Five prisoners at risk of self-harm were tied to their beds or held with waist restraints, a new report reveals.
One of the five inmates was tied to their bed for 37 consecutive nights.
The Chief Ombudsman's Judge Peter Boshier said the prisoner spent 592 hours restrained on the tie-down bed, including in some cases being toileted on the bed.
The prisoner’s limbs were not moved during the prolonged periods of restraint, breaching the Corrections Act and Corrections’ policies to prevent associated medical issues from immobilisation, the Chief Ombudsman's report said.
Corrections also breached its own regulations by not getting medical approval to tie down the prisoner for 36 of the nights. Its own rules around tie-down beds require that a new medical approval is issued before each new period of confinement.
The Chief Ombudsman's report looks at Corrections' management of prisoners at risk of self-harm, based on observations in five prisons from July 2015 to June 2016.
Corrections chief executive Ray Smith says when he became aware of the case of the prisoner tied down for 37 nights, he asked for a review of the case.
"I accept that some mistakes were made in the use of the tie-down bed in this case and its use crept from being a last-option to a tool for managing the prisoner's health and complex behaviours," he said.
"We have worked through the issues identified in this case and made policy and practice changes. There were also some inappropriate behaviours exhibited by two staff that I regard as a failure of integrity on their part and are not representative of the patience and respect our staff take in such cases."
The Chief Ombudsman investigation found:
- Tie-down beds and waist restraints were used as a threat to force prisoner compliance
- Paperwork on the use of tie-down beds was insufficient or absent
- At-risk prisoners were monitored by cameras including while toileting, with television monitors visible to anyone in staff offices, including visitors.
- At-risk prisoners could spend up to 24 hours a day alone, with no reading or writing material, and no opportunity for social contact
- No evidence of at-risk prisoners taking part in any sort of structured activity. There was little record of at-risk prisoners seeing social workers, therapists, psychiatrists, cultural advisors or chaplains
- Training for staff working in at-risk units was basic, despite the complex needs of the prisoners
- Communication problems between Corrections and Regional Forensic Psychiatric Services, resulting in at-risk prisoners not getting the level of healthcare required.
Mr Smith said he's satisfied Corrections staff took what they saw as appropriate and necessary steps to preserve the life of prisoners held in restraints.
"My staff do an incredibly difficult job with some of the most challenging and complex prisoners."
We're criticised when prisoners die, criticised when we try save them - union
The level of self-harming can include people tearing open their stitches, putting objects or faeces inside their wounds, and attempting to inflict serious physical injuries upon themselves, Mr Smith said.
The union for Corrections staff says tie-down beds are necessary to keep prisoners and staff safe, describing the horrors some guards are forced to encounter.
The Corrections Association's Alan Whitley told Newshub in the case of a prisoner continuously kept in a waist restraint, it was the only option.
"He's tearing himself apart. You've got to do something to try and keep him alive. The department and the staff are criticised when people die in prisons and we're now criticised when we try and save their lives by using a tie-down bed.
"The staff that were dealing with it, described it as like the alien coming out of his stomach each time he did it. And they operated that way because they tried not to use the tie-down bed because of the controversy around them."
Mr Smith said Corrections has developed a plan to address the demand in prisons for access to mental health services, including redeveloping its maximum security facility, investing $14m in prison mental health services, employing more social workers in women's prisons and improving therapeutic treatment for at-risk prisoners.
Nearly 91 percent of prisoners have a lifelong diagnosis of a mental health or substance abuse disorder, with 62 percent having some issue in the last 12 months.
Newshub.
