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Insiders: the making of a criminal
Broadcast on Radio National's
Radio Eye at 2.00pm, Saturday October 12, 2002
Warning. This website contains content
that some may find offensive. It contains strong language and descriptions
of violence and sexual assault and is appropriate only for a mature
audience.
It seems everybody has something to say on
the law and order issue, but there's one group we rarely hear from
- the insiders. This episode features interviews with prisoners
who've just been released and offers a rare opportunity to hear
first hand about life behind bars. It's a chilling story.
Listen to the program,
or have your say by adding your
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of Insiders: The Making Of A Criminal
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You'd think prison would be a place where "law
and order" prevails but the insiders talk of rival gangs, drug running,
vicious assault and even murder. Forget the old notion of "rehabilitation";
the prisons have become a perfect breeding ground for even bigger
and better criminals.
Insiders: The Making
of a Criminal. Transcript
"Jail PA"
Greg: Jail is the largest concentration of angry people that I've
ever been involved in - the inmates are angry, the officers are
angry, everybody involved is angry.
Geoff: If you're a little bit weak in any area
for any fucking reason, oh mate there's like 500 horrible people
in there waiting to take fucking advantage of it, you know. It brutalises
you, it hardens you, like you don't care.
Andy: It happens everyday - people getting iron
barred, smacked, getting cut up with knives. I've seen some horrible
things. People jumping on people's heads and give them a kicking
they just don't deserve. Word's come from other jails saying "get
this bloke" or "get that bloke", you know. That's
the way it is now. It's a very violent place, jail now.
Anna: In the four and a half years I was inside,
there wasn't one minute that I didn't think I could be raped in
the next five minutes.
Jail PA: "Attention four wing inmates …"
Jane: I wasn't that violent before I
went in there.
Jeff: It's just absolute warfare in
there and that's all drug related.
Greg: There's definitely a huge amount
of gang activity in jail.
Bill: People are fucking robbing people
and standing over people for drugs. You know, they're stabbing people
for drugs, walking in and just crushing 'em. And that's the only
way you can really basically get anything in there - by standing
over and hurting people.
Jane: You can't be nice in the system,
you've got to be revved up, vicious and willing to go to any extreme
to survive.
Greg: My road to jail started early in
life, you know. When I was 14 I was sexually abused by family friends.
I blocked it all out as much as I could with drugs and alcohol and
... my father was a very cruel, violent man. He was an alcoholic
and mum just couldn't cope with all of us ... and the Department
of Community Services came in and took us all and the older ones
were able to look after themselves. The younger ones went into the
homes.
When I was living in a state ward home in Arncliffe
there was a park just down from the home. We'd go and sit there
and drink and we'd go round smashing windows on cars and slashing
tyres. Looking back on it now I think it was an expression of the
anger that was going on inside me, you know.
I ended up being sentenced to Mount Penang Boys
Home. I met people in there who had been involved in all sorts of
different crime and drugs and that sort of thing and I ended up
living on the streets in Kings Cross, taking heroin and robbing
people.
It seemed like every moment of the day there
was something happening. There was a fight to be fought, there was
money to be made, people to con. There were break and enters. It
was a very dangerous, exciting, horrible but somehow glamorous way
of life for us.
One night I was out with a friend, he'd stolen
a Commodore and we'd gone out to Bondi looking for people to rob.
We'd drive along, I'd hop out, he'd drive along slowly, I'd grab
the handbag and jump back into the car and we'd drive off. We ended
up being spotted by the police and there was a chase and I ended
up being caught and ended up going to jail when I was 18.
Geoff: Basically it started when I was
about thirteen - twelve or thirteen ... and [ I ] got locked up
in boys home ... stole a bike or something when I was a kid and
they locked me up, yeah. Well actually at that time it was the best
point in me life, stability wise and, it sort of built the wrong
impression - like that's sort of the place to go where you can be
secure. So that breeds your whole mentality of being institutionalised,
you know.
It was the only sort of place where you felt
at home, you know, like I'd go there and all your friends are there,
and everyone would greet me, happy to see me, everyone's straight,
everyone's healthy, you know what I mean. Like I'd come on the outside,
everyone's doing it hard, everyone's fucked up, everyone's shattered,
waiting for the inevitable to go back to fucking boys home or jail,
you know what I mean.
Radio Eye: Many other aboriginal kids
in those homes as well?
Oh yeah, definitely. Everybody from my area
was there. Mate, I think everybody around here's been locked up.
Radio Eye: So what happened after the
boys homes - how was it that you moved from the boy's homes to adult
prison?
Oh it was just a …natural step.
Jane: I got involved in criminal activity
because of a heroin addiction ... and eventually committed armed
robbery and other offences and ended up with a jail sentence: four
years. Two years on the bottom and two years parole.
Radio Eye: Had you done time before?
No never. The judge even made a comment when
I was sentenced that I was a late starter for the Campbelltown area
- so I suppose I just went straight to the top.
Phone rings:
"Parramatta Correctional Centre front gate"
"Would you have a file number for that?"
"Main gate to Deputy Governor."
Jane: I went into the reception area
and they wanted to search me ... to have a shower. You have your
shower and get dressed and then you get locked up in this holding
cell until two officers come and take you down to the annexe - the
hospital sort of clinic in the jail.
They ask all sort of psychological questions
to make sure you're not going to commit suicide or anything like
that and then you're taken to induction ... and you're given your
rations for the next morning then you're locked in a cell.
There's double bunks in the cell, a shower and
toilet ... and two of you live in the cell. It's a very tiny cell
... and cement walls, bunks that were screwed into the cement walls,
a tiny little window probably about 30 cms wide by 60 cms up. You've
got a vinyl sort of mattress, you got a shower that in induction
goes for 6 minutes and then cold water goes on for 2 minutes. You've
got a toilet and that's it.
I thought, 'I've really gone and done it now'.
It's hard to think back to that because I was in such a daze of
spending two days in police cells where I was sort a hanging out.
You have all different emotions - you're angry, you're rebellious.
But I just thought, 'I've really fucked up'. I knew that with my
charges this was going to be home for a long time.
Greg: I started off at Long Bay. I was
18. My first cell mate was a guy charged with manslaughter, and
actually my first night in jail I wet the bed, I was that scared.
I didn't want to go to the showers because I was scared of, 'am
I gonna get raped, am I gonna get bashed, what's gonna happen?'.
I stayed in my cell a lot, but fortunately there was guys there
who knew my brother and after three of four days of not showering
and really being shit scared they helped me to learn how to survive
in jail by being part of the culture, by being part of the group.
Like back in those days, this was in 1983, 84, prisoners actually
stuck together, there were no gangs, there were no sort of splinter
sub-cultures in the prisoner group. We were just one culture. It
was us - the greens against the blues - prisoners against the officers.
Geoff: I actually remember the first
day when I was like going to jail. I deadset couldn't wait to get
to prison. And when I got there it was just unbelievable - it was
fucking great. All me friends were there, all me family, you know
what I mean. Once you turn 18 that's it, everybody's there. It was
sort a like, I dunno it was really weird, like sorta going home,
like that's where you belong, you know what I mean. And still to
this day that's how I feel sometimes, like I don't really belong
out here and that. You know what I mean, because like… you
just don't. Fuck.
Jane: I went into jail with a fit, a
syringe. I put it between my bum cheeks so that I could get it through,
so that when I got searched they couldn't see anything. And it was
my first night there. I was put out, two out with a Koori girl,
and we just got to talking and I explained that I'm really dying
for a shot of heroin, and she said, 'Oh, I know people who can get
gear, if that's what you're into'. I said, 'Well, I know someone
that's got a brand new clean fit, syringe, use that and give me
some lines and I'll explain to the person I'll go halves with them
of whatever I get'. And she said they haven't got a fit, they've
been smoking the shit and the next day I was introduced to them.
I let them borrow my fit for the two o'clock lock-in, and then when
we got back out I was given the fit plus tally-ho wrapped up which
had rocks in it, of heroin ... and they kept doing that trade until
it was all gone and then we moved on to other people.
I warned her that if they tried to fuck me over
they'd know what for and that I wouldn't hesitate to shiv one of
them. I made that quite clear.
Radio Eye: Shiv?
Knife. When you first go in you know you're
doing a long time. Nothing. You don't think about consequences.
Radio Eye: What did you do to get sent to jail, Geoff?
Oh, first I stole a car but then when I was
in jail I got a few more, like collective years just from being
in jail because jail culture ... violence, violence, violence. You
know what I mean. If I want to be one of the boys, want to be part
of the gang, you know, you do what you do to be accepted.
Radio Eye: And what did you do?
Oh you know, a few things here and there.
Radio Eye: You don't want to say?
No not really. But use your imagination mate.
I wanted to fit in. Put it this way, I fitted right in, really well.
Yeah. You know, You get treated like an animal, you act like one.
Greg: I had a lot of anger in me anyway
and jail just built that anger up. I couldn't cry over my friend
who hung himself one morning ... and I was the last person to speak
to him. We'd been let out for breakfast. I said to him, 'Good morning'.
He said, 'What's so bloody good about it?'. We get locked back up
to eat our breakfast. Get let out and he's hung …hung himself.
See. And like these sorts of things were things that happened but
I couldn't work through them ... and so you had to do something
with all that anger and you just pushed it down and pushed it down
and didn't express emotion. The only emotion that I expressed was
anger, 'cos that's a safe emotion to express because there's power
in anger and it's important to be seen to be powerful and not take
shit from anybody else. That's how jail makes you.
Jane: I had to survive. I had to make
it known that I had a fit, but no-one was gonna stand over me for
it ... that I was a standover. If I knew you had drugs and I wanted
them, you'd better whack up. Or you're gonna get whacked. Like a
hiding. You walk around in steel caps boots so you hit someone,
they go to the ground, you start booting into them, you're breaking
ribs and concussions and all the rest of it. You're really hurting
them. But you just want that drug that much that you're willing
to do.
Radio Eye: How do you get away with it?
They're too scared to talk. If you're capable
of doing that for drugs what are you going to do if they mention
your name. And if they bail to protection for the rest of their
lives they're going to be branded as a dog and they don't want that.
Radio Eye: Why not?
Because their life would be hell. If they bumped
into anyone from the main on the outside, they cop worse than what
they got from me. They could get knifed, um, everyone just hates
dogs.
Radio Eye: Geoff, would you have talked
about yourself as a violent person while you were in prison?
Oh very, very violent. That's the only thing
stopping people in jail ... they know how violent you are and they
know how far you'll go. Well mate, that's what they breed in there:
hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. I remember one time I was in segro
there for about 18 months or something and it was the most focussed
I've ever been in my life ... but it was all hate. Everyone was
me enemy. I was gonna kill anyone I can because, rrrrr - no, no,
no , it's not a good thing mate, you know what I mean.
Radio Eye: So you were on segregation
for 18 months?
Oh yeah.
Radio Eye: That means that you were kept
apart from other prisoners for 18 months?
Yeah. I've done about fucking 4 years segro
- four, five years actually. Yeah, I've done long time in segro.
Radio Eye: Which means you were only
allowed to walk in the yards by yourself.
Yeah, four and a half steps by two and a half
steps - that's how big it is, the cell, you know what I mean. Like
you go from a cell to a cage - from your cage to your cell that's
it. Yeah, that's the whack. And that's for being violent in jail.
Like, they might put you there ... every now
and again they'd throw me in there for three months for the goodwill
of the jail. Someone gets stabbed so they go round and they grab
all the people they think might be capable of it and lock them away
for three months. And then the screws come in and bash ya and all
this shit. And it just builds to the hatred cycle and then they
want to release you after that - fuck me dead. I remember getting
released from segro man. Mate, I was deadset like a maniac.
I'd done like 9 months there, you know. I got
released into the community. Yeah, as soon as I was released I robbed
the store across the road and done all sorts of fucking horrible
things. Yeah, I didn't last very long, you know. But seriously.
What are you expected to do? You know what I mean, like far out.
You can't treat people like that and let em go on the streets. It's
one big sad fucking cycle. I'm telling ya.
Greg: When I went back into jail in October of 99, the whole
culture had changed. There was gangs. Prisoners that had essentially
given each other a lot of support in the early 80's when I was in
jail the first time, there was really not a great deal of that.
There was a lot of mainly individualistic thinking, and gang thinking.
If you were with the right ethnic group you'd be all right, generally.
People were getting bashed over cigarettes.
People were selling their tobacco for drugs and then not having
any tobacco themselves, so they'd go and rob somebody else for tobacco.
Back in the old days it was very rare that you'd find somebody stealing
from your cell. But these days … there's a culture now of people
feeling they have to look out for themselves because nobody else
is going to look out for them. Being on a constant state of alert.
Like these days you don't have a smoke, or you're not prepared to
give somebody a smoke then you're liable to get bashed over it.
I know of people who have been stabbed over cigarettes.
Jane: I sort of hung around long timers
- people that had been there for a few years. I knew they had a
status in the jail, that they were the "don't mess with me"
girls. They were the murderers, the big time dealers, they were
the 'we're-making-a-life-out-of-our-jail sentence so don't screw
us because I'm 35 years old and I'm doing 20 years and if I've got
to pay a 19 year old an ounce of heroin to knock you I'll do it
because this is my life, this is my home'. So I started associating
with them people.
They'd hear that a 19 year old Asian girl has
come in with half an ounce, so they'd instantly befriend her. So
I would befriend her as well. And at first they got a bit jealous
thinking that I was trying to cut their throat, so then they'll
proposition you that, 'well can you do business for us?' ... and
they start to build up a trust in you ... because screws aren't
aware yet what you're doing or who you are.
Radio Eye: When you say doing their business,
what do you mean?
Doing deals for them. Like, there's a girl in
F wing wants a fit and she'll give us a quarter, we're going to
sell it to her. 'Can you go down there and get the quarter and give
her this fit and come back?' And then my part is, "Oh well
here's 20 lines of it for you.
Radio Eye: So you risk getting caught
with the drugs, you risk getting caught bashing someone up?
Yeah, and if anything goes wrong, it was my
idea, my drugs, I brought it through, it was all me.
Greg: Drugs is the focus of the gangs
- drugs and survival as a community in jail. There's very distinct
ethnic groupings to the gangs. The Kooris all ran together, the
Lebanese all ran together, the Asians all ran together, whereas
the Australians didn't seem to run together with anybody you know.
We all just tended to be fairly individualistic.
You'd get each of the gangs moving drugs to
other ethnic groups, and mainly the Australians, yeah. And then
you'd have your leaders of the gangs who were selling the drugs
... but you'd have all the other guys in the gangs who'd be moving
it throughout the jail and doing all the hard man stuff. If people
didn't pay up going out and bashing them and just ensuring that
people paid their money or other things happened.
Geoff: Yeah, the chinks hangs with the
chinks, blacks hang with blacks, whites. Oh the whites are just
weak ... but you know, Lebs or whatever. But the bottom line is,
if you've got drugs - boom. Doesn't matter who you are. Doesn't
matter what your name is. "No, no, no. He's alright - he's
getting on, getting drugs or something from somewhere, you know.
And say for instance the blacks don't want nothing
to do with ya. All you've got to do is go to the Lebs and the Lebs
will take care of you, or the Chinkas, or whoever. You know what
I mean. As long as you're weighing in, you're sweet. And the mail
is like this - anything happens to him, we start a total fucking
war because he's their mule - he's bringing in everything for them,
he's making them money, they're doing their jail easy. They're not
gonna give that up. No way they're gonna give that up. No way mate.
You know. People don't want you to stop what you're doing. You know
what I mean. And very rarely will they let ya.
Radio Eye: Jane, were you dealing?
I was supporting my habit.
Radio Eye: So yes, you were dealing?
Yeah.
Radio Eye: How did you get it in?
I didn't have to. I was still associated with
the long-termers. I was doing business for them really. I was the
middle man.
It would be like your person that imports, the
long-termers were your importers and then you had your big head
honcho in the Cross that had all the little runners. Well, I was
the big head honcho in the Cross that had all the little runners.
It's brought in all different ways. Asians come
in - they come in with a lot, and very good gear. They're normally
dealers and they know that in jail there's big money to be made.
You can get $30 for a pin-head rock - a sewing pin head - the size
of that, you can get $30 for that. That's like half of your buy
up for the week. And outside you wouldn't even be able to buy that
amount. They're very business minded when they come in loaded. They
just know. Even when they go to courts and give their man a kiss,
he's passing balloons and balloons and balloons and she's swallowing,
swallowing them. Then in the truck, bring 'em all back up and put
them away. So when they come back in from court and they get searched,
everything's fine - but they have half an ounce of balloons or whatever.
People are always going out to Courts. Or anyone
on release days. Visits, garbage runs - there's all different ways
to keep it continual.
Geoff: See, because this is what it's
like - it works on fear. All the weak cunts run up to you and give
you drugs - all their money. They try and buy your friendship -
like on the outside, same sort of deal but they're just scared for
their life. Out here they're scared to lose their job or whatever.
Exact same principle, right. And then say, if a young bloke came
in and killed me, he would instantly get all the shit I was getting
... it instantly gets passed to him. That's how it works. You know
what I mean. So if you want to take a shortcut to gaining a lot
of respect, you can. But you have to take on someone who's gonna
go on with it to the death. You know and I s'pose, mate … it's
a horrible thing.
Radio Eye: Is that what you did?
Mate, I survived mate. I done what I had to
do, you know what I mean. I done what I had to do, you know, to
survive. But that's how it is now, you know. There's no code, no
ethics, no nothing.
Now it's your best mate's being your best mate
for three weeks and then on the fourth week he sticks a knife in
your back. You know what I mean. Like that's how it goes these days,
you know.
And like you've gotta do what you've gotta do
in jail to survive mate. Fuck. And then you come out here, it's
completely different. You know what I mean. Say if I'm in prison
for ten years, I get out and walk down the street, someone calls
me a dog. I still got the jail mentality. I'm gonna pull out a blade
and stab him to death. There' so many hard, hard issues that they
don't even get spoken of. I couldn't walk in a fucking shopping
centre for five, six year cos the crowds used to freak me out. Like
there's so many issues there that they don't understand what they're
doing to people. Like they segregate someone for all their fucking
life, put them in a cage and treat them like animals and then let
them out into the street. What do you think they're gonna do? What
do you think they're gonna teach your kids? And then their kids
are gonna associate with other kids in schools, it's all gonna come
back to them mate. I'm just gonna sit here and laugh at all of them.
Fucking oath.
Jane: Yeah I've seen girls get shived,
knifed. A few times. You see someone quick pace up behind someone
and you think, "this is going down". And they quick pace
past and you see the girl slowly going down and you know that she's
been knifed. And then it takes a few minutes before the screws even
realise what's happened. Yeah.
Even in protection you're still not untouchable.
Like long timers will get a young girl that's all feisty and violent
and comes in real off their head ... like real violent son of a
bitch, like I was. They'll get someone like that and they'll say,
'look, we'll set you up with a little run or whatever, and keep
your drug habit and put some cash in your bank account, if you go
into protection and get this girl'. So you can really never run.
Radio Eye: Did you ever knife anybody?
I'd rather not say.
Radio Eye: You mentioned hot shots (contaminated
or doctored drugs). How common are they?
They happen all the time but to different extents.
You've got to be careful that you're not sending the same person
up to the annexe all the time, or five people you've associating
with that week have ended up in the annexe coughing up blood. That's
attempted murder. You've got to be very careful.
Radio Eye: But they're common? Hot shots
are common?
Yeah. It's the easiest way to get back at someone
because they do it themselves. Their prints are on the fit. When
they drop, the needle's hanging out of their arm so the screws think
that it's an overdose or whatever. But when nurses come down you
haven't od'd - it's the bleach or CCF going through your blood which
makes your blood pressure drop and you pass out. And it wrecks all
the organs. It makes you cough up blood and you're very sore and
sorry ... and that goes on for weeks.
And they're not aware of it until it's all gone
and starts to burn up the arm in the vein then they know that …
payback.
There's always ways. You either get shived,
or a hiding or … fall down a set of steps by an accident. Or,
you're walking real quick past a cell and someone opens a steel
cell door and you walk into it. They're just little hints that you're
pushing over the borderline. You don't do that.
Greg: People get bashed on a regular
basis. I've seen three or four blokes run into a bloke's cell and
just flog him with a lump of iron. And he's come out with blood
pouring out of his head and just collapsed on the landing and he
had to be rushed off to hospital. I didn't see but I know of a guy
who was murdered over a $50 deal of heroin that didn't actually
exist. And in that case a guy who was trying to ingratiate himself
with people promised this guy some heroin when he brought it in
but he was making up stories. He couldn't actually deliver ... and
this other guy walked into his cell and stabbed him to death.
Most of the guys, their reaction was, 'well
the guy shouldn't have promised him drugs'. To me that was just
bizarre. How can you be siding with the guy who's just in cold blood
killed a guy who couldn't defend himself ... over a non-existent
deal of heroin?
Jane: If you've had a drug dealing or a shot with someone
and you said, 'I'm getting my lot next weekend' ... and then you
turn around and go out on a visit and come back saying, 'oh look,
it didn't get bought out, blah, blah, blah'. They'll call two people
or three girls. First they'll try and make you vomit. If nothing
comes up, you'll be held down, you'll be checked anally, your vagina
- yeah it's pretty degrading.
Yeah, that happens a lot. Because you don't
know who to trust in there. Like God help you if they check you
out and they pull out balloons or anything. Oh look. You can get
the end of a mop. I've heard of girls being raped anally with toilet
brushes …you're really going to cop it if they find anything.
It doesn't matter how big you are or how staunch you are. They can
get fifteen girls in one cell to hold you down … especially
if they are dealing drugs ... because they can buy anyone in the
jail nearly, to do their dirty work. It's ... yeah, it's nasty.
Radio Eye: Did you ever see that happen?
Yeah I have.
Radio Eye: Were you part of it?
Yeah I was. Yeah, I helped to hold the girl
down. Yeah, there was a lot of carrying on and blood and …
I actually was the one holding the pillow so that she stopped screaming.
But not too much pressure that ... you just got to make sure that
she's still kicking.
But yeah, it's not nice to think that I've been
involved in things like that ... but I s'pose when you're that messed
up on the drugs in there and you've wasted eighty lines or whatever
on this person and they don't want to pay it back, you want it back.
Radio Eye: What was she raped with?
A toilet brush. Yeah. She didn't talk, she didn't
say anything. And the worst thing was to sit around and see the
person that actually done the rape and things like that ... that
in a couple of days everyone was sitting around, we were all drinking
coffee, arranging for the next drop to come in. Like nothing had
even happened. Yeah, it's pretty nasty.
Radio Eye: And it's all about drugs?
Yeah. Because that's the only freedom we've
got left in there. There's no freedom, so the only freedom you have
in there is what goes in a needle or takes you away from reality.
Radio Eye: Do you think you were a violent
person before you went to prison Geoff?
No. Like I made mistakes when I was a kid and
that, I was never a bad person. I haven't got not one violent charge
on my criminal record, you know, like violence, at all, not one.
Nothing.
Radio Eye: Until you went into prison?
Oh yeah, until I went into prison. I got fucking
all sorts of shit from there but, you know I don't like it. I don't
reckon people deserve to be treated like that, you know what I mean.
But like, mate, it took me, you know I was doing
bad shit when I first got out for a long, long, long, long time
and I was lucky I never got caught - just pure luck. And the reason
I done it is because they fucking made me like that, you know what
I mean. I mean, I'm not an idiot, I'm not stupid, I'm not a dope.
I can see exactly what's going on but still it's so fucking overwhelming.
Believe me. No matter how good, how smart, how anything you are
- you're gonna come out with a jail mentality.
Jane: Some girls in there have habits
- never used heroin in their life, never touched the drug. They
come in there an alcoholic that's had a domestic, and malicious
wounding - they've stabbed their bloke or something, and they're
that shaky and DTs from not having alcohol that they're willing
to give anything a go just to get rid of that withdrawal and they're
the first to say, 'yeah give me hammer' ... and not smoke it or
any other way but, 'can you shoot me up?' ... and the only person
that's ever put a needle in them is their doctor. And here they
are getting their cell mate that they don't know from a bar of soap
- old fit - putting it up their arm and then they feel fine. And
they do that for a few days to get over the alcohol withdrawals
... but it only takes a few days to get addicted to heroin, so then
they're on that game. And it's easier to get heroin in jail than
it is alcohol - so they're addicted to heroin. They go out heroin
addicts. That's what I thought was sad.
Geoff: It brutalises you, you know, it hardens you. Like
you don't care. Like I remember when I first went there, you know,
people used to get stabbed and that and it used to freak me out.
Mate, within three months I was kicking their fucking carcasses
out the way, putting the boot into them just because they're, like,
dying on my walk path. Like you become brutalised so quick, you
just don't care. And it becomes normal. You know like, far out.
How can you be held fucking accountable when these pieces of shit
don't even stop it - like they encourage it to happen, mate.
They give yard changes and let 20 chinks in
a yard with three black fellas or vice verse and then screw comes
back an hour later and there's three bodies on the ground bleeding
to death and like, if you're living in them surroundings, come on.
Believe me it's a deadset nightmare and if your
kids are unlucky enough to go there, they're fucked. For some shit
charge, he's gonna have to go in there. He's gonna have to deal
with people like me, and worse, ten times worse that are dying to
take advantage of him - they just want everything you have. You're
less than nothing mate, you know what I mean, and complete strangers
are making decisions on your life every day if you live or die,
you know what I mean ... if you're not in the clique, if you're
not in the game ... and you can't get away. You're gonna get got,
sooner or later. And that's what they teach people. That's what
they teach ya.
But no-one's really interested mate, they don't
care, you know what I mean. As long as they don't see all the nastiness,
you know and this and that, they're fine. But the bottom line is
mate, it's gonna come back tenfold. It's coming back tenfold already,
I see it now. Like what sort of world do they want to live in? These
people are getting out sooner or later.
Radio Eye: Jane, you went into prison a known heroin addict.
What sort of rehabilitation, from the moment that cell door closed
behind you, what was offered?
Methadone. They had drug and alcohol counselling
there but you could never get in, you could never get appointments
... and even if you did get appointments they were always called
off to an emergency in MSU, which is the psych unit of the jail
... and even if you did get to see them, it was for an hour. Like
it took me 23 years to become a heroin addict and a hard core criminal
and they think an hour a week is going to change my life around?
That's even if you got to see them for that appointment.
So I think it offers no rehabilitation. It offers
a very disciplined routine, but as soon as they close the gate behind
you and let you out that routine's gone. So if you're not open minded
enough to try and find a new routine in life, then you'll go back
to the only routine you know - which is drug use.
Greg: Jail is supposed to be a place
where you can rehabilitate, where you can change, where you can
become a different person. But the culture of jail doesn't lend
itself to being that sort of a place. Most people, they get into
jail and they need to be able to fit in, they need to be able to
survive, that's the key thing.
There's a process in jail where people are expected
to be involved in programs, but the goal there doesn't seem to be
so much to rehabilitate people as to get numbers into the programs
so that people can say, 'well look, we're running this many course
over this period of time, and so if they're not being rehabilitated,
it's not our fault'. The goal isn't to change.
Radio Eye: Do you see yourself as out
of that system for good now Geoff?
No way. No way. Mate this area is fucked. All
right. There's most probably five stolen cars in that street. All
right. I could walk out there now and the coppers could say 'hey,
there's a stolen car in this street, we reckon you were gonna get
into it, prove that you weren't'. Boom. What can I do? What can
I do mate? What can you do? You can't really do nothing, can ya?
Really.
Jane: For the rest of my life I'm going
to be an addict. For the rest of my life I'm going to have to live
day by day and just look at how much I've gained through giving
up heroin. Like the ultimate. I've got my freedom back. I don't
have to play mind games any more. I don't have to be violent any
more. I don't have to be angry and upset and 'where's my next hit
coming from, have I got to go and do another armed rob'? I don't
have to lie no more. It's just … it's life now, but it's very,
very hard. Some days I feel like I just don't even have the strength
to even get through a half an hour of that day. Some days I have
to take it at fifteen minute intervals. I wish I never even, I wish
I never started. It turned me into someone that I can't believe
I become. Your whole person is just evil, pure evil … just
to have heroin. It's got an incredible power.
Greg: I think there's a sense in the community that they
don't want to hear about what jail is really like, because I think
people know that jail isn't the best thing that we can be doing
for people, but we don't want to know that because we don't have
any other answer at the moment. And so we prefer to think that jail's
the right way to go and we prefer to think that the community is
safer with more jails. And we don't want to think about the fact
that jails are just making people far more depressive. That jails
are making people suicidal. That jails are making people into bigger,
better, brighter and more beautiful criminals.
Radio Eye: Jane, how do you think about jail now?
It's there, I think it's always gonna be there,
and if I ever went back in there I know that I'm already set up.
And I'd be propositioned to make money, and yeah, I know where I
stand in there.
Radio Eye: So it's not jail that's a
deterrent then?
No. No. Jail is ... if you grow up with father
bashing you, you just get used to that - it doesn't hurt no more
in the end. It's the same as ... once you get into jail and get
into the swing of things, it doesn't hurt no more. You just get
used to it. And you get so used to it that when you leave you miss
it.
Back to top
Radio National Links:
Crimetime:
Exploring the links between crime and popular culture. Produced
by Annabelle Quince for Radio National's, The
Big Idea.
The Electronic
Zoo: On Sunday October 13 @14.05, (rpt Thursday October 17 @13.05)
Radio National's Hindsight
program revisits Katingal, the state-of-the-art, sensory deprivation
jail built by the government of New South Wales in the early 70s.
Inside The Gulag.
An investigation of the Detention Centre business produced by Tom
Morton for Radio National's, Background
Briefing.
On Awaye! on Friday
4th October @ 1.05pm, (repeated Saturday 5th October @ 6.05pm) Max
Stuart: Black and White. In 1958 Arrernte man, Max Stuart was convicted
and sentenced to hang for the alleged rape and murder of a young
girl at Ceduna in South Australia. The case divided the nation and,
it's said, changed police and judicial procedure in this country.
It's now been made into a film starring Robert Carlyle.
Tougher laws
to deal with crime. Broadcast on Radio National's
Australia Taks Back - October 3rd, 2002. Do draconian law and
order policies help reduce the crime rate?
Other Related Links:
Prison
Privatisation Report International #49
Australian Institute of CriminologyCrime
and Criminal Justice Statistics - Australian Institute of Criminology
The Institute
of Criminology
Imprison
and Detain - Racialised Politics in Australia Today
New South Wales
NCOSS
conference - Taking on the Law and Order Debate
Beyond Bars - Alternatives
to Custody
Inspector-General
of Corrective Services
CRC Justice Support
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