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Speaker 1: Now, a top Darwin lawyer has pleaded with the territory's

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Speaker 1: judges to refuse to send defendants to pack to the

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Speaker 1: rafters prisons that are bordering on unlawful in a report

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Speaker 1: by the NT News. In seeking yet another adjournment in

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Speaker 1: the Darwin Local Court yesterday, after being unable to reach

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Speaker 1: his client, John Lawrence sc Judge David Woodroff to personally

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Speaker 1: visit the grossly overcrowded Halts Prison to see the broken

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Speaker 1: system for himself. John Lawrence SC joined me a little

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Speaker 1: bit earlier this morning. Good morning to you.

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Speaker 2: John, Good morning Katy.

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your time, my pleasure. Now, John,

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Speaker 1: you raised this concern yesterday in court. What prompted you

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Speaker 1: to raise your concern?

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Speaker 3: Well, like many others in the legal system, have been

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Speaker 3: witnessing the deterioration of this component of it, which is

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Speaker 3: the jail system, the correction system, and specifically Halt's Prison,

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Speaker 3: And what's happened over the last year, maybe even more

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Speaker 3: is gros deterioration in the conditions that are enjoyed by

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Speaker 3: the prisoners either being sentenced in there or are sitting

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Speaker 3: there on remand. And there are various reasons why this

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Speaker 3: has occurred, but the place is now in a broken state.

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Speaker 3: In my opinion, it's in dire conditions, it's dysfunctional, and

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Speaker 3: it is bordering on being unlawful in that it's not

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Speaker 3: providing what the law requires, what international law requires, and

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Speaker 3: which moral standards require, which is prisoners that are kept

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Speaker 3: in reasonable and appropriate conditions. And I can go on

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Speaker 3: to describe the problems.

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Speaker 1: So well, John, I guess firstly, what's causing this? Because

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Speaker 1: you said it is over the last year or so,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about it staff shortage. I mean, I know

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Speaker 1: that you obviously are working for corrections, but from your perspective,

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Speaker 1: what's causing this?

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Speaker 2: There are a combination of things.

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Speaker 3: One inevitably is resources, and there seems to be a

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Speaker 3: chronic shortage of staff in corrections.

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Speaker 2: Which they seem incapable of addressing.

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Speaker 3: So this leads to in reality, if you've not got

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Speaker 3: enough prison officers on the shift, then you have to

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Speaker 3: lock down the prisoners in their cell so they can't

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Speaker 3: go about, move about, attend programs if they're available, because

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Speaker 3: you haven't got enough security to allow that to occur.

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Speaker 3: So the effect of that is that many prisoners for

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Speaker 3: many weeks, if not months now are being locked down

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Speaker 3: for sometimes twenty two hours a day in various sections,

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Speaker 3: and then this has been getting worse and worse and worse.

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Speaker 3: Now in recent times we're also discovering that remember this

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Speaker 3: jail was built and occupied in two point fifteen, and

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Speaker 3: I gather it's the biggest capital outlay that any government

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Speaker 3: in territory history has made. It's costing the community one

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Speaker 3: point eight billion dollars and it's going to take about

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Speaker 3: twenty five thirty years to repay it. So it's giant,

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Speaker 3: and of course in many ways it's the symbol of

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Speaker 3: the territory. You can see it, oh too graphically when

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Speaker 3: you fly into Darwin. Anybody that flies into Darwin day

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Speaker 3: or night sees this giant footprint. It's like our Eiffel

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Speaker 3: Tower or our Statue of Liberty, only it's a huge joint. Anyway,

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Speaker 3: it was built I suspect on the cheap because things

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Speaker 3: are collapsing. The electricity is collapsing. There was electricity outages

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Speaker 3: last week and last weekend. The televisions don't work, the

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Speaker 3: computers don't work. You can't organize a visit because the

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Speaker 3: phones don't work. So you've got all of those things combined,

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Speaker 3: and you've got you've got a demograph of criminals, and

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Speaker 3: a lot of these men in there are violent, and

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Speaker 3: a lot of these men in there are in need

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Speaker 3: of programs ordered by judges to address things like anger management,

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Speaker 3: drug withdrawal, all of these kind of things, because part

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Speaker 3: of a prison's purpose is actually to reabilitate criminals so

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Speaker 3: that when they come out with any luck, they're not

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Speaker 3: going to recommit crimes.

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Speaker 1: And so John, from your perspective, based on what you

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Speaker 1: have said, it sounds to me that you know that

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Speaker 1: then these people, these criminals are not actually able to

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Speaker 1: do those rehab progress.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely that there's very few programs available. I think there's

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Speaker 3: resourcing problem with programs themselves, so they're not actually up

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Speaker 3: and ready anyway. Yep, So you've got a whole population

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Speaker 3: in a seriously overcrowded prison. I mean, I was out

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Speaker 3: there on Friday. What happened in this case was I

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Speaker 3: couldn't get access to one client. Coincidentally, I went out

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Speaker 3: in the afternoon to visit another client. I discovered when

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Speaker 3: I was out there that there was no phones working,

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Speaker 3: there was no television working, there was lockdowns all over

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Speaker 3: the place. I got in to see my client and

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Speaker 3: he was telling me that there was an undercurrent of violence.

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Speaker 2: He was worried.

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Speaker 3: He's not a violent criminal, he's in there for other offenses.

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Speaker 3: But he was saying that people are so bored that

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Speaker 3: they just resort to violence, gang violence, picking on people,

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Speaker 3: et cetera. So he's running the gauntlet every day. So

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Speaker 3: it's really an invidious situation and it needs to be acknowledged.

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Speaker 3: It needs to be ventilated. The media need to play

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Speaker 3: a greater role here. They need to investigate the actual

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Speaker 3: situation in our prison so that the community know, so

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Speaker 3: that the minister responsible can fix it up.

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Speaker 1: I guess look at he's a difficult one in the

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Speaker 1: sense that you know a lot of people. Unless you've

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Speaker 1: got a loved one who is in the prison, or

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Speaker 1: unless you're actually dealing with people who are in the prison,

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Speaker 1: or you know somebody who works there, a lot of

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Speaker 1: us have no idea what's actually going on out there.

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Speaker 3: Now.

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Speaker 1: My understanding is that, as you've mentioned, it has meant

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Speaker 1: that you've not been able to get in contact with

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Speaker 1: some of those clients. What impact does that have really on,

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Speaker 1: you know, on the broader community, but also in terms

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Speaker 1: of people being able to go through those legal proceedings, well, it.

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Speaker 2: It delays them bottom lane.

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Speaker 3: The system cannot work if prisoners cannot get access to

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Speaker 3: the legal representatives so that they can take instructions, resolve

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Speaker 3: the case, plead them guilty, plead them not guilty, and

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Speaker 3: move on to the next stage.

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Speaker 2: So everything's clogged up.

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Speaker 1: Now, John, you had said, as I understand it, yesterday

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Speaker 1: in you know in court, that that you know you

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Speaker 1: wanted you wanted the judge to go out there and

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Speaker 1: visit the place to see it for himself. What was

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Speaker 1: what was the response?

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Speaker 3: The judge didn't take up that suggestion. I don't think,

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Speaker 3: but who knows. He may he can. And I've encouraged

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Speaker 3: other judges because I know for a fact Supreme Court judges,

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Speaker 3: at the very least they can just go out and

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Speaker 3: this happens in other judishs. Judges can they have the

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Speaker 3: authority unlike most people. Parliamentarians can as well. They can

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Speaker 3: just lob up at the prison and say I want

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Speaker 3: access now, and I want to have a look around

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Speaker 3: this prison because part of my job is making judicial

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Speaker 3: orders that will detain men and women young and old

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Speaker 3: in this facility. And you have a duty of care

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Speaker 3: to make sure that that's complied with. And so I

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Speaker 3: want to make sure that I'm following the law and

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Speaker 3: detaining them in here. And my view is that if

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Speaker 3: a judge went to the prison now, he would realize

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Speaker 3: that the conditions are in fact unlawful, and they're unlawful

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Speaker 3: in various ways. They're certainly unlawful civilly because the minister

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Speaker 3: is breaching, breaching grossly her duty of care and keeping

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Speaker 3: prisoners in the conditions that they currently suffer under. For instance,

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Speaker 3: the overcrowding thing. That client that's on Friday, he's in

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Speaker 3: a cell for two and he's number three and he's

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Speaker 3: sleeping on the floor, and the other tour in bunk beds. Now,

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Speaker 3: this is going on all around the prison. There are

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Speaker 3: even prisoners sleeping on mattresses in the reception area. Now

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Speaker 3: that's just not on. Yeah, and it's probably unlawful. And

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Speaker 3: unless somebody puts their hand up, puts the foot in

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Speaker 3: the door, makes a statement says not good enough, fix it,

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Speaker 3: it's going to deteriorate. And you know it's Mount Etna.

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Speaker 3: You know, a prison in situation like that, full of

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Speaker 3: men with backgrounds such as that is a volcano. I mean,

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Speaker 3: we live in the ice age. There are a lot

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Speaker 3: of prisoners in there who are recovering, if you like,

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Speaker 3: or withdrawing from ice addiction. And that's not a pretty sight.

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Speaker 1: John. I know that there'll be some people listening this

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Speaker 1: morning who will be thinking to themselves, do you know what?

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Speaker 1: They've broken? The law? Their prisoners. We don't expect them

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Speaker 1: to be in a luxurious location, and we expect that

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Speaker 1: prison's going to be uncomfortable for them. I mean, what

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Speaker 1: would you say to those people that are listening thinking, oh,

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Speaker 1: come on, you know it's a prison.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And now I can understand that, and it's prevalent.

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Speaker 3: There's a lot of frustration, there's a lot of anger,

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Speaker 3: crimes not being solved. And this is actually one of

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Speaker 3: the reasons why. Because the people that are going to

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Speaker 3: come out of a prison in conditions like that, it's

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Speaker 3: odds on they're going to recommit crime. They're not going

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Speaker 3: to come out with a lesson, learn and a rehabilitative.

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Speaker 2: Component to them.

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Speaker 3: But the other thing I would say is Winston Churchill,

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Speaker 3: the great conservative politician and war leader. He famously said

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Speaker 3: that our attitude to our prisons as a society is

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Speaker 3: ultimately the measure of our level of civilization.

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Speaker 2: And you know, he was conscious that.

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Speaker 3: You know, you can beat them up, you can throw

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Speaker 3: rotten fruit at them, you can stitch the legs together

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Speaker 3: and throw the key away, but that doesn't reflect well

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Speaker 3: on a village that are personal. We'd like that lives in,

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Speaker 3: you know, I'd like to have a more intelligent and

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Speaker 3: a more effective as well as a more humane approach

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Speaker 3: to our prisons. And what we've got now is nothing

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Speaker 3: short of catastrophic and scandalous. I mean, it's beyond the

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Speaker 3: pale what I'm describing here. This was never like this

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Speaker 3: twenty years ago, thirty years ago, probably even ten years ago.

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Speaker 3: This is deteriorating rapidly, and who knows where it's going

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Speaker 3: to end.

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Speaker 1: John, I know that you had said as well, or

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Speaker 1: I understand that you'd said in court as well, that

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Speaker 1: you know, we can't keep sending defendants there. If somebody

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Speaker 1: is accused of committing a serious crime right now, where

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Speaker 1: should they go?

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Speaker 3: Well, the prison should be made appropriate, that's all I mean.

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Speaker 3: This isn't about people being remanded in custody for the

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Speaker 3: legal reasons. This is about when they're remanded they should

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Speaker 3: be remanded in a facility that is appropriate in legal

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Speaker 3: like they do in Spain, like they do in Japan,

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Speaker 3: like they do in Scotland. You know this, This doesn't

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Speaker 3: have happen in most other jurisdictions. And the greatest example

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Speaker 3: of that, of course, tragically is don Dale, which is

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Speaker 3: a remand and a sentence facility where children are kept

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Speaker 3: and the conditions that children are kept in there, and

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Speaker 3: seventy percent of them are on remand and one hundred

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Speaker 3: percent of them are Indigenous children, the conditions that they're

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Speaker 3: kept in is disgraceful and quite frankly beyond belief because

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Speaker 3: they're occupying bearing a prison which was a condemned adult prison.

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Speaker 3: It was destined to be bulldozed while we built this

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Speaker 3: prison I'm talking about, and yet they reopened it and

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Speaker 3: threw kids in there. So you've got and you've got

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Speaker 3: kids as young as ten and eleven occupying cells in

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Speaker 3: the maximum security block which were previously occupied by rapists, killers, pedophiles,

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Speaker 3: Children lying in cells for twenty two hours a day,

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Speaker 3: children who are already cognitively impaired. All the expens to

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Speaker 3: know that most of these kids are you know, mentally

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Speaker 3: damaged by virtue of the conditions from which they've came, which.

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Speaker 2: Is flight and fear, you know, guadal Canal.

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Speaker 3: They've come out of horrendously dysfunctional households where they become

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Speaker 3: behaviorally compromised, which leads them into committing crime. So what

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Speaker 3: we're doing there is catastrophic, in my opinion, unbelievable. And

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Speaker 3: again it was never going on ten years ago or

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Speaker 3: twenty years ago.

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Speaker 2: This is where we've got to.

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Speaker 1: Now, John, Look, a lot of people that listen to

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Speaker 1: this show will be victims of crime, and a lot

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Speaker 1: of them will be victims of, you know, crime that

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Speaker 1: has been committed by people that occupy both don Dale

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Speaker 1: and also also Halts. And again I know that they'll

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Speaker 1: be listening thinking, you know, what do we do? What

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Speaker 1: do we do instead?

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Speaker 3: Well, what we should do first and foremost, which would

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Speaker 3: be great and it's more than possible, is reduce the crime.

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Speaker 3: And you reduce the crime by working out what creates

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Speaker 3: the crime, what motivates fourteen year old kids to steal

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Speaker 3: cars and steal stuff from shops and assault people. And

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Speaker 3: once you've worked those kind of things out, then you

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Speaker 3: should address them. Now, what we do know for a

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Speaker 3: fact is what we're doing right now in the adult

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Speaker 3: jail and particularly in the juvenile facility. Everybody that's in

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Speaker 3: this theater, whether it's the judge, whether it's a prosecutor,

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Speaker 3: whether it's a prison officer. You ask anybody, they will

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Speaker 3: all agree as one that when these kids come out

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Speaker 3: of don Dale, it's six to four on, they're going

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Speaker 3: to recommit offenses and there's going to be more and

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Speaker 3: more victims feeling more angry and more frustrated. So what

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Speaker 3: we're doing at the moment compounds the criminal situation. Now,

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Speaker 3: that's stupid, it's incredibly costly, and it's really quite inhumane.

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Speaker 3: I mean, this country sticks out like no I know,

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Speaker 3: no other country in the common law world that we'd

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Speaker 3: have children of eleven years of age kept in facilities

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Speaker 3: like that, no other country.

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Speaker 1: John. I can hear some of our listeners yelling at

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Speaker 1: their radios thinking to themselves, you know, what do we do.

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Speaker 1: We have been the victims of crimes. You know, I've

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Speaker 1: had an elderly lady call in the station one morning

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Speaker 1: whose car had been stolen allegedly at the hands of

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Speaker 1: an eleven year old. You know, it's her vehicle, her

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Speaker 1: transportation obviously to be able to get her to and

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Speaker 1: from everywhere she needs to go, you know, her independence.

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Speaker 1: Right now, it does feel like things are a bit broken.

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Speaker 2: It is. It's a broken system.

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Speaker 3: And what's happened to that lady and all of us

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Speaker 3: that have been hit by criminals is we are the

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Speaker 3: harvest of neglect. You know, governments have turned a blind

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Speaker 3: eye to addressing the causes of it and trying to

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Speaker 3: fix it up by putting money into programs by reability,

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Speaker 3: and kids can be reabilitated very easily. They are green wood.

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Speaker 3: Most of them want to be reabilitated. Most of them

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Speaker 3: go to security and that kind of thing, and learning

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Speaker 3: and getting relationships with youth officers that are qualified, so

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Speaker 3: that can be done. But again, you know, one can

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Speaker 3: only but sympathize with victims of crime. But all I'm

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Speaker 3: saying from my perspective of being at the co face

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Speaker 3: for over thirty years, is that we are reaping this

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Speaker 3: Harvard stuff neglect. Politicians are interested in getting votes and

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Speaker 3: getting into government and staying in the government. That's all interesting.

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Speaker 3: And one thing that gets them in is exploiting the

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Speaker 3: including the media.

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Speaker 2: Coverage of this issue, which is hang them high.

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Speaker 3: You know, throw the key away, We'll get tough, will

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Speaker 3: appease your anger. Well, it hasn't worked. It's cost us

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Speaker 3: a fortune and we need to turn it around. We

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Speaker 3: need to get smart.

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Speaker 1: John. What of the Holtz Prison? What needs to happen

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Speaker 1: there with the overcrowding and what you know from what

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Speaker 1: you were saying, it sounds like it could potentially be

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Speaker 1: quite a dangerous situation.

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Speaker 3: Well, I guess resources for and foremost the minister has

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Speaker 3: to demand from cabinet that they have to. I mean

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Speaker 3: they have to replace staff. If they can't get staff,

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Speaker 3: they've got to get them. They've got to increase wages.

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Speaker 3: They've got to increase the qualifications that are required as well.

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Speaker 3: So you need the resources injected. You need a will

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Speaker 3: on behalf of them. Look, three weeks ago, Katie appeared

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Speaker 3: in the Coronial in question and Aboriginal death and custody

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Speaker 3: another one. Now that's a plague that is unique to

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Speaker 3: this country. Aboriginal deaths in custody. We had a Royal

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Speaker 3: commission in it thirty year ago and it gave all

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Speaker 3: kinds of recommendations. And since then there's been over five

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Speaker 3: hundred Aboriginal deaths in custody again a thing unique to

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Speaker 3: this country. Now, that case was a classic who was

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Speaker 3: a thirty one year old man Aboriginal man on remand

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Speaker 3: in a cell on his own, previously been classified as

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Speaker 3: at risk, lifted off, at risk, being seen by other

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Speaker 3: prisoners to be sullen, sad told one prisoner, who's going

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Speaker 3: to kill himself? He was putting a cell on his

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Speaker 3: own with a double bunk bed which was almost designed

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Speaker 3: as a hanging point, and he hung himself. Now that's

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Speaker 3: the second hanging death in this new prison, which is

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Speaker 3: a lot more than what was going on when we

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Speaker 3: had the Royal Commission. So this is the reality of

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Speaker 3: where we're at. So it needs urgency. It needs politicians

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Speaker 3: to address this with real urgency and will to help

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Speaker 3: the whole community.

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Speaker 1: Well, John Lawrence SSA, I really appreciate your time this morning.

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Speaker 1: Thank you very much for coming into the studio and

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Speaker 1: speaking with.

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Speaker 2: This my pleasure. Thanks very much,