Breaking: Damning report finds WA prisoners subjected to 'cruel, degrading treatment'

WA prisoners are being subjected to "cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment" because the government has allowed prisons to become "almost fundamentally broken".

That is the stark conclusion of a report released today by the state's Inspector of Custodial Services, Eamon Ryan, who said the same factors which led to a major prison riot in 2018 exist across three prisons today.

It has prompted him to take the unprecedented step of issuing a show cause notice — effectively a demand for the government to explain itself — over conditions inside Hakea, Casuarina and Melaleuca prisons.

At the core of the problem, Mr Ryan said, was a 37 per cent increase in the prison population since early 2023, without a commensurate growth in the number of cells or prison staff.

It is the fourth time an Inspector has issued such a notice. The last time the government was handed one was over concerns at Hakea in 2024.

The following year he found little improvement, and said the prison was continuing to breach national and international human rights standards.

'Terrible conditions'

For more than a year-and-a-half, overcrowding has forced some prisoners to sleep on mattresses on the floor.

Mr Ryan said while visiting Hakea, he spoke to one of those prisoners, whose head was about 60 centimetres from the cell's toilet.

"I said to him 'how do you cope with that' and he said 'I sleep with a towel over my head so when the two other guys get up during the night I don't get splashed'," he said.

"I was appalled by that. That's terrible conditions, that is inhumane and degrading conditions.

"People shouldn't be held in those conditions and today we have 120 people in the prison system who are sleeping in that kind of arrangement."

The long-term problem for the state, he said, was that those people were not being rehabilitated in the way they should.

"If you release them from prison and you have treated them badly and you haven't given them any sort of rehabilitation, they're going to be worse," he said.

"And they're going to be standing next to you at the football, sitting next to you at the movie theatre or at the restaurant."

Comprehensive plan needed

Mr Ryan's one recommendation was for the Justice Department to develop and release a "comprehensive, costed reform implementation plan" with short, medium and long-term plans and a "clear and time-bound implementation schedule" for each.

The department noted the recommendation, saying it was for the government to consider.

In a statement, it said two teams had been developed to manage prisoner populations, including "risk management" and there was a "sustained recruitment program" to grow prison officer numbers.

The state budget also included nearly $500 million to expand Casuarina and Acacia prisons.

"Through strengthened governance, targeted interventions and sustained investment in our workforce and infrastructure, we are making Hakea, Casuarina and Melaleuca safer and more resilient," Corrective Services Commissioner Brad Royce said.

Work is also underway to reduce the number of people offending and needing to be sent to prison.

Mr Ryan described those efforts as "piecemeal" and not the "whole of system strategic reform" needed to address the scale of the challenge.