’s death. To make matters worse, the statute of limitations is running out soon, and so Ms. Dhu’s mother, Della Roe, and her brother, Shaun Harris are preparing to sue the State, not because they want to but because the State has pushed them to this moment. As Della Roe explains, “I want justice and someone pay for what they did to my baby. They need to be accountable for it.”

The State did its own accounting, and that’s why, and how, Ms. Dhu died. Like the United States, Canada, and others, Australia has invested heavily in the devaluation of Aboriginal women’s bodies and lives. The rising rates of incarceration married to the plummeting budgets for assistance say as much. So do the women’s corpses, decade after decade, year after year. For Aboriginal women, the histories and lived experiences of colonial occupation and violence not only continue to this day. They are intensifying.

A contemporary postcolonial, anti-colonial politics begins and ends with the State murder of Aboriginal women’s bodies, which runs from lack of services and assistance, from cradle to grave, to mass incarceration to dumping into the mass graves of historical amnesia. Another world is possible, and it requires more than an endless cycle of “discoveries” followed by commissions.

Della Roe, Shaun Harris, and the spirit of Ms. Dhu are represented by George Newhouse and Stewart Levitt, prominent human rights attorneys. According to George Newhouse, “It’s three years since her death and time’s up. Time’s up. These reforms need to take place and I’m hoping that the case will lead to real reform in WA.” Stewart Levitt adds, “It’s been like hell. How else can I explain it, you know? No-one’s been accountable for it, it’s terrible. The last three years has been like hell.”

Ms. Dhu was murdered by State systems of accounting. She was in jail for $3,622 in unpaid fines. The jail staff and the hospital staff decided she wasn’t worth believing or treating. She wasn’t worth the bother. And so Ms. Dhu died and remains dead. No amount of accounting will bring her justice. And her mother and uncle and kin and community are left to struggle with the State systems of accounting that value their lives as beneath assessment. What would justice for Ms. Dhu mean today? To begin, stop sending Aboriginal women to jail and prison. Stop the slaughter now.

Ms. Dhu’s mother, Della Roe

(Photo Credit 1: ABC) (Photo Credit 2: Huffington Post Australia)

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