Horror at holding cells

CONDITIONS in Southport Watchhouse temporary holding cells are so bad those inside can’t wait to be taken to notoriously overcrowded jails.

Some are languishing for weeks in conditions akin to solitary confinement, lawyers claim.

They add watchhouse cells are windowless with inmates having no clean clothes or a chance to make a phone call for weeks at a time

Grant Lawyers director Jason Grant said there were concerns watchhouses were used as extensions of overcrowded jails with some spending two weeks at Southport before transfers to prison.

Under law, it is recommended people spend no more than 21 days in a watchhouse where detoxing drunks, public nuisance offenders and people who fail to turn up for drink drive hearings can be held with accused rapists and murderers.

Mr Grant said prisoners were sitting without a change of clothes, used their fingers as toothbrushes, and their only chance to shower was in a short period early morning.

On weekends, prisoners were barely able to sleep in cells often full of screaming drunks and the drug-impaired.

He said conditions were so bad many in the watchhouse did not know what day it was when they met their lawyers.

“They can’t wait to get to Arthur Gorrie (prison) because even if there is overcrowding, there’s mattresses on the floors (for sleeping). Every single person is relieved to get to the prison because they can walk around,” Mr Grant said.

The Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre has been described as a “powder keg” and is known for bashings and hostility towards new prisoners who add to the crowding.

The centre has 1176 inmates, well over the capacity of 890.

Despite this, Mr Grant said Southport inmates were desperate to get out of the watchhouse, in the same complex as Southport’s police station.

“Most want to know what they can do to get out of there,” Mr Grant said. “At least in prison you can make calls, buy yourself some underwear, shoes. In the watchhouse you can’t even talk to anyone.”

He said prisoners were left in a state of uncertainty on transfer timing and were not told when they would be taken to the Arthur Gorrie facility at Wacol, run by US-owned GEO Group Australia.

“You’re just waiting for your name to come up to go get on a bus that goes to Arthur Gorrie,” he said. “They don’t give you a heads-up of when that’s going to be.”

Queensland Corrective Services said overcrowding did not deter it from adding more criminals and defendants to the corrections system.

“We do not simply stop accepting prisoners because prisons reach capacity,” a department statement said.

“QCS increases the intake of prisoners from watchhouses to respond to watchhouse numbers.”

Asked how long people should be held in watchhouses, the department said it attempted to take prisoners into custody within a week.

“However there are a range of factors that can influence this, including court holdovers,” the statement read.

Asked if there was a limit on how long prisoners could remain in watchhouses, the department cited the Corrective Services Act 2006. It states prisoners may be held in a watchhouse for up to 21 days, or until such time as transfer to a corrective services facility can conveniently occur.

BULLETIN VIEW, P26