Protest brings about backflip for son to be allowed from prison to attend mother’s funeral

Gerry Georgatos - courtesy of The National Indigenous Times - nit.com.au

The National Indigenous Times reported last week that Western Australia’s Department of Corrective Services (DCS) had not ensured that all Aboriginal inmates attend family funerals – due to a bid to cut transport costs. This led to outrage from Elders and community and a protest was launched outside the DCS last Tuesday by affected families and community leaders.

The protest action led to DCS officials meeting with the Elders from the one family and in turn the officials overturned a department decision to not allow Acacia Prison inmate Glen Yates to attend his mother’s funeral.

The deceased’s sister, Vera Warrell was allowed into the DCS offices to meet with officials who then agreed that her nephew should be allowed to grieve and pay his last respects alongside his family at the funeral and graveside of his mother.

“It is without any question that any son or daughter should be able to attend their mother’s funeral. This is not just about customary rights, it is about humanity, common decency, respect,” said Mrs Warrell.

Mr Yates attended his mother’s funeral last Friday - transported by SERCO. The $1.1 million prisoner funeral transport contract that SERCO holds from the DCS is at risk of an “efficacy cut” to appease pressure from the State Government to save money.

The DCS backflip does not mean that other Aboriginal inmates will be allowed to attend family funerals. After State Labor shadow minister for DCS, Fran Logan read last week’s article on the funeral transport debacle in The National Indigenous Times he contacted me to state that this week he will table questions in parliament.

“I will ask questions in the House next week about the recent spate of rejections by DCS and their Superintendents of prisoners seeking to attend funeral of relatives. The DCS website doesn’t indicate any change in policy on this issue, but it appears there is a change, probably related to cost cutting to meet the two per cent dividend, as many applications, particularly important to Aboriginal prisoners as you know, have been rejected. Will let you know the response,” said Mr Logan to The National Indigenous Times.

The DCS spokesperson, Brian Cowie responded to the National Indigenous Times and said that funeral attendance has never been mandatory for prisoners “Aboriginal or otherwise.”

“Less than 50 per cent of such applications were approved last financial year.”

He said in that year 1,342 applications were considered from prisoners for compassionate leave to attend a funeral or visit a gravely ill relative. 550 applications were approved and SERCO, in command of the prisoner transport contract, provided 351 funeral attendances.

“If every person who applied to attend was given approval, the costs would in the tens of millions,” said Mr Cowie.

“DCS is aware of the impact not being able to attend a loved one’s funeral has on people from all walks of life and that there are specific cultural considerations for Aboriginal people.”

He said alternatives are being explored “that allow the expression of their grief and respect for family and community” and these include “the use of technology to transmit vision from the funeral to an appropriate setting within the prison.”

Nyoongar Tent Embassy (NTE) delegates supported the Warrell and Yates families at the DCS protest.

“We were outraged at the State Government and the private company SERCO decided to stop an Aboriginal man in prison from attending his mother’s funeral,” said NTE’s Marianne Mackay.

“We have to ensure all our people are allowed to attend. This is sacred to our culture. This is our Sorry time and must be acknowledged by everyone, including the State Government. For this reason we came to the heart of the problem, the DCS building in Perth.”

“As Aboriginal people we cannot understand why there is one decision after another not in the best interests of Aboriginal peoples,” said Ms Mackay. “This was racism at its worst.”

“We are concerned about all the racism – the DCS and SERCO policies and actions in many areas, not just the right to attend a funeral, have led to the rise in self harm, attempted suicide, prison deaths in custody.”

Acacia Prison, where Mr Yates is an inmate, is a SERCO managed facility.

“Our people will continue to speak out until SERCO and the DCS get some humanity and get things right.”

Indeed, the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) described in its last report that there is a higher deaths in custody rate in private company managed prisons. The national average according to the AIC was 1.9 prisoner deaths per 1000 prisoners per annum – with 1.3 prisoner deaths per annum for Government run prisons as opposed to 4.5 prisoners deaths per annum for privately run prisons – more than three times the rate.

LINKS:

http://www.eoc.wa.gov.au/community/news.aspx?NewsItem=ac75cf34-e303-4f56...
WA Equal Opportunity Commissioner Yvonne Henderson has expressed her concern about the State Government’s intention to cut funding for prisoner transport to funerals.

“Reducing prisoner transport to funerals could be indirect race discrimination in that it will have a greater impact on Aboriginal people,” Ms Henderson said.

She said with an Aboriginal prisoner population of about 40 per cent changes made by the Department of Corrective Services such as this would have a disproportionate affect on the Aboriginal community.

“Not only is there a high proportion of Aboriginal people in custody, there is also a low life expectancy which means Aboriginal people would be more likely to access the funeral transportation service,” Ms Henderson said.

She said the Department of Corrective Services was one of the 31 participating agencies of the Equal Opportunity Commission’s Substantive Equality program, which was set up to combat indirect race discrimination in the public sector.

“Government decisions like this are the very reason the Substantive Equality program was set up.

“Those who make these decisions often think they are doing what is fair for everyone, but they can have long lasting and devastating effects on certain communities,” Ms Henderson said.

She said this decision clearly did not take into account the already fragile wellbeing of Aboriginal people in custody.

“It is well known there is an issue with Aboriginal suicides in custody and that contact with family goes some way to alleviating the problem.

“To deny Aboriginal people the right to be with family during times of grieving is only going to exacerbate these feelings of depression,” Ms Henderson said.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/breaking/14165625/inmates-to-miss-f...
The State Government will halve the number of prisoners it transports to funerals to meet budget cuts.

The Aboriginal Legal Service has condemned the move, predicting more prisoner self-harm and accusing the Government of abandoning a key recommendation of the royal commission into deaths in custody.

The Department of Corrective Services, which oversees a prison population that is 40 per cent Aboriginal, spent $1.16 million on security and transport for 443 prisoners to attend 340 funerals in 2010-11.

It wants to save more than $500,000 by allowing prisoners to "virtually attend" funerals streamed over the internet and holding memorial services in jail.

Corrective Services Commissioner Ian Johnson last week told Parliament's estimates and financial operations committee that 1000 prisoners applied to attend funerals in 2010-11.

"We cannot continue to head up the path where the number of prisoners is going up and the number of people expecting to go to funerals is going up," he said. "Attending funerals is important but the bottom line is, you are a prisoner first and foremost."

Committee chairwoman and senior Greens MP Giz Watson asked Mr Johnson to report back to the committee on what other options he had looked at to meet the cuts.

"This worries me greatly because I know how important funerals are for Aboriginal people," she said. "It's on a different scale."

ALS chief executive Dennis Eggington said the low life expectancy of Aboriginals meant they lost more relatives earlier than the general population.

WA Prison Officers Union secretary John Welch said a reduced quarterly budget for funerals could create tension within jails and increase risk to guards.

"To arbitrarily say 'yes, you could have gone to the funeral last week but tough luck this week because the budget's run out' will create angry prisoners in an already combustible environment made worse by huge overcrowding," he said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-11/indigenous-leaders-struggle-with-p...
Indigenous leaders say a plan to save money by cutting the number of prisoners who are allowed to attend funerals would not work culturally.

The Department of Corrective Services says giving prisoners video feeds of a funeral rather than transporting them around WA will save about $500,000 a year.

Concerns have been raised about the impact on prisoners, especially Indigenous inmates who could face cultural consequences for not attending funerals.

The CEO of the Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation in Roebourne, Michael Woodley, says filming such ceremonies is a sensitive issue.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-10/call-to-revise-funeral-plan/4120642
The Inspector of Custodial Services, Neil Morgan, says the policy would have a significant impact on prisoners, especially Indigenous inmates.

"The attendance at a funeral is really tied deeply to cultural obligations so failing to mourn with family means that those social obligations are being eroded," he said.

"And, there can't be closure to a person's death until there's been a physical attendance."

http://www.als.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=64:jo...

FROM THE DCS:

17 September 2012

Transport of Prisoners to Funerals

The decision as to whether a prisoner (Aboriginal or non Aboriginal) serving a custodial sentence imposed by a court is allowed to attend a funeral is one made by the Department of Corrective Services (DCS) alone, with a number of criteria being carefully considered in each application.

This has always been the case and never has funeral attendance by prisoners, Aboriginal or otherwise, been mandatory. Less than 50% of such applications were approved last financial year.

When an application is approved, the appropriate transport is arranged via the transport contract provider or the individual prison.

In 2011/12, DCS considered some 1,342 applications from prisoners for compassionate leave to attend a funeral or visit a gravely ill relative. Of these, 550 (41%) were approved resulting in 393 prisoners being transported to 351 funerals by the prisoner transport contract provider. Each event requires detailed planning and logistical support and security assessment as every outside event has a degree of risk associated with it.

Due to financial and security limitations, DCS has issued policy directives which will restrict to four, the number of prisoners attending the one funeral. Geographical restrictions will also apply where a funeral is more than 200 kilometres round trip from the nearest prison facility (excluding Work Camps).

The issue of how many prisoners you allow to attend funerals is a subjective question and there is a reality that not everyone, whether in custody or not, can attend funerals. If every person who applied to attend was given approval, the costs would be in the tens of millions so at the end of the day, it is essential to control costs whilst maintaining an equitable process.

It is important to note that even by introducing some travel restrictions, the level of service provided by Western Australia is above what other jurisdictions are providing, especially when you take into consideration the vast distances to remote locations funeral transports entail.

DCS is aware of the impact not being able to attend a loved one’s funeral has on people from all walks of life and that there are specific cultural considerations for Aboriginal people. Therefore, we are also exploring alternatives to attending funerals to provide prisoners with meaningful options that allow the expression of their grief and respect for family and community. These will include the use of technology to transmit vision from the funeral to an appropriate setting within the prison so prisoners can virtually attend the funeral. This has already occurred at a metropolitan prison whereby the service was transmitted to the prison chapel. Feedback from prisoners and the family of the deceased was very positive. The provision of ‘memorial services’ will also provide an opportunity to pay appropriate respect.

FROM SERCO:

The issue was discussed at length at WA Estimates hearings in July when the decision was made by the Department of Corrections. For your ease, the debate is at http://www.parliament.wa.gov.au/Parliament/commit.nsf/(Evidence+Lookup+by+Com+ID)/3BD70BF0AABDF45448257A360016643E/$file/ef.ehw13.120705.tro.001.Corrective+Services.pdf