CHRIS MASTERS: Tonight - the new world of Australian prisons. At Goulburn gaol in NSW, a shadow of our darkest penal past falls daily. Inmates are separated along racial lines to stop them murdering one another.
CHRISTOPHER BINSE, FORMER GOULBURN GAOL INMATE: The nature of the inmate these days is a lot more brutal and violent though. Because they've been, you know, brutalised or dehumanised. Especially in Goulburn.
CHRIS MASTERS: Across the way, hidden from view are the so-called 'Men in Black'. In a desperate situation they will resort to lethal force.
RON WOODHAM, COMMISSIONER, NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: When you're managing some of the toughest people that ever walked the corridors of a gaol in Australia, you have to have some people that at some stage may have to stand nose to nose to some of these tough criminals. And say, "Now, do as you're told or else." And if they decide the "or else"... you have to take the appropriate action.
CHRIS MASTERS: Across the wall, another yard separates the worst from the worst. Within a 19th-century prison is a 21st-century facility. An exclusive domain for serial murderers and gang leaders, with additional provision for future terrorists.
BRIAN KELLY, COMMANDER, SECURITY NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: This is for 'AA' classified inmates.
CHRIS MASTERS: That means terrorists?
BRIAN KELLY: That's terrorists. There's legislation being drawn up, agreements between the states, that a terrorist inmate could go to bed in one state in a gaol and wake up in this gaol.
CHRIS MASTERS: Goulburn gaol, the end of the line for Australia's criminals, is also a timeline of Australian prison reform.
PROFESSOR TONY VINSON, SYDNEY UNIVERSITY: I don't have happy memories of it. It was a place where... It had staff over several generations from the same families who'd worked there. And so their concept of what a prison should be and how prisoners should be dealt with was cast in stone. So it was a very difficult and challenging place.
CHRIS MASTERS: In 20 years, the Australian prison population has doubled. Tonight we look at how the system copes with the pressure cooker as we go inside Australia's toughest gaol.
CHRISTOPHER BINSE, FORMER GOULBURN GAOL INMATE: There's a lot of people don't understand. There is no life behind these walls, especially on big sentences. You can PRETEND there's a life. You can fool yourself, but it doesn't matter WHAT YOU DO. That wall is between you and your life.
CHRIS MASTERS: At Goulburn gaol there is every day a First Fleet echo, when they ring the bell to call officers to parade, in the way the Royal Marines did two centuries ago. In the cellblocks where inmates are called to muster, the various floors are still known as 'decks'. Over the centuries, there is much about the routine of doing time that does not change.
CHRISTOPHER BINSE, FORMER INMATE: A lot of people don't realise and understand when you're in gaol... it's a different life. It's a different world. What... These rules of society don't apply in there. Really it's a dog-eat-dog. It's a jungle, seriously it is.
CHRIS MASTERS: But in the last quarter of a century in particular, efforts have been made to escape the legacy of a prison's history described by one royal commissioner as "brutal, savage and sometimes sadistic". Few outsiders have seen more than Tony Vinson, who first saw the inside of a gaol as a NSW parole officer in the 1950s. Twenty years on, as Chairman of NSW Corrective Services, then Dr Vinson struggled with sometimes violent criminals and hostile staff as well as an unsympathetic public to change a seemingly intractable system.
PROFESSOR TONY VINSON, SYDNEY UNIVERSITY: Who wants to build a career... based on other people's suffering? Who wants to derive any kind of satisfaction from incarcerating other people? The only ambition you should have is to contest those deep-seated biases and prejudices which exist in the community. And which I found to be unmatched by the people I was dealing with.
CHRIS MASTERS: In the 1960s, Ron Woodham tossed in his shearer's job to join the NSW prisons staff. Like Tony Vinson, his career also straddled this turbulent time. Now NSW Commissioner of Corrective Services, the man the prisoners call 'Rotten Ron' has survived corruption allegations, death threats and even being taken hostage, as he also struggled to manage the pressure for change.
RON WOODHAM, COMMISSIONER, NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: There's some prisoners that... I'm not on their Christmas card mailing list. And I don't want to be. And...I don't believe in the way they operate. I've been against them, they know that. They also know that I and my senior staff are fair but firm if they want to conform. So even if they're going against us and they decide at some stage to... come back into a compliant mode of operation that will help them.
CHRIS MASTERS: How did you get your nickname?
RON WOODHAM: Uh, from...the riot days when we were in the response teams in the '80s.
CHRIS MASTERS: So did that mean that you had to bash back?
RON WOODHAM: No, not really. We... After the Nagle Royal Commission when they looked at the riot at Bathurst where prisoners were shot... and you couldn't identify who used what gun at the end because they were all thrown in a heap, there was recommendations in relation to responding to that type of situation.
CHRIS MASTERS: Twice in the 1970s, there were riots at Bathurst gaol. Prisoners had been systematically bashed by guards.
PROFESSOR DAVID BROWN, NSW UNIVERSITY: Prisoners gave very, very graphic accounts to the royal commission of hearing the cries as it came nearer and nearer, cell by cell. And knew what they could expect.
BATHURST INMATE ONE, FILE FOOTAGE: Couple of screws grabbed me. Hit me on the head with batons and I fell down. And another bloke there kicked me in the head. Busted me skull open here...
BATHURST INMATE TWO, FILE FOOTAGE: He then proceeded to bash the back of my head in with a baton. He then said... I don't think I'd better say that word. "I've broke the baton. Somebody give me another one".
CHRIS MASTERS: Two years after the second riot, the Nagle Royal Commission began to address decades of neglect. Institutions and attitudes set in stone are hard to budge. Goulburn gaol was built 120 years ago to the same plan as Bathurst. Yards like these across Australia became new battlegrounds under new pressure - to embrace the 20th century.
BRIAN KELLY, COMMANDER, SECURITY NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: Goulburn was built in 1884. And...that's not ideal because environment can affect behaviour. But although it's an 1884 gaol, we have 21st-century officers working there. And they employ 21st-century practices as possible.
CHRIS MASTERS: The NSW experience was mirrored across the nation. Through the 1980s and 1990s, there were prison riots in Pentridge, Boggo Road and Yatala. The most recent, this year, at Risdon in Tasmania. Over that time the same trends have been evident. Better policing, stronger remand conditions, longer sentences and tough public attitudes herded more people into gaol. While crime rates came down, imprisonment rates doubled, if unevenly, across the nation.
PROFESSOR DAVID BROWN, NSW UNIVERSITY: Queensland, in the first period of the first Goss Government, actually reduced their imprisonment rate. I think Western Australia more recently have been doing some of the same thing. The Victorians have kept their imprisonment rate relatively low. It's half of NSW, and less than half of a lot of other states. The Northern Territory has always had a very, very high, disproportionately high imprisonment rate. The high imprisoning states, historically, have been those with high Indigenous populations - particularly the Northern Territory, Western Australia, have been the two high imprisoning states, followed by Queensland and... and now NSW.
CHRIS MASTERS: A building boom saw new prisons constructed - the NSW Corrective Services budget doubling in 10 years.
RON WOODHAM, COMMISSIONER, NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: We're coping very well, as a matter of fact. In 1998, we formed what was called the 'Towards 2000 Taskforce', which led us to, in our planning, and demographic study of NSW, to predict that we'd have 9,000 prisoners in 2005.
PROFESSOR TONY VINSON, SYDNEY UNIVERSITY: What worries me is that I think there's a great confusion - which is being fostered by the department and by the commissioner - that somehow it's a good thing for the prison population to grow upwards and upwards, so that for example in the last 10 years we've had a 50 per cent increase.
CHRIS MASTERS: How much more is this costing the taxpayer?
PROFESSOR DAVID BROWN, NSW UNIVERSITY: Well, the current rate to keep someone in maximum security in a NSW gaol at the moment is running at over $200, some quotes say $220 a day. I know prisoners and ex-prisoners who'd say they'd stay out of gaol for half of that, and it's only a joke, but there's a serious point behind it.
CHRIS MASTERS: As the numbers rose through the 1990s, Australian prison deaths also doubled. Goulburn became known as the "killing fields", with seven murders in three years. Christopher Binse, who spent one third of his life in gaol for crimes such as armed robbery, knows what it feels like to be stabbed by an inmate. He was in Goulburn until earlier this year.
CHRISTOPHER BINSE, FORMER GOULBURN GAOL INMATE: It's a very poor gaol, no-one's got nothing, and everybody's trying to do their best, but, you know, "Oh, can I lend this and lend that". Sometimes people say no, or whatever, over a pair of runners, people have died over a pair of runners because no-one can afford that. They want to stand over, it's shit at the end of the day.
CHRIS MASTERS: A new problem was developing as rival gangs parried. Here, at a different gaol, Asian inmates attack Aboriginal rivals. The old blue-on-green violence, where blue-uniformed prison officers fought green-uniformed prisoners, was being overtaken by green-on-green violence.
CHRISTOPHER BINSE, FORMER GOULBURN GAOL INMATE: There's a friendship, there's alliances with certain groups within the, within the prison system. You know, the Aussies, the Islanders, and the Asians, they hang out together there. You know, they're cool, you know? The Lebanese and the Aboriginals, they hang out together, and the Chinese, they're cool, you know.
BRIAN KELLY, COMMANDER, SECURITY NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: If there's an assault by an Asian inmate on an Aboriginal inmate, that Aboriginal inmate will go back to his people and they will number up and then try and square off with the Asian inmates. It's just a cycle which just increases, it snowballs.
CHRIS MASTERS: So, if there's a gaol murder, is it typically a one-on-one episode?
BRIAN KELLY: Not typically. A one-on-one episode in a gaol murder is normally pre-arranged. The type of murders that happened in Goulburn, inmates would plan it out so they'd be shielded by other inmates from closed circuit TV cameras. There would be passing of weapons between inmates to destroy all the evidence. A very difficult environment to work in.
CHRIS MASTERS: Australia was copying American gaol violence, with local 'white pride' gangs forming in opposition to other ethnic gangs. Gang warfare outside was now being concentrated inside.
BRIAN KELLY, COMMANDER, SECURITY NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: There's the gangs that were at war in south-west Sydney. We now have those two gangs in custody in NSW. They were shooting each other in broad daylight, brazen unlawlessness in the streets of Sydney.
RON WOODHAM, COMMISSIONER, NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: Years ago we'd just get a principal or one or two members of the gang, very seldom we'd get the leaders. Now it's not uncommon for us to receive the whole gang. The whole gang gets arrested and convicted and... and some of them are getting very long sentences, and to them, some of them are very young, with very long sentences. The danger to us is that it's unacceptable to them.
CHRIS MASTERS: At Goulburn, in response, they have taken to what is known as "ethnic clustering". Yard 6 has the Asians, Yard 7 the Islanders, Yard 8 the Arabic prisoners, and in varied yards, the many Aborigines. Separating the different ethnic groups requires close management. Even food is isolated. Intelligence is gathered to identify ringleaders, who are moved away from their power base.
RON WOODHAM, COMMISSIONER, NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: But the gang problem in gaol is under control, because we've got that capability of movement. Some of these young people that are coming off the street now, it's the first time in their life where...they've been made to do what someone else wants them to do. They have no say if we open their cell door at 11 o'clock at night and say, "You're moving from Lithgow to Goulburn, because you're going to get yourself into trouble if you stay here any longer". If you'd have talked to superintendents two or three years ago, they would've said gangs were one of the biggest problems they've got in modern day prisons in NSW. And now that's not the case.
PROFESSOR DAVID BROWN, NSW UNIVERSITY: I think you need to go beyond that, and redress the causes of disturbance and the feelings of hostility between different groups. I think in the longer term, particularly when people are released, it's undesirable. I think it is subject to abuse and the possibility of it being utilised by prison authorities to pay off debts or square off and so on. And I think it's just as I say, capitulation to the problems rather than an attempt to deal with them.
CHRIS MASTERS: When the ethnic clustering policy was introduced in 2001, New South Wales had the highest prisoner-to-prisoner violence in Australia. Within the confines of the cellblocks, where suspicion and treachery rule more severely than the guards, many inmates believed it was all a plot - that violence was orchestrated, and the clustering was a means of restricting them from work and education.
CHRISTOPHER BINSE, FORMER GOULBURN GAOL INMATE: They want 'em to be vegetables, believe me. Brain-fucked, you know, dysfunctional inmates, because they're easier to manage. Once you start teaching 'em things, start learning, giving them opportunities and exercising their brain, then they become dangerous in their mind because they feel insecure. Seriously!
CHRIS MASTERS: But the policy did have one inescapable benefit.
BRIAN KELLY, COMMANDER, SECURITY NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: It was necessary. Since we did it in 1998, there hasn't been a repeat murder.
CHRIS MASTERS: The next outbreak of violence, as it turned out, had serious consequences for the guards. According to Christopher Binse, separation of Aborigines and Arabic inmates had generated tension.
CHRISTOPHER BINSE, FORMER GOULBURN GAOL INMATE: The Lebanese were a little bit disappointed. The Kooris were a little bit disappointed, because their... friendship with the Lebanese, and what they were able to offer was reduced. They weren't, they weren't happy, they weren't impressed. So, they thought, "Oh, we'll make a statement, "**** youse, you know, we'll take a, we'll run the ball up", and they run the ball up.
BRIAN KELLY, COMMANDER, SECURITY NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: The gaol never rioted. One small wing of Aboriginal inmates rioted. And that was...generated by a core, hard group of inmates who had nothing to lose.
CHRIS MASTERS: In April 2002, in this cellblock, prisoners attacked staff with table legs and a didgeridoo. These images were captured soon after. Seven male and female officers were injured - one, Timothy Swain, suffering serious brain damage.
CHRISTOPHER BINSE, FORMER GOULBURN GAOL INMATE: Officers got hurt, you know?
CHRIS MASTERS: Was that 'right' that they got hurt?
CHRISTOPHER BINSE: I don't... listen... I can only... I answer for myself. You know, I speak for myself, I can't speak for others. You know, I don't like to see these things happen. And I like to see no-one get hurt. You know, but we live in a... a society where... Goulburn society is just ruthless.
CHRIS MASTERS: The disturbance was broken up by the gaol's Immediate Action Team, ever watchful in the wings. Their job is not for the faint-hearted.
MARK WILSON, COMMANDER, GOULBURN GAOL: That particular one there, Chris, is just a metal spike. And they were taken out of mattress bases in the gaol here. As a result of that, of course, we had to replace over 400 beds with solid-frame mattress bases.
CHRIS MASTERS: Arming-up for offensive or defensive purpose has become a prison routine. The most common weapon, a sharpened toothbrush. The riot response teams carry very different weapons. The principal leveller used when they rush outnumbered into the yards is this capsicum spray.
MURRAY DOUGALL, IMMEDIATE ACTION TEAM: We've also got these aerosols. Same product, CS. Mainly used if we need an instant reaction. Say, a big fight in the yard, they're not breaking up, this gas vest goes in the yard, but every other operator carries these. So, you just pull the pin out, squirt, and 9 times out of 10, the fight's over.
CHRIS MASTERS: They train constantly. Prison officers in prison garb confront the men the prisoners have come to know as the "gang squad".
RON WOODHAM, COMMISSIONER, NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: If you can introduce chemical agents into a situation when it escalates to force being used, you minimize injuries to both sides - to the inmates and to staff, and particularly staff. I don't want my staff being knocked around. They don't get paid enough money to be punching bags for thugs.
CHRIS MASTERS: The New South Wales Corrective Services Department has grown an even stronger arm with its hostage response measures. Even office staff are taught the fundamentals of self defence.
CHRIS MASTERS: So why do they need these skills?
TONY BRADY, FIELD TRAINING OFFICER: The officers obviously need them because they're dealing with the inmates on a day-to-day basis, as well as the nurses in the clinics in the centres. Probational parole, they actually go out to houses, offenders' houses, and they're sort of out there on their own without any sort of support or back-up.
CHRIS MASTERS: The men in black undertake intense hostage negotiation training as well as close combat. The work is taken seriously. Snipers are trained to shoot to kill.
BRIAN KELLY, COMMANDER, SECURITY NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: Chris, it's called a 'cold barrel shot', 'cause if a marksman or sniper, if you will, has to use lethal force, that's the conditions that they would use it under. And they're trained on that and have to submit targets every month. But that's the absolute worst-case scenario. We would only use lethal force to avoid somebody else being killed.
PROFESSOR DAVID BROWN, NSW UNIVERSITY: I think that the ramping-up of security, the resources devoted to security, the ramping up of the riot squads, the increased equipment, the increased number of cell searches and so on. There's a much stronger control that's operating within the prisons at the moment then there certainly was in the pre-Nagle period.
BRIAN KELLY, COMMANDER, SECURITY NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: Now we have an era where the department, for the first time, is run by... experienced correctional administrators. And I think we have a good balance now. We don't have the issues of food and conditions that we had in the 1970s.
CHRIS MASTERS: The stronger arm has also meant escapes in New South Wales have been all but arrested. The weakest link - the movement between prisons and courts - has been strengthened to a point where it would take a small army to break an inmate out as they are delivered to Goulburn. Having ended up in the forerunner to Supermax and having escaped from maximum security prisons twice, Christopher Binse is an expert on the subject. What about the HRMU, the Supermax? Is that unbreakable?
CHRISTOPHER BINSE, FORMER GOULBURN GAOL INMATE: I'd say it would be, it's pretty, it's pretty secure, that place.
CHRIS MASTERS: Once inside the outer perimeter, the van passes into a second prison - the HRMU - the high risk management unit, better known as the Supermax. Very few inmates see this place. Indeed, this is the first time cameras have broken in since it began operating in 2001. The Supermax is home for 34 of Australia's 24,000 prisoners. What will greet them in their 2 x 4 metre cell is plastic plates and cutlery, a bunk, a sink and toilet. In time, they may earn the right to a television set. And only in this way, perhaps, learn of the pedigree of fellow inmates.
BRIAN KELLY, COMMANDER, SECURITY NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: The total sentences is 613 years, plus 20 natural life sentences. That's natural life. And those 20 life sentences are shared between seven inmates. They're the worst of the worse. They're the people who present the most extreme risk to security and safety in our system.
CHRIS MASTERS: We were not allowed to interview prisoners, who, as it turned out, preferred to keep their distance. We were able to interview staff.
CHRIS MASTERS: How do they treat you?
LARISSA JACKSON, PRISON OFFICER, SUPERMAX: The inmates? They're like everybody, they have their good and bad days. I've been called everything under the sun. Other days, they will apologise to me for swearing or saying something inappropriate around me.
CHRIS MASTERS: Do they threaten you?
LARISSA JACKSON, PRISON OFFICER, SUPERMAX: I have been threatened, yes. It doesn't happen on a daily basis.
PAUL CUBITT, PRISON OFFICER, SUPERMAX: Even though the inmates are housed here and they've - some of them have committed terrible crimes, they're still people. And, initially, you're apprehensive around them. While they get to know you, you get to know them. But once you've worked them out, to a degree, their management's quite simple.
CHRIS MASTERS: Since the discovery of a mobile phone smuggled in by a corrupted prison officer in 2003, everything entering the Supermax, including the food, is scrutinised.
CHRIS MASTERS: So, why are you searched, too?
PRISON OFFICER, SUPERMAX: Because we make no exceptions, Chris. It demonstrates to the staff that there's no special circumstances, there's no compromise on security.
CHRIS MASTERS: So, every single staff member?
PRISON OFFICER, SUPERMAX: Every single staff member. The commissioner, the minister included.
CHRIS MASTERS: One thing that happens to you, of course, is that, in some respects, you're treated like an inmate, too. You're searched. Do you resent that?
PAUL CUBITT, PRISON OFFICER, SUPERMAX: Initially, I did. I found it quite an invasion of my personal space and privacy. But...I came quickly - And I'd always felt that the more we do to prove ourselves to be honest and professional and transparent, the better off we are in the long run.
PRISON OFFICER, SUPERMAX: Now, Chris, this is what we call a safe cell.
CHRIS MASTERS: The prisoners' own term for the HRMU is the 'Harm U'.
PRISON OFFICER, SUPERMAX: It's a short-term placement for inmates whilst they're a great threat to themselves of self-harm or suicide. There's diagonally opposed cameras that are monitored all the time. There's no hanging points whatsoever. Even the blanket cannot be torn. Cannot be made into a noose.
CHRIS MASTERS: The complaints that have filtered out speak of little natural light and too much time in cells. A minimum of 16 hours and a maximum of 22 hours per day is spent alone. In nearby cells, Christopher Binse endured similar solitary confinement.
CHRISTOPHER BINSE, FORMER GOULBURN GAOL INMATE: Couple of times I went on a hunger strike. So, I'd bronze myself up, I threw shit at the screws, you know, in acts of frustration because they just sent me mad. You know, it got to a point, literally, where I had enough of their shit. It was just brain-numbing. Numbing, you know. Where it was just trying to wear me down, mentally, you know. Just to break me down, to wear me down. And at the end of the day, I said, "I've had enough. I've had enough, I've had enough of your shit, you're gonna cop mine."
CHRIS MASTERS: Prisoners are allowed closely-supervised exercise. Association with other inmates is limited. When they are moved, they are always outnumbered by officers. No one-on-one contact between inmates and prison officers is allowed.
MARK WILSON, COMMANDER, GOULBURN GAOL: When you've got a small group of very manipulative inmates that are face-to-face with the same staff day in, day out, for an extended period of time, familiarity can develop. And so, in that sense, it's a corruption-prevention strategy.
CHRIS MASTERS: How conscious are you of attempts to, say, manipulate you and try to take advantage of you? Are there those sort of mind games that go on all the time?
LARISSA JACKSON, PRISON OFFICER, SUPERMAX: On a regular - on a daily basis. They try the sympathy act, or they will try the... I guess they see females as a softer touch. But I think, in actual fact, females are more aware of being manipulated by male inmates than a male officer would be.
CHRIS MASTERS: A three-stage privileges and sanctions program rewards and punishes behaviour. Access to phone calls, movement, association and property such as television sets is controlled from above.
CHRIS MASTERS: I think their complaint is that this enables you to play God and engage in petty mind games. Does that happen?
MARK WILSON, COMMANDER, GOULBURN GAOL: I think it's a perception of theirs that it's mind games or allows us to play God. And, I mean, that's not what it's about. It's about control - controlling their behaviour here. And it does that very well. There are very few incidents within the HRMU. And that's because of that program. It takes a long time to get to the top of that program and get the maximum privileges. And so there's a reluctance to slide back down.
CHRIS MASTERS: Inmates are allowed one contact visit a week. They also have access to the Official Visitor. Jack Walker looks in on the Aboriginal prisoners, two of whom were moved here following their 2002 attack on prison officers. They call it the 'Harm U'. Do you think it's a harmful environment?
JACK WALKER, OFFICIAL PRISON VISITOR: Well, you know, it would be, locked up and, ah... But they get a little freedom in the place, you know, they can get their exercise, the liberty of doing that. They got their own amenities like the TVs and other stuff in the gaols which they wouldn't get in outside if they had no money. We're talking about Aboriginals of course. But, you know, I think it's a great set-up to what's, you know, for the, for the crime that these fellas done.
CHRIS MASTERS: In its four years of operation reports of attempted suicide and self-harm are few. But here, four years is a blink of the eye.
CHRIS MASTERS: It is obviously an area of heightened confinement. Is this not corrosive to psychological health?
CHRIS LINTON, CLINICAL DIRECTOR, SUPERMAX: I think you'll find a lot of opinion and speculation about that issue. But in terms of evidence that long-term incarceration or incarceration in more restricted conditions contributes to poorer mental health, I don't think there's a great deal of evidence to support that. Um... Where there have been studies done even on, say, 60-day segregation orders or something like that, there has been no deterioration in the mental health status of inmates on those kind of orders. Longer term I think the jury's still out.
CHRIS MASTERS: The sanitised environment can make Supermax look more like a clinic than a prison. Although the Nagle Royal Commission had recommended the opposite course of dispersing rather than concentrating serious offenders, NSW Corrective Services believes it has learned the lessons of history.
CHRIS MASTERS: It is a brutal environment. Do you think it is possible to manage to conduct the job in a way that is always above reproach?
RON WOODHAM, COMMISSIONER, NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: Well, I think even if you walk through the Supermax you wouldn't call it, you don't get the sense that it's brutal. There are some brutal people there when you look at their offences and the... that they've committed, ah, it's shocking. But you can walk through an institution such as the Supermax gaol, you don't get the feeling that it's brutal, you get the feeling in a way that it's peaceful. And, ah, so if it can be peaceful there it can be peaceful in the rest of the system.
CHRIS MASTERS: Very little evidence of violence, of self-harm. It's a, it's a very quiet and even peaceful place. Is...no escapes. Is this an indicator of success?
PROFESSOR TONY VINSON, SYDNEY UNIVERSITY: Of efficiency. It could be an indication of efficiency but not necessarily effectiveness.
CHRIS MASTERS: The Supermax, half full at this stage, has a further facility which anticipates even tougher times to come. NSW, so far, has one 'AA' classified inmate behind bars on terrorism charges. There is room for more.
BRIAN KELLY, COMMANDER, SECURITY NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: While we hope that we will never have to use it we have to be prepared for that sort of eventuality. The inmate would sit on that side and the visitor would be on this side. Behind that one-way glass there's an officer. Um, if it's a legal visit and documents need to be passed - to be signed or whatever, it goes through these chutes here and through the officer. Nothing has any contact whatsoever with the inmate and there's no potential for any contact with the inmate.
CHRIS MASTERS: Potential customers are not far away. While conversion to Islam is no concern to authorities, the prospect of recruitment to extremist groups is an issue.
CHRISTOPHER BINSE, FORMER GOULBURN GAOL INMATE: I know a lot of people, a lot of Kooris in particular have seen the, have seen Allah. And I don't say that in a derogatory way. They've been hanging out with the Lebanese and maybe their faith's touched them, I don't know.
BRIAN KELLY, COMMANDER, SECURITY NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: We see some efforts to convert inmates to Islam for probably the wrong reasons. We haven't really had evidence for terrorist purposes in itself, but when it's for the wrong reason and when it's targeting violent people it is a concern.
CHRIS MASTERS: What do you do to restrain the growth of terrorist gangs then?
RON WOODHAM, COMMISSIONER, NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: Well, our intelligence is very good and we've put a lot of money into making sure that our intelligence gathering process is excellent. And we work in conjunction with other law enforcement agencies with the swapping of intelligence. And some of these people convert, in their mind they convert and they convert back. But we're worried where certain prisoners that are doing very long sentences, as an example, ah, denounce their Aboriginality for Islam. And, ah, we've got photographs of them before and after. We monitor them very closely. And to us, they're not terrorists in the real sense, but they talk the talk. And, ah, so if we had somebody who was recruiting in a prison we keep them away from people that might be susceptible to conversion.
CHRIS MASTERS: Meanwhile the yards fill up even more. Indigenous Australians – 2 per cent of the population, make up 21 per cent of the prison population. A newer trend is the increasing presence of female Aboriginal inmates.
RON WOODHAM, COMMISSIONER, NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: When you look at what's caused their offending behaviour - if a woman has been abused for years as a child, as an adult and can get to a situation where they make a decision that they're going hit back. And they stab somebody or kill somebody that's been perpetrating that abuse on them for years, in a way you can understand why they do it, and of course you feel sorry for them.
CHRIS MASTERS: The eternal query that has stalked the corridors of Australian gaols - are they bad or mad - is becoming easier to answer. Over one third of sentenced inmates have suffered mental disorders. The psychiatric beds lost when deinstitutionalisation occurred account for many of the increased numbers jammed into penitentiaries. On this subject of mental health and prisons, even mortal enemies agree.
CHRISTOPHER BINSE, FORMER GOULBURN GAOL INMATE: There's no facilities and these people really don't belong in gaol. And this gaol is a violent place. People, because they're, how can I say it, easy targets - they can't defend themselves, there's no real great resistance, you've got people in there that would attack. Out of boredom, you know, I mean really. Would attack people or give them a hard time. You know, these people don't need to be there, really they don't.
CHRIS MASTERS: So does prison make their condition better or worse?
RON WOODHAM, COMMISSIONER, NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: In some cases it keeps them alive. And, um, they, um... Because you can monitor them, you can monitor them very closely for the medication they require, to assist them with their illness. And in my 40 years in the job, I've never seen the damaged product like it is now that's coming off the street. It's unbelievable. In our big remand gaols, particularly of a Friday night, it's like a casualty ward. We carry them off the vans, help them off the vans. They're an absolute mess. And one of the first things we do now is address their medical issues.
CHRIS MASTERS: On the good side, prison staff have moved a long way since the dark days of the Bathurst riots.
PROFESSOR TONY VINSON, SYDNEY UNIVERSITY: There have always been good women and good men in the service of the department. Ah, I've always known them. But it looks as if the training, ah, and, and other influences that have been brought to bear are producing in the minds perhaps of a new generation of prison officers, a different view.
PROFESSOR DAVID BROWN, NSW UNIVERSITY: We have the bashings in '70 and '74 at Bathurst. We have the systematic bashings at Grafton over a 33-year period organised and approved by the department and indeed with the knowledge of a whole range of other participants, um, including people within government. Ah, and we still have some of the same prison officers there in the department. Sometimes in some cases at reasonably high levels within the department who actually took part in those bashings. And yet we've seen that culture of systematic violence really brought to an end by the Nagle enquiry and so that is a huge culture change.
CHRIS MASTERS: Those new skills and attitudes acquired over the last generation will be seriously tested. While conditions have improved since the 1970s, the concentration of drugs, gangs and mental illness has made the gaol environment more toxic and the modern prisoner more predatory.
CHRIS MASTERS: So what's your sense, at the end of the day, does the average prisoner get out better or worse?
BRIAN KELLY, COMMANDER, SECURITY NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: Um, I don't know. I think that the opportunity is there for every prisoner to be released much better for the experience. Um, the exact number that take that up - is a lot of them, but at the harder end of the scale, those doing longer periods, I think there's less.
CHRIS MASTERS: While the prisons system has tightened its grip, it has done so on a time bomb. Australian gaols have become the outer casing for not just the mad and bad, but dangerous 'cement them in' public policy.
PROFESSOR TONY VINSON, SYDNEY UNIVERSITY: It's become a sort of auction. I was the one who introduced that term. I can be tougher than you. No, you're not. We'll be tougher than you. And you finish up, in a sense, camouflaging so many other shortcomings in government administration by offering people at least one thing that they want and they feel better for. That is, having a lot of people in gaol.
PROFESSOR DAVID BROWN, NSW UNIVERSITY: Having tough policy on law and order and putting more and more people in jail is seen as being politically popular, however kind of irrational, foolish, counter-productive it might be. In real terms that just doesn't seem to matter.
CHRIS MASTERS: The toughness is easy to see. But gaols are also fragile. The anger and pain is eventually released. The fatal arithmetic is most prisoners, even the worst of them, get out. And if we are worse for it, who is more to blame? Those who keep them here or those who put them here?
CHRISTOPHER BINSE, FORMER GOULBURN GAOL INMATE: The nature of the inmate these days is a lot more brutal and violent though. Because they've been, you know, brutalised or dehumanised. Especially in Goulburn.
CHRIS MASTERS: Across the way, hidden from view are the so-called 'Men in Black'. In a desperate situation they will resort to lethal force.
RON WOODHAM, COMMISSIONER, NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: When you're managing some of the toughest people that ever walked the corridors of a gaol in Australia, you have to have some people that at some stage may have to stand nose to nose to some of these tough criminals. And say, "Now, do as you're told or else." And if they decide the "or else"... you have to take the appropriate action.
CHRIS MASTERS: Across the wall, another yard separates the worst from the worst. Within a 19th-century prison is a 21st-century facility. An exclusive domain for serial murderers and gang leaders, with additional provision for future terrorists.
BRIAN KELLY, COMMANDER, SECURITY NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: This is for 'AA' classified inmates.
CHRIS MASTERS: That means terrorists?
BRIAN KELLY: That's terrorists. There's legislation being drawn up, agreements between the states, that a terrorist inmate could go to bed in one state in a gaol and wake up in this gaol.
CHRIS MASTERS: Goulburn gaol, the end of the line for Australia's criminals, is also a timeline of Australian prison reform.
PROFESSOR TONY VINSON, SYDNEY UNIVERSITY: I don't have happy memories of it. It was a place where... It had staff over several generations from the same families who'd worked there. And so their concept of what a prison should be and how prisoners should be dealt with was cast in stone. So it was a very difficult and challenging place.
CHRIS MASTERS: In 20 years, the Australian prison population has doubled. Tonight we look at how the system copes with the pressure cooker as we go inside Australia's toughest gaol.
CHRISTOPHER BINSE, FORMER GOULBURN GAOL INMATE: There's a lot of people don't understand. There is no life behind these walls, especially on big sentences. You can PRETEND there's a life. You can fool yourself, but it doesn't matter WHAT YOU DO. That wall is between you and your life.
CHRIS MASTERS: At Goulburn gaol there is every day a First Fleet echo, when they ring the bell to call officers to parade, in the way the Royal Marines did two centuries ago. In the cellblocks where inmates are called to muster, the various floors are still known as 'decks'. Over the centuries, there is much about the routine of doing time that does not change.
CHRISTOPHER BINSE, FORMER INMATE: A lot of people don't realise and understand when you're in gaol... it's a different life. It's a different world. What... These rules of society don't apply in there. Really it's a dog-eat-dog. It's a jungle, seriously it is.
CHRIS MASTERS: But in the last quarter of a century in particular, efforts have been made to escape the legacy of a prison's history described by one royal commissioner as "brutal, savage and sometimes sadistic". Few outsiders have seen more than Tony Vinson, who first saw the inside of a gaol as a NSW parole officer in the 1950s. Twenty years on, as Chairman of NSW Corrective Services, then Dr Vinson struggled with sometimes violent criminals and hostile staff as well as an unsympathetic public to change a seemingly intractable system.
PROFESSOR TONY VINSON, SYDNEY UNIVERSITY: Who wants to build a career... based on other people's suffering? Who wants to derive any kind of satisfaction from incarcerating other people? The only ambition you should have is to contest those deep-seated biases and prejudices which exist in the community. And which I found to be unmatched by the people I was dealing with.
CHRIS MASTERS: In the 1960s, Ron Woodham tossed in his shearer's job to join the NSW prisons staff. Like Tony Vinson, his career also straddled this turbulent time. Now NSW Commissioner of Corrective Services, the man the prisoners call 'Rotten Ron' has survived corruption allegations, death threats and even being taken hostage, as he also struggled to manage the pressure for change.
RON WOODHAM, COMMISSIONER, NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: There's some prisoners that... I'm not on their Christmas card mailing list. And I don't want to be. And...I don't believe in the way they operate. I've been against them, they know that. They also know that I and my senior staff are fair but firm if they want to conform. So even if they're going against us and they decide at some stage to... come back into a compliant mode of operation that will help them.
CHRIS MASTERS: How did you get your nickname?
RON WOODHAM: Uh, from...the riot days when we were in the response teams in the '80s.
CHRIS MASTERS: So did that mean that you had to bash back?
RON WOODHAM: No, not really. We... After the Nagle Royal Commission when they looked at the riot at Bathurst where prisoners were shot... and you couldn't identify who used what gun at the end because they were all thrown in a heap, there was recommendations in relation to responding to that type of situation.
CHRIS MASTERS: Twice in the 1970s, there were riots at Bathurst gaol. Prisoners had been systematically bashed by guards.
PROFESSOR DAVID BROWN, NSW UNIVERSITY: Prisoners gave very, very graphic accounts to the royal commission of hearing the cries as it came nearer and nearer, cell by cell. And knew what they could expect.
BATHURST INMATE ONE, FILE FOOTAGE: Couple of screws grabbed me. Hit me on the head with batons and I fell down. And another bloke there kicked me in the head. Busted me skull open here...
BATHURST INMATE TWO, FILE FOOTAGE: He then proceeded to bash the back of my head in with a baton. He then said... I don't think I'd better say that word. "I've broke the baton. Somebody give me another one".
CHRIS MASTERS: Two years after the second riot, the Nagle Royal Commission began to address decades of neglect. Institutions and attitudes set in stone are hard to budge. Goulburn gaol was built 120 years ago to the same plan as Bathurst. Yards like these across Australia became new battlegrounds under new pressure - to embrace the 20th century.
BRIAN KELLY, COMMANDER, SECURITY NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: Goulburn was built in 1884. And...that's not ideal because environment can affect behaviour. But although it's an 1884 gaol, we have 21st-century officers working there. And they employ 21st-century practices as possible.
CHRIS MASTERS: The NSW experience was mirrored across the nation. Through the 1980s and 1990s, there were prison riots in Pentridge, Boggo Road and Yatala. The most recent, this year, at Risdon in Tasmania. Over that time the same trends have been evident. Better policing, stronger remand conditions, longer sentences and tough public attitudes herded more people into gaol. While crime rates came down, imprisonment rates doubled, if unevenly, across the nation.
PROFESSOR DAVID BROWN, NSW UNIVERSITY: Queensland, in the first period of the first Goss Government, actually reduced their imprisonment rate. I think Western Australia more recently have been doing some of the same thing. The Victorians have kept their imprisonment rate relatively low. It's half of NSW, and less than half of a lot of other states. The Northern Territory has always had a very, very high, disproportionately high imprisonment rate. The high imprisoning states, historically, have been those with high Indigenous populations - particularly the Northern Territory, Western Australia, have been the two high imprisoning states, followed by Queensland and... and now NSW.
CHRIS MASTERS: A building boom saw new prisons constructed - the NSW Corrective Services budget doubling in 10 years.
RON WOODHAM, COMMISSIONER, NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: We're coping very well, as a matter of fact. In 1998, we formed what was called the 'Towards 2000 Taskforce', which led us to, in our planning, and demographic study of NSW, to predict that we'd have 9,000 prisoners in 2005.
PROFESSOR TONY VINSON, SYDNEY UNIVERSITY: What worries me is that I think there's a great confusion - which is being fostered by the department and by the commissioner - that somehow it's a good thing for the prison population to grow upwards and upwards, so that for example in the last 10 years we've had a 50 per cent increase.
CHRIS MASTERS: How much more is this costing the taxpayer?
PROFESSOR DAVID BROWN, NSW UNIVERSITY: Well, the current rate to keep someone in maximum security in a NSW gaol at the moment is running at over $200, some quotes say $220 a day. I know prisoners and ex-prisoners who'd say they'd stay out of gaol for half of that, and it's only a joke, but there's a serious point behind it.
CHRIS MASTERS: As the numbers rose through the 1990s, Australian prison deaths also doubled. Goulburn became known as the "killing fields", with seven murders in three years. Christopher Binse, who spent one third of his life in gaol for crimes such as armed robbery, knows what it feels like to be stabbed by an inmate. He was in Goulburn until earlier this year.
CHRISTOPHER BINSE, FORMER GOULBURN GAOL INMATE: It's a very poor gaol, no-one's got nothing, and everybody's trying to do their best, but, you know, "Oh, can I lend this and lend that". Sometimes people say no, or whatever, over a pair of runners, people have died over a pair of runners because no-one can afford that. They want to stand over, it's shit at the end of the day.
CHRIS MASTERS: A new problem was developing as rival gangs parried. Here, at a different gaol, Asian inmates attack Aboriginal rivals. The old blue-on-green violence, where blue-uniformed prison officers fought green-uniformed prisoners, was being overtaken by green-on-green violence.
CHRISTOPHER BINSE, FORMER GOULBURN GAOL INMATE: There's a friendship, there's alliances with certain groups within the, within the prison system. You know, the Aussies, the Islanders, and the Asians, they hang out together there. You know, they're cool, you know? The Lebanese and the Aboriginals, they hang out together, and the Chinese, they're cool, you know.
BRIAN KELLY, COMMANDER, SECURITY NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: If there's an assault by an Asian inmate on an Aboriginal inmate, that Aboriginal inmate will go back to his people and they will number up and then try and square off with the Asian inmates. It's just a cycle which just increases, it snowballs.
CHRIS MASTERS: So, if there's a gaol murder, is it typically a one-on-one episode?
BRIAN KELLY: Not typically. A one-on-one episode in a gaol murder is normally pre-arranged. The type of murders that happened in Goulburn, inmates would plan it out so they'd be shielded by other inmates from closed circuit TV cameras. There would be passing of weapons between inmates to destroy all the evidence. A very difficult environment to work in.
CHRIS MASTERS: Australia was copying American gaol violence, with local 'white pride' gangs forming in opposition to other ethnic gangs. Gang warfare outside was now being concentrated inside.
BRIAN KELLY, COMMANDER, SECURITY NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: There's the gangs that were at war in south-west Sydney. We now have those two gangs in custody in NSW. They were shooting each other in broad daylight, brazen unlawlessness in the streets of Sydney.
RON WOODHAM, COMMISSIONER, NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: Years ago we'd just get a principal or one or two members of the gang, very seldom we'd get the leaders. Now it's not uncommon for us to receive the whole gang. The whole gang gets arrested and convicted and... and some of them are getting very long sentences, and to them, some of them are very young, with very long sentences. The danger to us is that it's unacceptable to them.
CHRIS MASTERS: At Goulburn, in response, they have taken to what is known as "ethnic clustering". Yard 6 has the Asians, Yard 7 the Islanders, Yard 8 the Arabic prisoners, and in varied yards, the many Aborigines. Separating the different ethnic groups requires close management. Even food is isolated. Intelligence is gathered to identify ringleaders, who are moved away from their power base.
RON WOODHAM, COMMISSIONER, NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: But the gang problem in gaol is under control, because we've got that capability of movement. Some of these young people that are coming off the street now, it's the first time in their life where...they've been made to do what someone else wants them to do. They have no say if we open their cell door at 11 o'clock at night and say, "You're moving from Lithgow to Goulburn, because you're going to get yourself into trouble if you stay here any longer". If you'd have talked to superintendents two or three years ago, they would've said gangs were one of the biggest problems they've got in modern day prisons in NSW. And now that's not the case.
PROFESSOR DAVID BROWN, NSW UNIVERSITY: I think you need to go beyond that, and redress the causes of disturbance and the feelings of hostility between different groups. I think in the longer term, particularly when people are released, it's undesirable. I think it is subject to abuse and the possibility of it being utilised by prison authorities to pay off debts or square off and so on. And I think it's just as I say, capitulation to the problems rather than an attempt to deal with them.
CHRIS MASTERS: When the ethnic clustering policy was introduced in 2001, New South Wales had the highest prisoner-to-prisoner violence in Australia. Within the confines of the cellblocks, where suspicion and treachery rule more severely than the guards, many inmates believed it was all a plot - that violence was orchestrated, and the clustering was a means of restricting them from work and education.
CHRISTOPHER BINSE, FORMER GOULBURN GAOL INMATE: They want 'em to be vegetables, believe me. Brain-fucked, you know, dysfunctional inmates, because they're easier to manage. Once you start teaching 'em things, start learning, giving them opportunities and exercising their brain, then they become dangerous in their mind because they feel insecure. Seriously!
CHRIS MASTERS: But the policy did have one inescapable benefit.
BRIAN KELLY, COMMANDER, SECURITY NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: It was necessary. Since we did it in 1998, there hasn't been a repeat murder.
CHRIS MASTERS: The next outbreak of violence, as it turned out, had serious consequences for the guards. According to Christopher Binse, separation of Aborigines and Arabic inmates had generated tension.
CHRISTOPHER BINSE, FORMER GOULBURN GAOL INMATE: The Lebanese were a little bit disappointed. The Kooris were a little bit disappointed, because their... friendship with the Lebanese, and what they were able to offer was reduced. They weren't, they weren't happy, they weren't impressed. So, they thought, "Oh, we'll make a statement, "**** youse, you know, we'll take a, we'll run the ball up", and they run the ball up.
BRIAN KELLY, COMMANDER, SECURITY NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: The gaol never rioted. One small wing of Aboriginal inmates rioted. And that was...generated by a core, hard group of inmates who had nothing to lose.
CHRIS MASTERS: In April 2002, in this cellblock, prisoners attacked staff with table legs and a didgeridoo. These images were captured soon after. Seven male and female officers were injured - one, Timothy Swain, suffering serious brain damage.
CHRISTOPHER BINSE, FORMER GOULBURN GAOL INMATE: Officers got hurt, you know?
CHRIS MASTERS: Was that 'right' that they got hurt?
CHRISTOPHER BINSE: I don't... listen... I can only... I answer for myself. You know, I speak for myself, I can't speak for others. You know, I don't like to see these things happen. And I like to see no-one get hurt. You know, but we live in a... a society where... Goulburn society is just ruthless.
CHRIS MASTERS: The disturbance was broken up by the gaol's Immediate Action Team, ever watchful in the wings. Their job is not for the faint-hearted.
MARK WILSON, COMMANDER, GOULBURN GAOL: That particular one there, Chris, is just a metal spike. And they were taken out of mattress bases in the gaol here. As a result of that, of course, we had to replace over 400 beds with solid-frame mattress bases.
CHRIS MASTERS: Arming-up for offensive or defensive purpose has become a prison routine. The most common weapon, a sharpened toothbrush. The riot response teams carry very different weapons. The principal leveller used when they rush outnumbered into the yards is this capsicum spray.
MURRAY DOUGALL, IMMEDIATE ACTION TEAM: We've also got these aerosols. Same product, CS. Mainly used if we need an instant reaction. Say, a big fight in the yard, they're not breaking up, this gas vest goes in the yard, but every other operator carries these. So, you just pull the pin out, squirt, and 9 times out of 10, the fight's over.
CHRIS MASTERS: They train constantly. Prison officers in prison garb confront the men the prisoners have come to know as the "gang squad".
RON WOODHAM, COMMISSIONER, NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: If you can introduce chemical agents into a situation when it escalates to force being used, you minimize injuries to both sides - to the inmates and to staff, and particularly staff. I don't want my staff being knocked around. They don't get paid enough money to be punching bags for thugs.
CHRIS MASTERS: The New South Wales Corrective Services Department has grown an even stronger arm with its hostage response measures. Even office staff are taught the fundamentals of self defence.
CHRIS MASTERS: So why do they need these skills?
TONY BRADY, FIELD TRAINING OFFICER: The officers obviously need them because they're dealing with the inmates on a day-to-day basis, as well as the nurses in the clinics in the centres. Probational parole, they actually go out to houses, offenders' houses, and they're sort of out there on their own without any sort of support or back-up.
CHRIS MASTERS: The men in black undertake intense hostage negotiation training as well as close combat. The work is taken seriously. Snipers are trained to shoot to kill.
BRIAN KELLY, COMMANDER, SECURITY NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: Chris, it's called a 'cold barrel shot', 'cause if a marksman or sniper, if you will, has to use lethal force, that's the conditions that they would use it under. And they're trained on that and have to submit targets every month. But that's the absolute worst-case scenario. We would only use lethal force to avoid somebody else being killed.
PROFESSOR DAVID BROWN, NSW UNIVERSITY: I think that the ramping-up of security, the resources devoted to security, the ramping up of the riot squads, the increased equipment, the increased number of cell searches and so on. There's a much stronger control that's operating within the prisons at the moment then there certainly was in the pre-Nagle period.
BRIAN KELLY, COMMANDER, SECURITY NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: Now we have an era where the department, for the first time, is run by... experienced correctional administrators. And I think we have a good balance now. We don't have the issues of food and conditions that we had in the 1970s.
CHRIS MASTERS: The stronger arm has also meant escapes in New South Wales have been all but arrested. The weakest link - the movement between prisons and courts - has been strengthened to a point where it would take a small army to break an inmate out as they are delivered to Goulburn. Having ended up in the forerunner to Supermax and having escaped from maximum security prisons twice, Christopher Binse is an expert on the subject. What about the HRMU, the Supermax? Is that unbreakable?
CHRISTOPHER BINSE, FORMER GOULBURN GAOL INMATE: I'd say it would be, it's pretty, it's pretty secure, that place.
CHRIS MASTERS: Once inside the outer perimeter, the van passes into a second prison - the HRMU - the high risk management unit, better known as the Supermax. Very few inmates see this place. Indeed, this is the first time cameras have broken in since it began operating in 2001. The Supermax is home for 34 of Australia's 24,000 prisoners. What will greet them in their 2 x 4 metre cell is plastic plates and cutlery, a bunk, a sink and toilet. In time, they may earn the right to a television set. And only in this way, perhaps, learn of the pedigree of fellow inmates.
BRIAN KELLY, COMMANDER, SECURITY NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: The total sentences is 613 years, plus 20 natural life sentences. That's natural life. And those 20 life sentences are shared between seven inmates. They're the worst of the worse. They're the people who present the most extreme risk to security and safety in our system.
CHRIS MASTERS: We were not allowed to interview prisoners, who, as it turned out, preferred to keep their distance. We were able to interview staff.
CHRIS MASTERS: How do they treat you?
LARISSA JACKSON, PRISON OFFICER, SUPERMAX: The inmates? They're like everybody, they have their good and bad days. I've been called everything under the sun. Other days, they will apologise to me for swearing or saying something inappropriate around me.
CHRIS MASTERS: Do they threaten you?
LARISSA JACKSON, PRISON OFFICER, SUPERMAX: I have been threatened, yes. It doesn't happen on a daily basis.
PAUL CUBITT, PRISON OFFICER, SUPERMAX: Even though the inmates are housed here and they've - some of them have committed terrible crimes, they're still people. And, initially, you're apprehensive around them. While they get to know you, you get to know them. But once you've worked them out, to a degree, their management's quite simple.
CHRIS MASTERS: Since the discovery of a mobile phone smuggled in by a corrupted prison officer in 2003, everything entering the Supermax, including the food, is scrutinised.
CHRIS MASTERS: So, why are you searched, too?
PRISON OFFICER, SUPERMAX: Because we make no exceptions, Chris. It demonstrates to the staff that there's no special circumstances, there's no compromise on security.
CHRIS MASTERS: So, every single staff member?
PRISON OFFICER, SUPERMAX: Every single staff member. The commissioner, the minister included.
CHRIS MASTERS: One thing that happens to you, of course, is that, in some respects, you're treated like an inmate, too. You're searched. Do you resent that?
PAUL CUBITT, PRISON OFFICER, SUPERMAX: Initially, I did. I found it quite an invasion of my personal space and privacy. But...I came quickly - And I'd always felt that the more we do to prove ourselves to be honest and professional and transparent, the better off we are in the long run.
PRISON OFFICER, SUPERMAX: Now, Chris, this is what we call a safe cell.
CHRIS MASTERS: The prisoners' own term for the HRMU is the 'Harm U'.
PRISON OFFICER, SUPERMAX: It's a short-term placement for inmates whilst they're a great threat to themselves of self-harm or suicide. There's diagonally opposed cameras that are monitored all the time. There's no hanging points whatsoever. Even the blanket cannot be torn. Cannot be made into a noose.
CHRIS MASTERS: The complaints that have filtered out speak of little natural light and too much time in cells. A minimum of 16 hours and a maximum of 22 hours per day is spent alone. In nearby cells, Christopher Binse endured similar solitary confinement.
CHRISTOPHER BINSE, FORMER GOULBURN GAOL INMATE: Couple of times I went on a hunger strike. So, I'd bronze myself up, I threw shit at the screws, you know, in acts of frustration because they just sent me mad. You know, it got to a point, literally, where I had enough of their shit. It was just brain-numbing. Numbing, you know. Where it was just trying to wear me down, mentally, you know. Just to break me down, to wear me down. And at the end of the day, I said, "I've had enough. I've had enough, I've had enough of your shit, you're gonna cop mine."
CHRIS MASTERS: Prisoners are allowed closely-supervised exercise. Association with other inmates is limited. When they are moved, they are always outnumbered by officers. No one-on-one contact between inmates and prison officers is allowed.
MARK WILSON, COMMANDER, GOULBURN GAOL: When you've got a small group of very manipulative inmates that are face-to-face with the same staff day in, day out, for an extended period of time, familiarity can develop. And so, in that sense, it's a corruption-prevention strategy.
CHRIS MASTERS: How conscious are you of attempts to, say, manipulate you and try to take advantage of you? Are there those sort of mind games that go on all the time?
LARISSA JACKSON, PRISON OFFICER, SUPERMAX: On a regular - on a daily basis. They try the sympathy act, or they will try the... I guess they see females as a softer touch. But I think, in actual fact, females are more aware of being manipulated by male inmates than a male officer would be.
CHRIS MASTERS: A three-stage privileges and sanctions program rewards and punishes behaviour. Access to phone calls, movement, association and property such as television sets is controlled from above.
CHRIS MASTERS: I think their complaint is that this enables you to play God and engage in petty mind games. Does that happen?
MARK WILSON, COMMANDER, GOULBURN GAOL: I think it's a perception of theirs that it's mind games or allows us to play God. And, I mean, that's not what it's about. It's about control - controlling their behaviour here. And it does that very well. There are very few incidents within the HRMU. And that's because of that program. It takes a long time to get to the top of that program and get the maximum privileges. And so there's a reluctance to slide back down.
CHRIS MASTERS: Inmates are allowed one contact visit a week. They also have access to the Official Visitor. Jack Walker looks in on the Aboriginal prisoners, two of whom were moved here following their 2002 attack on prison officers. They call it the 'Harm U'. Do you think it's a harmful environment?
JACK WALKER, OFFICIAL PRISON VISITOR: Well, you know, it would be, locked up and, ah... But they get a little freedom in the place, you know, they can get their exercise, the liberty of doing that. They got their own amenities like the TVs and other stuff in the gaols which they wouldn't get in outside if they had no money. We're talking about Aboriginals of course. But, you know, I think it's a great set-up to what's, you know, for the, for the crime that these fellas done.
CHRIS MASTERS: In its four years of operation reports of attempted suicide and self-harm are few. But here, four years is a blink of the eye.
CHRIS MASTERS: It is obviously an area of heightened confinement. Is this not corrosive to psychological health?
CHRIS LINTON, CLINICAL DIRECTOR, SUPERMAX: I think you'll find a lot of opinion and speculation about that issue. But in terms of evidence that long-term incarceration or incarceration in more restricted conditions contributes to poorer mental health, I don't think there's a great deal of evidence to support that. Um... Where there have been studies done even on, say, 60-day segregation orders or something like that, there has been no deterioration in the mental health status of inmates on those kind of orders. Longer term I think the jury's still out.
CHRIS MASTERS: The sanitised environment can make Supermax look more like a clinic than a prison. Although the Nagle Royal Commission had recommended the opposite course of dispersing rather than concentrating serious offenders, NSW Corrective Services believes it has learned the lessons of history.
CHRIS MASTERS: It is a brutal environment. Do you think it is possible to manage to conduct the job in a way that is always above reproach?
RON WOODHAM, COMMISSIONER, NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: Well, I think even if you walk through the Supermax you wouldn't call it, you don't get the sense that it's brutal. There are some brutal people there when you look at their offences and the... that they've committed, ah, it's shocking. But you can walk through an institution such as the Supermax gaol, you don't get the feeling that it's brutal, you get the feeling in a way that it's peaceful. And, ah, so if it can be peaceful there it can be peaceful in the rest of the system.
CHRIS MASTERS: Very little evidence of violence, of self-harm. It's a, it's a very quiet and even peaceful place. Is...no escapes. Is this an indicator of success?
PROFESSOR TONY VINSON, SYDNEY UNIVERSITY: Of efficiency. It could be an indication of efficiency but not necessarily effectiveness.
CHRIS MASTERS: The Supermax, half full at this stage, has a further facility which anticipates even tougher times to come. NSW, so far, has one 'AA' classified inmate behind bars on terrorism charges. There is room for more.
BRIAN KELLY, COMMANDER, SECURITY NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: While we hope that we will never have to use it we have to be prepared for that sort of eventuality. The inmate would sit on that side and the visitor would be on this side. Behind that one-way glass there's an officer. Um, if it's a legal visit and documents need to be passed - to be signed or whatever, it goes through these chutes here and through the officer. Nothing has any contact whatsoever with the inmate and there's no potential for any contact with the inmate.
CHRIS MASTERS: Potential customers are not far away. While conversion to Islam is no concern to authorities, the prospect of recruitment to extremist groups is an issue.
CHRISTOPHER BINSE, FORMER GOULBURN GAOL INMATE: I know a lot of people, a lot of Kooris in particular have seen the, have seen Allah. And I don't say that in a derogatory way. They've been hanging out with the Lebanese and maybe their faith's touched them, I don't know.
BRIAN KELLY, COMMANDER, SECURITY NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: We see some efforts to convert inmates to Islam for probably the wrong reasons. We haven't really had evidence for terrorist purposes in itself, but when it's for the wrong reason and when it's targeting violent people it is a concern.
CHRIS MASTERS: What do you do to restrain the growth of terrorist gangs then?
RON WOODHAM, COMMISSIONER, NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: Well, our intelligence is very good and we've put a lot of money into making sure that our intelligence gathering process is excellent. And we work in conjunction with other law enforcement agencies with the swapping of intelligence. And some of these people convert, in their mind they convert and they convert back. But we're worried where certain prisoners that are doing very long sentences, as an example, ah, denounce their Aboriginality for Islam. And, ah, we've got photographs of them before and after. We monitor them very closely. And to us, they're not terrorists in the real sense, but they talk the talk. And, ah, so if we had somebody who was recruiting in a prison we keep them away from people that might be susceptible to conversion.
CHRIS MASTERS: Meanwhile the yards fill up even more. Indigenous Australians – 2 per cent of the population, make up 21 per cent of the prison population. A newer trend is the increasing presence of female Aboriginal inmates.
RON WOODHAM, COMMISSIONER, NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: When you look at what's caused their offending behaviour - if a woman has been abused for years as a child, as an adult and can get to a situation where they make a decision that they're going hit back. And they stab somebody or kill somebody that's been perpetrating that abuse on them for years, in a way you can understand why they do it, and of course you feel sorry for them.
CHRIS MASTERS: The eternal query that has stalked the corridors of Australian gaols - are they bad or mad - is becoming easier to answer. Over one third of sentenced inmates have suffered mental disorders. The psychiatric beds lost when deinstitutionalisation occurred account for many of the increased numbers jammed into penitentiaries. On this subject of mental health and prisons, even mortal enemies agree.
CHRISTOPHER BINSE, FORMER GOULBURN GAOL INMATE: There's no facilities and these people really don't belong in gaol. And this gaol is a violent place. People, because they're, how can I say it, easy targets - they can't defend themselves, there's no real great resistance, you've got people in there that would attack. Out of boredom, you know, I mean really. Would attack people or give them a hard time. You know, these people don't need to be there, really they don't.
CHRIS MASTERS: So does prison make their condition better or worse?
RON WOODHAM, COMMISSIONER, NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: In some cases it keeps them alive. And, um, they, um... Because you can monitor them, you can monitor them very closely for the medication they require, to assist them with their illness. And in my 40 years in the job, I've never seen the damaged product like it is now that's coming off the street. It's unbelievable. In our big remand gaols, particularly of a Friday night, it's like a casualty ward. We carry them off the vans, help them off the vans. They're an absolute mess. And one of the first things we do now is address their medical issues.
CHRIS MASTERS: On the good side, prison staff have moved a long way since the dark days of the Bathurst riots.
PROFESSOR TONY VINSON, SYDNEY UNIVERSITY: There have always been good women and good men in the service of the department. Ah, I've always known them. But it looks as if the training, ah, and, and other influences that have been brought to bear are producing in the minds perhaps of a new generation of prison officers, a different view.
PROFESSOR DAVID BROWN, NSW UNIVERSITY: We have the bashings in '70 and '74 at Bathurst. We have the systematic bashings at Grafton over a 33-year period organised and approved by the department and indeed with the knowledge of a whole range of other participants, um, including people within government. Ah, and we still have some of the same prison officers there in the department. Sometimes in some cases at reasonably high levels within the department who actually took part in those bashings. And yet we've seen that culture of systematic violence really brought to an end by the Nagle enquiry and so that is a huge culture change.
CHRIS MASTERS: Those new skills and attitudes acquired over the last generation will be seriously tested. While conditions have improved since the 1970s, the concentration of drugs, gangs and mental illness has made the gaol environment more toxic and the modern prisoner more predatory.
CHRIS MASTERS: So what's your sense, at the end of the day, does the average prisoner get out better or worse?
BRIAN KELLY, COMMANDER, SECURITY NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES: Um, I don't know. I think that the opportunity is there for every prisoner to be released much better for the experience. Um, the exact number that take that up - is a lot of them, but at the harder end of the scale, those doing longer periods, I think there's less.
CHRIS MASTERS: While the prisons system has tightened its grip, it has done so on a time bomb. Australian gaols have become the outer casing for not just the mad and bad, but dangerous 'cement them in' public policy.
PROFESSOR TONY VINSON, SYDNEY UNIVERSITY: It's become a sort of auction. I was the one who introduced that term. I can be tougher than you. No, you're not. We'll be tougher than you. And you finish up, in a sense, camouflaging so many other shortcomings in government administration by offering people at least one thing that they want and they feel better for. That is, having a lot of people in gaol.
PROFESSOR DAVID BROWN, NSW UNIVERSITY: Having tough policy on law and order and putting more and more people in jail is seen as being politically popular, however kind of irrational, foolish, counter-productive it might be. In real terms that just doesn't seem to matter.
CHRIS MASTERS: The toughness is easy to see. But gaols are also fragile. The anger and pain is eventually released. The fatal arithmetic is most prisoners, even the worst of them, get out. And if we are worse for it, who is more to blame? Those who keep them here or those who put them here?