Page 4222 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 21 September 2011
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were already known to be at risk. These are the tragic circumstances that enabled this to occur.
This event has widespread repercussions not only for these prisoners but their families and friends and the Indigenous community. I am advised that the mother of prisoner A who was given the overdose stated upon hearing the news of the incident: “I lost my son. I lost my son.”
These tragic circumstances should be treated with deep concern, and an urgent response is needed to examine how such an occurrence could be prevented in the future. It should not be dismissed or covered up, but unfortunately that is exactly what the minister has tried to do. A spokesperson for the jail told the Canberra Times on 30 August that prisoner A was hospitalised due to an epileptic fit, and this is clearly not the full extent of the facts.
The incident report in its recommendations for further action states, and I must emphasise exclusively states: “staff to be informed of the incident and reminded to be more vigilant when supervising methadone and medication parade”. Reminded to be more vigilant? We narrowly avoided the deaths of two prisoners and further vigilance is all that can be recommended! Serious action should have been taken immediately, but it took the Canberra Liberals to speak to the community members involved and highlight the incident in the media before the government bothered to respond.
There are meant to be protocols in place to ensure that methadone and other medications are administered safely. The Corrections management procedure 2011 clearly states that the correctional officer administering medication must verify the medication is swallowed by ensuring that the prisoner is given water to swallow, then they must talk, they must open their mouth, raise their tongue and use their finger to verify that medication is still not in their mouth. There is no way that this procedure had been followed when the methadone was given to prisoner B, otherwise he would not have been able to stockpile his medication in a jug of pineapple juice.
But tragically this is not the only way that this ACT Labor government has let down these prisoners and the ACT community. The management of the AMC failed to inform and get support for these extremely vulnerable prisoners. Prisoner A and prisoner B are both of Aboriginal descent. There are clear avenues of support that have been set up to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners, and these prisoners are entitled to access this support. But once again the government is all talk and no action when it comes to Indigenous policy.
There are three key people that should have been communicated with regarding any incident involving an Indigenous prisoner. They are the Official Indigenous Visitor, the Indigenous liaison officer, who is a Corrective Services employee, and the Aboriginal liaison officer, who is specifically tasked with ensuring the mental wellbeing of Indigenous prisoners.
None of these people were informed of this incident immediately. They were not given the information or provided the opportunity to meet with the prisoners involved. In fact, it has been alleged to me that the Aboriginal liaison officer only found out
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