Conditions in Curtin Detention Centre

This is the account of a visit to Curtin by Western Australia’s Inspector of Custodial Services, Professor Richard Harding. It is taken from a speech he gave to the International Corrections and Prisons Association on 30 October 2001.

Some paragraphs from the associated media release, entitledPRISONS WATCHDOG SLAMS IMMIGRATION DETENTION CENTRES, CRITICISES LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY, will serve as introduction:

Referring to a visit he himself made to the Curtin Detention Centre, near Derby, in June of this year, Professor Harding stated that:

  • accommodation was unacceptably overcrowded;
  • broken toilets and showers posed hygiene and health risks;
  • education services were largely a charade;
  • there was no opportunity for constructive activity; and
  • medical and dental services were disgracefully inadequate.

There was some evidence that detainees who sought to air their grievances were intimidated by staff.

Professor Harding stated that there was no element of external accountability. The Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (DIMA) was supposed to ensure that operational standards applied by the private sector manager, Australasian Correctional Services, were acceptable. In practice, however, DIMA had slipped into the role of endorsing ACS practices without question. Consequently, the detainees felt a great sense of injustice and frustration as there was no agency to which they could usefully refer their complaints. Professor Harding said:

“It is no coincidence that riots occur in a system that lacks accountability. We do not have riots in our detention centres because we have a riotous group of refugees; we have them because we run appalling systems”.

… Professor Harding said that an autonomous inspectorate was needed for all Immigration Detention Centres, including the off-shore ones at Nauru, Christmas Island and Port Moresby. … This would do something towards alleviating Australia’s sullied reputation in the Region with regard to its treatment of refugees.


EXTRACT FROM PROFESSOR HARDING’S SPEECH

I visited Curtin Detention Centre for a nine-hour visit on 25th June 2001. It is a five-hectare site, with just over 100 temporary accommodation and service buildings scattered amongst the red dirt that is characteristic of the area. The nearest town is Derby, some 40 kilometres away, but the Centre itself gives the impression of being, “in the middle of nowhere”, as it is about 6 kilometres away from the main road.

The day I visited there were 849 people living there, mostly Iraqis, Iranians and Afghanis. Recent arrivals were quarantined from those whose processing had commenced, on the basis, I later discovered, that they should not be given any coaching as to what they should say so as to maximise their chances of being screened through the process successfully.

I was informed that DIMA was not at liberty to discuss monitoring or accountability arrangements as these were commercial-in-confidence.

The operators of the facility are Australian Correctional Services; they have some staff permanently on site, but the majority of the guards operate on a fly-in/fly-out basis from Sydney, Brisbane or Perth. I mention this because it indicates how difficult it is to achieve any continuity of standards and attitudes in such circumstances. Also on site are representatives of the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (DIMA), the agency which is responsible for the administration of all the Commonwealth Government’s Detention Centres. The DIMA representatives are there to see that the conditions are appropriate and the obligations of the operators are met. In other words, DIMA is the nearest thing to accountability agency available in relation to detention centres.

What soon emerged, however, is that the DIMA representatives and the ACS personnel see themselves as part of a unitary team. There is absolutely no differentiation in the day-to-day behaviour of their roles. As I walked around the facility, I was accompanied by two representatives of ACS and two of DIMA. In asking questions I found that they deferred to each other on operational and policy matters quite indiscriminately. There was absolutely no role differentiation apparent between them. When I probed about this, I was informed that DIMA was not at liberty to discuss monitoring or accountability arrangements as these were dealt with in Canberra, and were in any case, commercial-in-confidence. In other words, accountability consisted of little more than tick-a-box checks of documentation, supposedly taking place 2,500 kilometres south-east of Curtin.

A glossy brochure indicated that children were receiving five hours’ daily education … In reality, they were receiving one

This point rapidly became apparent in a practical sense. ACS/DIMA had been very anxious that one should arrive before 9.00am so as to be able to see the Centre’s education classes in progress. They were evidently very proud of this initiative. A glossy brochure indicated that children were receiving five hours’ daily education in four different groups. In reality, they were receiving one hour’s education. Teaching took place between 9.00am and 10.00am; thereafter, the children stayed in the teaching area until 11.00am, during which time some contact with teachers might occur; then there was a lunch break until 1.00pm; and after that so called ‘homework’, if the children felt like doing it, occurred in the classroom area until about 2.00pm. The so called ‘education program’ was largely a charade – though doubtless five hours’ full education was being paid for and signed off by the Canberra-based ‘monitors’.

That insight really set the tone for the whole place. The huts in which people lived were grossly overcrowded; many of the toilets were broken; some of the washing machines were also broken; the so-called ‘shop’ was abominably stocked and rather inaccessible; the system for sending mail breached all standards of privacy and confidentiality; and above all the medical and dental facilities were inadequate.

With regard to dental facilities, a dentist apparently called for about two days every five or six weeks. However, there was no dental surgery on site, and the dentist’s main activity was apparently pulling teeth in makeshift conditions. When ACS/DIMA representatives were asked to explain how less drastic dental treatment was made available, there seemed to be a lot of confusion.

There was also widespread dissatisfaction amongst the detainees with the medical services. It had become an article of cynical faith that the main ‘treatment’ recommended was to drink more water, and that necessary medication was not readily offered. (Perhaps there was a cost factor in the commercial-in-confidence contract that might help explain this.) The day previous to my visit, a Port Hedland detainee had died of cancer, and notices were going up around the Curtin Camp, stating: “Cancer – take water and valium and this will cure you”. There were no specialist women’s health services. When questioned about these conditions, ACS/DIMA said they felt that they should ensure that health services in the detention centre did not exceed those for Aboriginal people in the Kimberley generally.

Their sense of being cut-off from any kind of proper communication is profound. Nor was this helped by the presence of a scruffy little ‘complaints box’ in the dining area.

There was enormous frustration amongst the detainees. A month or so earlier the media had been permitted to visit the centre, but had not been allowed to talk to any detainees. When I began to walk around the camp, one detainee shinned up a tree and put a symbolic rope around his neck indicating that it was a matter of life and death that he and his colleagues should be able to talk to me and the other outsiders. In fact, I spoke to many detainees who were polite and deferential and totally non-threatening in their attitude, even when one was surrounded by as many as 100 or even 200 of them. Their sense of being cut-off from any kind of proper communication is profound. Nor was this helped by the presence of a scruffy little ‘complaints box’ in the dining area. There was nothing to indicate that their complaints were given any credence nor that letters to the Ombudsman or the Human Rights Commission necessarily got through – in fact, detainees believed that for the most part they did not get to their destination.

These, then, were my impressions gained from my own observations and discussions with detainees. Not surprisingly, every one of these observations was challenged by ACS/DIMA. From the point of view of external scrutiny and accountability, let me say that there was no way of reconciling the two versions of events. To spell that out a little more: when one goes to a prison there is invariably some overlap between what prisoners tell one and what officers tell one. What is different is the perspective from which they see events, rather than their representation of what events have occurred. It is always possible to cross-check and triangulate information so as to make some sense of it.

In the case of the Curtin Detention Centre, there were quite simply two stories that never overlapped or intersected. But there should have been some way of evaluating them. In a situation like this, there should have been a third or middle view. This should have been supplied by DIMA, whose on-site representatives should have been straddling the positions of the operators and the detainees. But DIMA is not, in reality an agency that is concerned with accountability; it is in effect an operational agency. All it sees is what the operator sees. One is thus left with irreconcilable conflict – though to the extent that it is possible to choose between the two stories of conditions in the Centre, the view of the detainees was usually preferable to that of ACS/DIMA.

To compound this, it became apparent from a conversation between a particularly angry detainee, who had pointed me towards several substandard features, and one of the DIMA group that the relationship is extremely unequal. The detainee was told: “I will get you for this”. When challenged about this comment, the DIMA person indicated that s/he had only been joking. That is not an acceptable kind of ‘joke’, given the unequal power structure within the Centre.

Let me emphasise: it is no coincidence that riots do occur in a system that lacks accountability. Riots occur for a reason; they are seldom “mindless” or the work of “rabble rousers”.

Thus, in summary, the conditions that exist at the Curtin Centre are almost intolerable. Such evidence as exists indicates things are little better at the other Centres. Yet these things are also largely invisible, except when riots occur. Let me emphasise: it is no coincidence that riots do occur in a system that lacks accountability. Riots occur for a reason; they are seldom “mindless” or the work of “rabble rousers”. Anyone who knows the simplest thing about prison riots knows also that unacceptable conditions against which there is no recourse, and thus in relation to which there is a profound sense of inequitable treatment, are the precursor to riots. We do not have riots in our detention centres because we have a riotous group of refugees; we have them because we run appalling systems. It is thus in the interests of Australia to have some proper accountability system.