GET OUT OF JAIL CARDS
Lotus Glen bungles mean prisoners wrongly set free or held
A PRISONER was unlawfully locked up for more than two months at Lotus Glen Correctional Centre.
It came just months after a Queensland Audit Office report showed the Tablelands prison was one of the worst for falsely releasing and detaining prisoners.
Documents obtained by the Cairns Post reveal staff did not record the criminal’s sentencing properly and sent him back to jail, instead of releasing him last year.
A PRISONER who was unlawfully locked up for more than two months at a Far North prison could apply for taxpayer-funded compensation.
Internal documents reveal the Lotus Glen Correction Centre prisoner, who was on remand and appearing via video link from the jail, was unlawfully detained in Queensland Corrective Services custody from March 23 to May 27 last year.
QCS staff did not record the criminal’s sentencing properly and he was sent back to jail instead of being released. Queensland Corrective Service Commissioner Mark Rallings did not answer questions about the prison, despite a report showing the jail was one of the worst for falsely releasing and detaining prisoners.
Documents were obtained by the Cairns Post under Right To Information laws after the QCS refused to reveal how many prisoners were discharged in error from the prison last year.
“Calculating sentence release dates is a highly complex process and sentence calculations can be confusing as many prisoners have multiple sentences, remand periods and parole release dates,” Commissioner Rallings said. “Any person who believes their liberty has been withheld due to a fault of Queensland Corrective Services may make a civil application for compensation.”
The QCS flash brief states the prisoner should have been discharged when he was dealt a suspended sentence in court, but “due to an error in tracking and attaching court outcomes”, he was locked up for 66 days.
The state average for unlawful detention between 2004-05 and 2015-16 was 15 days, and ranged from one day to 313, according to the Queensland Audit Office’s 2016-17 report into prison sentences. The latest incident comes five years after Cairns teenager Yanter Matley, 18, spent an extra 121 days at Lotus Glen due to a prison bungle.
In the past 10 years QCS has admitted and discharged more than 20,000 prisoners per year.
A 2010-15 Queensland Audit Office report into public and private prisons revealed Lotus Glen had the worst “discharged in error” rate for public jails in the state.
Discharged in error refers to the discharge of a prisoner before lawful discharge date or retention of a prisoner beyond the lawful discharge date.
In that period 15 prisoners were discharged in error at Lotus Glen. Privately operated Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre had 16, Townsville had 12, Wolston and Woodford had 8, Brisbane 6 and Maryborough 4.
The report states performance results for private prisons correlates with the average number of movements in those prisons, but not for public ones.
Prisoner movements include prisoner entries, transfers to other prisons and discharges from prison.
Corrective Services Minister Mark Ryan did not comment on Lotus Glen, but said he considered any error unacceptable.