The Western Australian government is refusing to install air-conditioning in the country’s hottest prison, despite two decades’ of warnings about the health risks of incarcerating people at the site which hit more than 50 degrees earlier this year.
While the state government has refused to act, Port Hedland council in the Pilbara has decided the same conditions are inhumane for stray cats and dogs and will have air-conditioning installed at its pound by early next year at a cost of just over $2 million.
Roebourne Regional Prison is in the Pilbara region of WA and can hold more than 150 men and women, up to 90% of whom are First Nations peoples. Temperatures there hit more than 50 degrees in January, and a 2015 review found the average temperature overnight when prisoners are confined to their cells was 33 degrees, and typically temperatures in the hours leading up to midnight were 35 degrees.
Community and legal organisations and the WA independent prison inspector have been advocating for air-conditioning and better climate control at the prison for two decades, but have been consistently ignored.
Human Rights Watch Australia researcher Sophie McNeill says the conditions at Roebourne are “deeply shameful”.
“I don’t think it can get any more embarrassing for the Western Australian government,” McNeill says. “It’s shameful. To think that animals are being treated better than prison inmates in the care of the WA corrections minister is deeply shameful.
“The council in Port Hedland, and good on them, have decided it’s not humane for the animals to be in those conditions. To think that the corrections minister and premier of WA do not have the same regard for a prisoner where there are even higher temperatures, it’s deeply shocking and embarrassing.
“You can tell a lot about a society with how they treat their most vulnerable. I wish the people running Port Hedland Council were in charge of our prisons — they have a more compassionate approach than the current corrections minister.”
The office of the inspector of custodial services expressed “grave” concern over the heat at the prison in 2020, the Aboriginal Legal Service WA wrote to the state government twice last year and Human Rights Watch wrote to the government earlier this year.
This has all been ignored by the state government, which maintains measures in place at the prison, which do not include air-conditioning in the cells, are “effective”.
“At Roebourne Regional Prison this includes fans in every cell, air-conditioning in the recreation hall, prisoner visit area and female activities area, shade structures in the main areas of the prison and a flexible routine to adjust to the Pilbara’s heat conditions,” it says.
“The WA government is currently considering a report on the requirements and indicative costs to install air-conditioning across all cells.”
The cost of installing air-conditioning has been estimated at $2.5 million. The WA government recently spruiked the state’s $6 billion surplus — meaning the money required is less than 0.05% of the state’s recorded surplus.
Western Australia-based suicide prevention and poverty researcher Gerry Georgatos visited Roebourne prison in late 2020 with the state’s corrective services commissioner and deputy commissioner. He says the cells were “cramped” and “stiflingly hot”.
“Roebourne prison is a grossly densely populated prison,” Georgatos says. “Its spatial contexts are reprehensively small. There is very little about Roebourne prison which could be argued as rehabilitative, restorative and transformational. It is a corral of human misery.”
Georgatos says the commissioner at the time in late 2020 had recommended air-conditioning being installed in cells and improved ventilation to combat health risks.
The WA’s prison inspector reported on the Roebourne prison in 2022, and recommended effective heat mitigation be put in place.
“It is an identified health and welfare risk that arises once the prisoners are locked down that we feel ought to be effectively mitigated,” the office of the inspector of custodial services’ report said.
“We have made this recommendation in various reports over many years and while we recognise that there are infrastructure constraints, a solution is needed. We have expressed grave concern at the lack of climate control in mainstream prisoner accommodation at Roebourne and in other aspects of prison life over many years.”
Do you find it outrageous that prisoners live in such horrendous conditions? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
I suggestthat the humans deserve air con too. The fact that 90% are indigenous tells me their presence in jail is directly related to racism in the police and justice system rather than the nature of their crimes. But even if they are guilty as hell they should not be continuously exposed to dangerous heat levels.
It’s not hard to work out. If you don’t want to do the time then don’t do the crime. Dangerous heat levels? 35C? Really? Pretty normal in WA and the NT.
In WA they can lock up an Aborigine for being drunk in the street. I never heard of any of them robbing banks, importing cocaine with bikie gangs or cooking methamphetamine. Their ‘crimes’ are often misdemeanors… but commited by a black person.
Drunk and disorderly, assault, resisting arrest etc. Laws apply to everyone regardless of gender, race or religion as do the penalties for same. Just because one part of the community commit the most offences doesn’t mean they should be exempted from the laws. Sorry but I witnessed too much of this type of behavior by serial offenders as a kid. Zero sympathy.
Don’t do the crime if you don’t want to do the time. Simple really.
” never heard of any of them robbing banks, importing cocaine with bikie gangs or cooking methamphetamine”
You must have a sheltered life then!
Please read the story of Ms Dhu, one of many examples of explicit racism in the WA police and justice system.
Not relevant to this topic.
You ever lived across from someone that shot rifle bullets through your windows (until my father, who was not a man to be trifled with, sorted them out) and subsequently watched as these scumbags were arrested a few weeks later on armed robbery and drug charges?
Have you ever had to endure the same neighbour’s having nightly drunken parties with bottles thrown on all the roofs in the neighborhood, fights and otherwise terrorizing the neighborhood with threats of violence from said neighbours to both parents and their children?
I have sympathy for the victims of crimes, none whatsoever for the perpetrators.
OK, now we know why you’re so passionate about your point of view – thanks for telling us. It’s quite a paradigm shift. I’d like to ask – how would you go about creating opportunities for change for even those very badly behaved people? And for those locked up in the same conditions for what are basically misdemeanors anywhere else?
And yeah Lexus, I’ve seen a bit of that stuff, I lived in the Kimberley for a while – not long enough to go “troppo” lol! and I saw what “we” did to the indigenous that produced the kind of stuff that you’re talking about. It horrified me.
What “we” did was a very long time ago. Sometimes you just need to build a bridge and get over it otherwise you just keep repeating the cycle. What I described was the least of the rubbish that I witnessed growing up.
I’m very much a person that believes in personal responsibility and not excuses. You make your choices and you live with the consequences both good and bad.
They had the same opportunities (and more) that I had growing up. Consequently I have zero sympathy for any criminals and never will. They make their choices and have to wear the consequences. They can change if they want to however they just don’t want to. Criminals are basically lazy or on drugs or both. Poverty is not an excuse. I certainly did not grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth. My parents taught me right from wrong is all.
The laws apply equally to everyone regardless of culture, race etc. If members of one sub-culture represent the majority of offenders, you need to look at that sub-culture, not the Laws. If they want to live in any society, they have to obey society’s laws. Laws should not be tailored simply to pander to a sub-culture’s failings. That sub-culture needs to adapt and change its ways.
When I’m in China, or any other country for that matter, I adhere to their laws and customs not just the ones I agree with. I have a multi-cultural family BTW.
Bleeding hearts are too focused on the perpetrator rather than the victim. Years ago I knew a man who had lost his eyesight from a shotgun blast to his face during a robbery. The perpetrator was caught and convicted and subsequently escaped and recaptured years later. He was a serial offender BTW. All the bleeding hearts were worried about was this scumbag being kept in isolation (because he was an escape artist) rather than the poor guy that had his eyesight taken away from him forever by this piece of excrement. If it were up to me this scumbag would have dangled from a rope. He was not redeemable.
That’s a baseline.
“the site which hit more than 50 degrees earlier this year.”
Probably once and journalistic licence taken. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
https://www.worldweatheronline.com/pilbara-weather-averages/western-australia/au.aspx
Our military have to tolerate far worse conditions than these convicted criminals do.
Inhumane! Courts sentenced individuals to serve a required term. Not to be exposed, threatened by potential negligence leading to death. Bring back Chain Gangs, flogging and leg irons. Oh I get it . . . budgetary limitation?
(1) Well, dogs do die in that heat – they don’t sweat. (2) If the prisoners were all sent home, they would be just as hot. (3) Air condition the cells and everyone would be trying to get in. (4) We’d have to buy them all jumpers. But seriously, wouldn’t it be good if we could devise a better society that doesn’t need prisons? Sort out alcohol, diet and education, for example. Easy.
It’s a lifestyle choice. We make. For them.
It’s a choice they make for themselves.
Australia is still a third world in some cases.
Have the dogs done anything wrong? Both buildings should have AC but don’t agree that dogs shouldn’t.