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A community apart

Norman Megahey

Megahey, Norman 2010, 'A community apart', Fremantle Studies, 6: 29-42.

On the night of 4th January 1988 the people of Fremantle watched in fascination, from the streets and on television, as Fremantle Prison inmates rioted, set fire to the Prison, took hostages and began a siege which was to continue well into the following day.

Had the prison burned down on that hot summer night in 1988 it would no doubt have been seen by some as a fitting start to Fremantle’s bicentennial celebrations, the culmination of years of frustration felt by inmates, staff and officials over the total inadequacies inherent in the very building itself. The McGivern Inquiry, set up to investigate the cause of the riot reported ‘sub-standard and early Victorian conditions’ which ‘serve to provide a caricature of prison existence’. 1 Almost one hundred years earlier, in 1898, a Royal Commission had condemned the structural inadequacies of the prison 2 and, in 1911, a second Royal Commission recommended that the site be sold and the revenue used to build a new prison. 3

This paper will begin by describing briefly the events of 5 January 1988 before examining in some detail the findings and recommendations of the McGivern Inquiry into the causes of the riot.

Many of McGivern’s findings echoed those of earlier inquiries and reflected comments which had been made from time to time in the press for over 100 years. The first major inquiry into the prison had been in 1898, when a Royal Commission (the Jameson Commission) was established to investigate the penal system of Western Australia. 3 This was followed twelve years later, in 1911, by a second Royal Commission (the Pennefather Commission). In 1972, a third Royal Commission (the Jones Commission, was set up in response to allegations of ill-treatment of Aboriginal inmates of Fremantle Prison. 5

Through an exploration of these reports this paper will highlight two important continuities which existed throughout the prison’s history and which, independently from official policy, helped shape the prison regime and shielded the prison from reforms which were introduced across the remainder of the Western Australian prison system, particularly after the late 1960s.

The following account of the Fremantle Prison riot in January 1988 is based mainly on the findings of the McGivern report and on press reports during and immediately after the riot.

The day of the riot began as any other with the unlocking of the cells at 7 a.m. Even the scuffle which ensued between prison officers and one prisoner, when the officers considered that the prisoner was ‘too tardy’ in vacating his cell, was such a common occurrence that it would not have suggested that anything out of the ordinary was about to happen. The first real hint of trouble came later in the morning when the prisoner was released from the observation cell where he had been confined following his brawl with the officers and escorted back to the exercise yard of the main division. Once there, and with visible marks on his face and neck, he reported to his fellow inmates that he had been bashed by the prison officers. The prisoners, after holding a meeting, requested to see the superintendent. When this was denied them, they requested that the ‘bashed’ prisoner be medically examined. This request was granted. 6

By the afternoon, in the cramped conditions of the exercise yards, the temperature soared to 40°C. According to Cyril Ayris, a journalist with The West Australian, ‘the inescapable heat had turned the exercise yards into ovens, the cells into saunas’. 7 Unsurprisingly, therefore, tension was mounting among the prisoners.

By mid-afternoon a plan was finalised among some of the prisoners to riot, burn the prison and take hostages. Once the prisoners were allowed into the Main Division for their evening meal, they attacked prison officers with hot water, plates, foodstuffs, buckets and makeshift weapons. A number of fires were started which rapidly spread. The prisoners then retreated back outside to the exercise yard, taking with them five officers as hostages. 8

So began a 19-hour siege during which the police riot squad surrounded the prison armed with tear gas, an armed riot squad took up position and a trained police negotiation team carried on a dialogue with the riot leaders. The Fremantle Fire Brigade fought the blaze with difficulty. The main gates of the prison were too small for the fire units to enter so water had to be directed on to the roof from outside the prison. Firemen were further hampered by prisoners hurling rocks and pieces of asbestos roofing at them. 9

Meanwhile overhead, commercial television news helicopters hovered bringing the siege into people’s homes, while inside the prison those prisoners not involved in the riot watched it on live television. 10 On the outside, people lined the streets of Fremantle or sought vantage points from multi-storey buildings in order to watch the drama unfold. 11

Prisoners made three basic demands: direct discussions with the Attorney General, Joseph Berinson; access to television and press media; and an assurance that when the siege was over there would be no reprisals against them. 12

The prisoners were hardly in a winning situation. They held five hostages to be sure, but they themselves remained prisoners, surrounded by heavily armed police and a riot squad. Throughout the following morning, hostages were released one by one, and at 11am the prisoners surrendered, the only condition granted to them being that there would be no reprisals. 13

There was, however, one important and positive outcome of the riot and siege for the prisoners. The drama had been a very public spectacle. Conditions within Fremantle Prison had been brought clearly to public attention in a manner that could not be ignored. When it was over, a media inspection of the prison was allowed. Cyril Ayris reported the scene thus:

The rioters had gone, locked up somewhere in this Victorian prison, and all that remained to remind us of the siege was the smell of burning and the apprehensive faces of warders behind plastic helmets... The high-walled exercise yard... looked like a bear pit in a third rate zoo. The prisoners were lying on the concrete or pacing like caged lions. It was hot and airless and the men’s boredom was as tangible as the concrete and wire that formed their horizon. 14

The West Australian did not hesitate in attributing blame for the riot to the conditions within the prison. ‘FREMANTLE JAIL: RIPE FOR A FULL SCALE RIOT’, ran one headline to a report which went to press while the siege was still in progress. Boredom and decades of severe overcrowding had led to ‘an explosion waiting to happen’, according to the report, which went on to outline a series of warnings issued over many years about the inevitability of serious trouble if Fremantle Prison continued to operate. In 1980, for example, the Western Australian Ombudsman had warned that ‘serious trouble will be more than a possibility as long as this archaic prison and its overcrowding persists’. 15

The edition of The West Australian on the day after the riot devoted five full pages and an editorial to Fremantle Prison. The prison was, screamed one headline, ‘A POLITICAL TINDERBOX’. The report continued, ‘Generations of WA prisoners have sweated out their sentences in crowded and appalling Fremantle jail while politicians have agonised about its continued existence’. 16 In its editorial, the paper attacked ‘successive W.A. governments’:

For reasons of politics, cost and convenience, they ignored repeated warnings that the outdated and hopelessly inadequate institution was ripe for an explosion of violence... But it is within the forbidding limestone walls of the Fremantle prison that the flaws are most starkly exposed. Condemned by a royal commission in 1898 as ‘inadequate’, and in 1980 by the WA Ombudsman as a source of future trouble, the jail has continued to hold up to 600 prisoners in unhygienic conditions and in an atmosphere of idleness and—at times—depravity. 17

The government wasted no time in establishing an inquiry into the causes of the riot, fire and hostage taking, and the McGivern Report was handed over to the Attorney General on 17 February, some six weeks following the riot.

The report considered possible causes under four headings; the physical environment, the human environment, the administrative system and prisoner conspiracy.

Concerning the physical conditions, McGivern described Fremantle Prison as ‘sub-standard’, with severe overcrowding and small unsewered cells, infested with cockroaches and mice, in which prisoners were ‘compelled to eat, sleep and defecate’. 18

The most commonly expressed sources of grievance among the prisoners, McGivern found, were the human environment and the administrative system. Of these, the human environment was of greatest concern, in particular ‘the selective and punitive attitudes of a few prison officers’. 20 Separate confinement and mechanical restraint were too easily resorted to in the handling of prisoners and records pertaining to prisoners undergoing punishment in observation cells were ‘not always accurately maintained’. 21 Even the incident leading up to the alleged bashing of the prisoner on the morning of the riot and the subsequent negotiations with the prisoners, had not been documented. 22

Other concerns raised by prisoners included ‘the lack of concern by prison officers; the insensitivity of the system; poor visiting facilities; the lack of work; limited educational and recreational facilities and the censoring of mail’. 22 In short, McGivern concluded, the picture was of ‘an uncaring and unsympathetic system at Fremantle Prison’. 23

Turning his attention to the administrative system, McGivern found that the most common complaint related to ‘perceived insensitivity and inflexibility’. 24 A major concern for prisoners was the inability to have complaints and requests heard.

Other problems regarding the administration system included inconsistent treatment, lack of confidence that administrative policies would be carried out by middle management staff and officers, and a failure to keep prisoners informed about changes to procedures. 25 Of particular concern to McGivern was the welfare of long-term prisoners and the lack of facilities to aid in their rehabilitation. 26

A long list of recommendations was handed down by McGivern. Regarding the sub-standard conditions, all cells should be sewered and should be provided with forced air ‘or other form of ventilation’ and efforts should be made to eradicate ‘the plague of cockroaches and insects which infest the divisions’. 27

The remaining recommendations related mostly to serious deficiencies in the human environment and the administrative system. McGivern was clearly concerned about the behaviour and attitudes of some prison officers whose presence, he argued, ‘does detract from a positive management environment’. 28 Improved selection procedures were needed to ensure the recruitment of properly motivated people into the prison service and existing officers should receive ongoing training in the application of just and humane management of prisoners. 29

McGivern was not, however, unsympathetic towards prison officers. The routine and boredom of their daily work were clearly recognised as contributing towards negative attitudes and could be alleviated, McGivern thought, by an expansion of their role. 30

At an administrative level a number of recommendations were put forward; the formulation of a ‘grievance handling procedure’ for prisoners, daily access to the superintendent for prisoners who requested an interview, daily visits by the superintendent to all cellular and work units and regular briefing and de—briefing sessions between the superintendent and officers. There was a need also to employ additional trade instructors and to provide prisoners with meaningful work and better educational facilities. 31

While in some respects the McGivern report contained few surprises in terms of its findings, in one important respect it was novel. The tenor of the report is encapsulated in McGivern’s concluding remarks in which he argued that there had to be:

a commitment on the part of the Department and the administration of the prison, together with the prison officers, to develop an atmosphere in which prisoners believe they are being treated reasonably and fairly. Security and discipline, while essential, cannot operate independently of a commitment to encourage prisoners to develop a sense of self-esteem. 32

The choice of John McGivern to head the inquiry was significant. McGivern had spent 36 years in the Western Australian prison service, joining in 1950 as a prison officer in Fremantle Prison, becoming Superintendent in 1979 and eventually rising to the position of deputy- director in the Department of Corrective Services before his retirement in 1986. He was, thus, the first person with both practical experience as a prison officer and an intimate knowledge of the workings of the prison service to lead a government appointed inquiry into Fremantle Prison. 33

The importance attached to prisoner welfare and the credence which was paid to prisoner evidence were therefore not products of idealism. These, for McGivern, were pragmatic concerns. ‘For a prison to function effectively’, he explained in an oral history interview some years after handing down his report:

there has to be a good relationship between the administration and the staff, and the administration and the prisoners - all equally as strong as the other... it’s got to be an on-going dynamic sort of thing that’s functioning all the time. 34

Serious consideration of prisoners’ evidence led McGivern to a clear recognition that ill-treatment of prisoners by officers, albeit relatively few in number, was a fact of prison life and therefore a justifiable source of grievance.

Over the years allegations of ill-treatment had been common. In 1973, a series of disturbances in the prison and allegations of ill-treatment of inmates, particularly Aboriginal inmates, had led to the setting up of a Royal Commission in March 1973. Jones’s findings were similar to those of McGivern’s 16 years later. Violence in the yards, he observed, ‘proceeds from boredom, tension and frustration’. However, he added pessimistically, given the ‘old and so cramped’ condition of the prison, ‘one must frankly admit that perhaps not much can be done’. 35 Regarding the issue of ill- treatment of prisoners, he, like McGivern, was clearly concerned about the behaviour of a small number of officers and he made the following significant statement:

When one asks oneself why ten or so officers out of the whole number on the staff of the prison should be picked out by these inmates as the targets of their accusations, one must wonder what the explanation may be. It would be good, I think, if those officers would ponder that question, and so regulate their behaviour so as to diminish or eliminate the feelings of dislike and hostility which those inmates so obviously feel towards them. 36

This was a question which could well have been asked by the Jameson Royal Commission as far back as 1898, when evidence was taken from a number of prisoners concerning allegations of brutality and ill-treatment by warders. Although the same few warders were named by prisoners as the perpetrators, the significance of this was overlooked by Jameson and the incidents were not subject to investigation. 37

The most glaring link between the findings of the Jameson Commission and later reports, however, concerns the state of the Fremantle Prison building itself. Consider, for example, the following findings:

The Fremantle Gaol is in no way structurally adapted to meet the varied purposes which it is now required to serve. 38

I doubt whether it is wise to expend more money in patching up and trying to improve a place the design of which is utterly opposed to modern views... the best course would be to erect an entirely new penal establishment. 39

The prison is so old and so cramped that it is virtually impossible to extend or improve facilities... not much can be done within the confines of Fremantle Prison as it is, and as perforce it must remain. 40

The physical conditions at Fremantle prison are undoubtedly sub-standard and could best be described as early Victorian. 41

The mode of ventilation is extremely bad. 42

A system of forced air, or other form of ventilation to the cells should be considered. 43

Here is a clear recognition by four separate inquiries, spanning a period of ninety years, that Fremantle Prison, in its very design, was utterly unsuitable for use as a prison. Poor ventilation and unhygienic conditions were frequent sources of complaint presented to the 1898 Commission. After viewing ‘dark cell no 7’, the Commission reported:

The cell was ventilated from below, draughty, and yet foul smelling. The inmate slept on the kerosened floor, no mattress being provided. The nightsoil bucket had no top. 44

By the 1980s, it is clear that the prison buildings were in an extremely dilapidated condition. In 1989 one prisoner complained that his cell was ‘falling apart’. On inspection the cell floor was found to be ‘cracked open exposing stone work and fragments’. 45 Any attempts to introduce reforms were always going to be difficult to implement in what amounted to, in the words of one Superintendent, the ‘colonial relic’ which was Fremantle Prison. 46

Other significant continuities are highlighted in these inquiries and suggest that, despite significant changes which did take place overall in the Western Australian prison system over the years, within Fremantle Prison much remained unchanged. In 1898, for example, the Jameson Report had recommended changes in the procedure for recruiting new warders arguing that candidates should pass an educational test and that ‘in future no warders should be engaged but such as are competent to teach some handicraft’. 47 In 1911, the Pennefather Report reiterated the need for educational tests for candidates who should then undergo a twelve month probationary period at the end of which they should be tested in their knowledge of the Prisons Act and other regulations. 48 Over half a century later, both Jones and McGivern were suggesting changes in the procedures used for recruiting prison officers, the latter emphasising the need to recruit ‘properly motivated persons’ and recommending that successful candidates serve a twelve month probationary period. 49

Unrelenting tedium was a continuous feature of prison life in Fremantle Prison. It affected both prison officers and prisoners. Its impact on officers is acknowledged by both Jameson 50 and McGivern. McGivern recommended a ‘time out’ system in which officers ‘should be exchanged with officers in other metropolitan prisons for a period of 3/4 months’. 51

For prisoners, tedium was largely the result of not having work. Many complained to the Jameson Commission about the shortage of work. ‘Want of suitable employment drives a man mad’ was the woeful complaint of one prisoner to the commissioners 52 who commented in their final report that ‘It is inevitable that when men are not kept fully employed, they become demoralised’. 53

Despite the strong emphasis which Jameson and Pennefather placed on the importance of providing work for prisoners’ lack of work, annual reports indicate that this continued to be a problem. Recalling a three week sentence which he served in the 1960s, one ex-inmate describes how he ‘did absolutely nothing. There was no work, I just sat there and waited for each day to go by until the day came along that I got out. It was as simple as that—I did nothing. 54 McGivern’s recommendation in 1988 that prisoners be supplied with meaningful employment, therefore, sounded somewhat hollow; a forlorn expectation.

Administrative inefficiencies were another concern highlighted by successive inquiries. In 1898 Jameson found that the superintendent ‘has had forced upon him responsibilities and functions which ordinarily come within the province of a Governor rather than that of a Superintendent’. In 1973, Jones found that ‘the actual administration of the prison has not been efficient and... must be improved’. Specifically, he reported, the superintendent had been ‘burdened with merely routine duties. 55 As a result the system lacked, said Jones, ‘a firm grip from the top’. 56 Jones recommended the appointment of an additional deputy-superintendent who would ‘leave the Superintendent free to concentrate on his real task, superintending the prison’. 57

Despite this recommendation, McGivern found in 1988 that the hierarchical structure within the prison was defective and limited the scope of the superintendent. During the riot and hostage situation, for example:

there was an inadequate and/or unofficial chain of command. Officers were not being directed to perform certain duties, some responsibilities were not being assumed and those actions which did occur often took place on the basis of the individual officer's initiative. 58

As for the role of the superintendent, McGivern again recommended the appointment of a deputy-superintendent, thus leaving the superintendent free to visit cells and workshops daily and to spend more time with both prisoners and staff. 59 This was an important recommendation and was linked to McGivern’s concern for the administration to develop channels through which prisoners could air grievances relating to ‘conditions, routine, recreation visits etc. which are best handled at the prison management level’. 60

McGivern was not the first to recognise the need to develop channels within the prison through which prisoners could air their grievances. Although they made no recommendations on the matter, the 1898 commissioners heard evidence from prisoners that they were often prevented from presenting complaints by threats of retaliation. Frederick Charles Burleigh Vosper, the editor of The Sunday Times and a member of parliament who had been instrumental in persuading the government to establish the Jameson Commission told the commissioners that ‘Everything is done to prevent the possibility of a prisoner preferring a complaint? 61 During later years channels such as the Office of the State Ombudsman were created and could investigate prisoner grievances. McGivern’s concern, however, was that despite these channels many grievances remained unresolved and that these tended to be grievances which should be sorted out internally by the prison management. 62

A final significant similarity between the inquiries remains to be described. One of the most important findings made by Jameson in 1898 was that the daily business of the prison was regulated in an ad hoc manner and with out-dated rules and regulations. To remedy this, it was recommended new rules and regulations should be drawn up, ‘printed on cardboard and a copy hung up in each cell’. 63 This recommendation was carried out in 1903. However by 1950, when John McGivern entered Fremantle Prison as a warder, the 1903 rules and regulations had become outdated and at times had to be ignored ‘because they were just unworkable’. 64 Moreover prisoners didn’t have a copy of the regulations so they found out by a system of trial and error. 65 Although in 1954 new regulations were drawn up, by 1972 prisoners were again complaining that they were never shown any set of rules and wondered if indeed any existed. 66 The following year, when Jones conducted his inquiry into the prison, the strong impression conveyed by his report is that there was on occasion, to say the very least, a relaxation of such rules that did exist. The segregation unit, for example, he found to be operating ‘without any real sanction of the law... [and] with its own rules’. 67 New rules should therefore be drawn up and a simplified version ‘printed on cards (and) a card displayed in every cell’. 68

The pattern which emerges from an examination of the findings of successive inquiries into Fremantle Prison over the ninety year period is one of an inadequately designed, dilapidated and unhygienic prison which a series of inefficient administrations struggled to manage. The structural inadequacy of the prison was clearly a major stumbling block for attempts at reform and remained a source of continual tension among prisoners and between prisoners and warders. So also was the boredom experienced by both prisoners and officers alike from not having sufficient work. A disregard by the administration from officers up about the welfare of prisoners continued to be revealed by the inquiries which took place between 1898 and 1988. Finally, rules and regulation continued to lapse when they became no longer appropriate for the times.

Robert Kucera, a Fremantle police officer at the time of a major riot in 1968, later declared ‘I don’t think anybody outside the prison would ever know what is dished out inside there in the way of penalties or what went on there’. 69 This, it appears, was the way the Department of Corrective Services wanted it. In 1987, just months before the riot of 1988, the ABC television current affairs programme Four Corners made a documentary on Australian prisons. Titled ‘Out of Sight Out of Mind’, the four-part series interviewed prison officials and prisoners in prisons across Australia. Fremantle Prison was the only prison to which the documentary team was denied access drawing the following comment from the editor of The West Australian:

The jail stands as a monument to the short sightedness of governments and the lack of direction in their prison policies. To their discredit, authorities have also sought to shield the ugly side of Fremantle Prison from the public... Although the exposure might have been embarrassing, it would also have strengthened the case for rapid reform. 70

In summary, a number of issues emerge from an examination of successive inquiries into Fremantle Prison in the period 1898 to 1988. The similarity between many of the findings is at times startling and suggests that throughout the period life within the prison, for both prisoners and warders, changed little.

In the early part of the 20th century the Colonial Secretary JM Drew, someone who had long been a strong advocate of prison reform, provided one explanation:

The explanation is simple. The public conscience slumbered: Prisoners were in their proper place behind the bars; they merited severe punishment; society must be protected—all the time worn sophistries rose up to justify a do nothing attitude. 71

Important changes did take place, however, particularly after the late 1960s. Professional staff such as social workers and psychologists were introduced into the prison service and there was a growing concern, which was reflected in the McGivern Report, about the welfare of prisoners. 72 Why, despite these changes, did the day-to-day reality of life within Fremantle Prison change so little?

The most obvious reason was the physical state of the prison. No amount of reformative measures could have overcome the limitations imposed by the prison’s design and ongoing state of decay. It could never have been anything other than an unpleasant and gloomy place and was always going to be a stumbling block for attempts at reform.

Ian Hill, Director of Corrective Services at the time of the 1988 riot, recalled that

Fremantle Prison had a smell of decay about it. It had a feeling of hopelessness. It had a health clearance for housing not more than 220 prisoners yet in the 1970s there up to 670 in there. Most prison officers would have been threatened by the sheer pressure of humanity. Fremantle had always been a brutalizing experience. 73

This judgement stands in stark contrast to Hills annual report for 1983-4 in which he declared ‘the general condition of Fremantle Prison is satisfactory.’ 74 And it highlights the need to probe beyond official accounts of prison life.

But there were other factors at work stifling reform. The West Australian editorial following the 1988 riot accurately summed some of these up when it accused successive governments of inaction ‘for reasons of politics, cost and convenience’. 75 Prison reform was certainly not a vote winning issue and, given the lack of public concern about prisoner welfare, was not an issue on which governments were willing to spend money. In the wake of the 1988 riot, an irate member of the public wrote to The West Australian. Under the heading ‘NO SYMPATHY FDR PRISONERS’ the letter declared:

Perhaps the unpleasant conditions at Fremantle Prison might persuade some potential miscreants to behave themselves like law abiding citizens... Any rights that prisoners think they have to comforts of ‘life on the outside’ are a figment of their own imagination and that of some people who have not suffered directly or indirectly from crime. 76

The letter writer need not have worried. There was little sympathy for the prisoners. In all, 33 prisoners were charged after the riot, their trial being at the time the biggest in Western Australian legal history and costing over $3 million. Journalist Cyril Ayris later recalled the daily convoy of prisoners and heavily armed escorts snaking its way through the streets of Fremantle and Perth to court, where the prisoners appeared behind a specially constructed bullet—proof glass dock, until:

Finally it was all over. Sentences were extended, the glass dock was dismantled - and work continued on the new Casuarina Prison which would replace the grand old lady at Fremantle. 77

Colonial Secretary Drew’s ‘time-worn sophistries’ had stood the test of time. Eighty years on the public conscience still slumbered and, until late in 1991, with the opening of the new maximum security prison at Casuarina, Fremantle Prison remained a community apart.

Fremantle Studies Day, 2007

Notes

1 Report of the Inquiry into the Causes of the Riot, Fire and Hostage taking at Fremantle Prison on the 4th and 5th of January 1988, SLWA. (McGivern Report).

2 Report of the Commission Appointed to inquire into the Penal System of the Colony 1899, in Votes & Proceedings, v1, 1899. (Jameson Report).

3 Royal Commission into the administration and conduct of Fremantle prison and matters incidental thereof 1911, in The West Australian, 10/5/1911, p 4. (Pennefather Report).

4 Report of the Commission Appointed to inquire into the Penal System of the Colony 1899, in Votes v1 Proceedings, v1, 1899.

5 Report of the Royal Commission upon Various Allegations of Assault on or Brutality to Prisoners in Fremantle Prison and of Discrimination Against Aboriginal or part-Aboriginal Prisoners therein and upon Certain Other Matters touching that Prison, 1973. (Jones Report).

6 McGivern Report, pp 7-9. 7 Cyril Ayris, Fremantle Prison: a brief history, Cyril Ayris Freelance, Perth, 1995, p 44.

8 This description of the riot is drawn from the McGivern Report, pp 7-12.

9 The West Australian, 5/1/1988, p 3.

10 Oral History Interview with Robert Kucera, OH 2230/2, p 39, SLWA.

11 The West Australian, 5/1/1988, p 3.

12 Kucera, OH 2230/2, p 38.

13 The West Australian, 6/1/1988, p 5.

14 ibid., p 4.

15 ibid., p 1 1.

16 ibid., p 11.

17 ibid., p 10.

18 McGivern Report, p 14.

19 ibid., p 16.

20 ibid., pp 48-9.

21 ibid., p 27.

22 ibid., P 16.

23 ibid.

24 ibid., p 17.

25 ibid., p 19.

26 ibid., p 20.

27 ibid., p 53.

28 ibid., p 61.

29 ibid., pp 58, 61.

30 ibid., p 30.

31 ibid., pp 58-64.

32 ibid., p 65.

33 Oral History Interview with John McGivern, OH 2230/15, SLWA.

34 ibid., p 61.

35 ibid., p. 162.

36 ibid., pp 163-4.

37 Jameson Report, Minutes of Evidence.

38 Jameson Commission, 1898, First Progress Report, p 1.

39 Pennefather Report, 1911.

40 Jones Report, pp 162-3.

41 McGivern Report, p 14.

42 Jameson Commission, 1898, First Progress Report, p 1.

43 McGivern Report, p 57.

44 Jameson Report, Minutes of Evidence, p 24.

45 ‘Occurrence Book: Observation and Punishment’, WAS 684, Cons 4257, Item 19, 6/1/1989, State Records Office of WA (SROWA).

46 Annual Report for 1971-72, p 11, in Votes & Proceedings, 1973, v1.

47 Jameson Report, p 22.

48 Pennefather Report.

49 Jones Report, p 174; McGivern Report, p 61.

50 Jameson Report, p 22.

51 McGivern Report, p 62.

52 Jameson Report, Minutes of Evidence, p 3.

53 ibid., p 2.

54 Oral History Interview with Terrance Maller, OH 2230/9, p 8, SLWA.

55 Jones Report, p 171.

56 ibid., p 172.

57 ibid., p 175.

58 McGivern Report, p 43.

59 ibid., pp 63-4.

60 ibid., P 47.

61 ibid., p 49.

62 Ibid., p 47.

63 Jameson Report, p 24.

64 McGivern, OH 2230/15, p 18.

65 ibid.

66 Prisoners Committee Book, 5/1/1972, WAS 702, Cons 4203, Item 9, SROWA.

67 Jones Report, p 170.

68 ibid., p 176.

69 Kucera, OH 2230/2, p 13.

70 The West Australian, 6/ 1/ 1988, p 10.

71 J M Drew, Penological Reform in Western Australia, Government Printer, Perth, 1916, p 3.

72 McGivern Report.

73 Cited in Ayris, Fremantle Prison, p 46.

74 Annual Report for 1983-84, p 10, in Votes & Proceedings, 1984, v5.

75 The West Australian, 6/1/1988, p 11.

76 The West Australian, 8/1/1988, p 10.

77 Ayris, Fremantle Prison, p 46.

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