Wave of deaths in Victoria's prisons

An ''unprecedented'' number of Victorian prisoners have died in custody this year, senior Corrections officials have confirmed.

Corrections Commissioner Jan Shuard told the public accounts and estimates committee last week that 12 prisoners had died in custody since January 1, nine of whom she said ''appear to be by natural causes, and the other three would appear to be by unnatural causes''. This compares with four deaths in the 2011-12 financial year.

Prisoner advocates have questioned the use of the term ''natural'' in describing some of the recent deaths, with one saying: ''I've never actually seen so many people die in such a short time.''

Ms Shuard's comments followed questions about prisoner deaths from shadow corrections minister Jill Hennessy, particularly after the Productivity Commission's last report on government services had suggested there had been no apparent unnatural causes of deaths in custody.

Ms Hennessy said a man being detained at the Melbourne Remand Centre had committed suicide a fortnight ago.

And in February, a 36-year-old inmate hanged himself at Port Phillip Prison, just eight days after another prisoner, a 31-year-old at Barwon's high-security Banksia unit, smuggled a mop into his cell and used it to hang himself in a room that was supposed to have no hanging points, she said.

She pointed out that the Banksia inmate's death had taken place in a unit where prisoners were locked up for 23 hours a day and there was supposed to be improved CCTV surveillance, as part of measures introduced following the scathing Ombudsman's report into the 2010 prison murder of crime boss Carl Williams.

Ms Shuard said: ''The number of deaths in custody goes up and down. There is not a regular number; it can be as high as 14, I think, as it was in 2007-08 and this year so far there has been 12.''

In addition to the 14 deaths in 2007-08, Justice Department statistics show eight prisoners died each year during 2008-09 and 2009-10. Ten died in custody in 2010-11 while four died in 2011-12. Fairfax Media does not know if any prisoners died between July 1 and December 31 last year.

Ms Shuard said it was up to the coroner to investigate and determine the cause of each prisoner's death and while authorities were progressively removing all obvious hanging points, ''of course that does not prevent people from committing suicide by other means''.

Charandev Singh, a human rights advocate and paralegal with 20 years' experience examining deaths in custody, said even in fires and other disasters where multiple people had died, ''I've never actually seen so many people die in such a short time.''

He said he knew of two other Victorian prisoners who were in critical condition in hospital, one from Port Phillip and the other from Barwon Prison.

''At least one of those men doesn't look like he's going to survive, so the figure might rise to 14. Either way, it's an unprecedented number of deaths in such a short time.''

He said he believed the circumstances of many of the deaths being described by Corrections officials as ''natural causes'' were more indicative of medical neglect, access to care issues and delays in getting appropriate care.

Corrections Minister Edward O'Donohue described any death in custody as a ''tragic occurrence'' and said Corrections Victoria and the private prison operators worked closely to ensure prisoners at risk of suicide and self-harm were identified and got the appropriate treatment.

theage.com.au 19 May 2013

A policy used by governments is that if there are persons that are uncomfortable to the ruling elite, they are brought to justice (read incarcerated) for a completely unrelated 'offense' (as in the example of Julian Assange, allegations of rape in order to incarcerate, for exposing criminal events of government), other than the matter the authorities see as being a treat.

Once incarcerated, the prisoner is controlled by the authorities.

The prisoner can be given drugs in food or water, and then die of 'natural causes', similarly to how one healthy person can die while sleeping at home of 'natural causes'.

In the case of Carl Williams, there was a huge cover up involving corrupt police, as he became an informant, for which he had to get killed in order not to expose the corrupt authorities.