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.”
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