Jail On Defensive After Murder
The Age
Saturday March 25, 2006
THE private company that operates Port Phillip Prison has defended its security measures after an inmate was murdered on Thursday.
Tim Hall, national spokesman for GSL (Australia) said while the stabbing of Darren Parkes was a tragedy, Port Phillip had a good safety record and little could have been done to prevent the murder."Security can always be improved but there are some violent people in prison," Mr Hall told The Age. "Regrettably, sometimes in the best-managed prisons, violent incidents occur."He said Parkes was the first inmate to be killed at the maximum security prison since 1997 when GSL (then Group 4 Falck) began operating the prison after being awarded a tender by the Kennett government.Parkes, 29, was on remand at Port Phillip and awaiting trial over the robbery and attempted murder of South Melbourne Market fruiterer Bendetto Riccardi.Mr Riccardi was shot in a car park in May last year and is now a paraplegic.A prison source told The Age yesterday that Parkes, who was not a protected prisoner, was in his cell at the Laverton prison's Scarborough North unit when he was stabbed in the chest about 4.30pm on Thursday. The Age believes the attacker used an implement taken from a meal tray and which had been fashioned into a weapon. Victoria Police will apply to the Magistrates Court next week to interview a suspect over the stabbing.The comments by GSL's Mr Hall attracted an angry response from Charandev Singh, an advocate for prisoners from Brimbank Community Legal Centre."If they are unconcerned on a commercial level about a prisoner being stabbed to death, then that's an indication of their lack of priority (for) this man's life," Mr Singh said yesterday.He said Parkes was the third Victorian prisoner to be murdered since 1998 and that private prison operators and the State Government were jointly responsible.Port Phillip currently houses 740 prisoners of whom about 60 per cent are remand prisoners and the remainder sentenced prisoners.The Bracks Government and Corrections Victoria are currently performing a scheduled review of GSL's 20-year contract to run Port Phillip Prison. But Mr Hall said he did not believe Parkes' death would "have any bearing on the negotiations".A spokesman for Victoria's Corrections Minister, Tim Holding, would not comment yesterday on the incident or on GSL's contract.
© 2006 The Age