Prison Over-crowding Pushes Officers to Breaking Point

John Welch, Secretary of the WA Prison Officers Union

Our prisons are at breaking point – in the past 18 months the state’s prison population has grown by 25 per cent.

Now we can have a debate about the reasons for this increase – a tougher law and order policy from the new government, increasing issues in indigenous communities, and changes to the way parole is being administered.

But what can’t be denied is the impact these increases have on the men and women charged with running our prisons.

Every day officers are being asked to take greater responsibility, to deal with more prisoners, to manage more of the prison’s operations. And while the government has taken steps to recruit new staff, the reality is that this takes time and in the interim, our existing workforce is standing up to fill the gaps.

The increased prison populations are having a real affect on Officers – rising levels of violence inside prisons and ongoing attacks on Officers.
And with more time spent on crowd control, we risk less time being spent on the education and training work that can actually assist inmates re-enter society.

It is these pressures that lie at the heart of the ‘Respect the Risk’ campaign that we are launching today.

While officers are struggling to cope with these pressures, they are also fighting for respect on other fronts as well.

The central battle right now is in wage negotiations, where they are fighting for a decent wage rise without being forced to trade off hard-won conditions.

Our members see a decent wage rise as a key test of this government’s commitment to law and order – in the coming weeks we may be forced into industrial action to protect conditions that make our job safe.

And in the longer term there is the looming spectre of privatisation – with private companies attempting to convince the government to allow them to move in and run prisons for profits.

We think there is a common argument across all these issues – over-crowding, prison conditions and privatisations.

And that is, that if your respect the risk the officers take every day, you would take the steps we are asking to secure our prison system.

That’s why we will be calling on all our leaders to Respect the Risk – to show Prison Officers the basic respect that we deserve.

Whether you work in a prison, have family or friends working as Prison Officers – or you just care about keeping WA safe, I urge you to get behind this important campaign.

Sign on and take the Respect the Risk pledge today.