Malarndirri McCarthy urges states to remove hanging points from Australia's prisons

The Guardian

5 hours ago

Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains names of Indigenous Australians who have died. This story contains descriptions of self-harm and some readers might find it distressing.
The minister for Indigenous Australians, Malarndirri McCarthy, says she has raised the presence of hanging points in prisons 'directly' with her colleagues after a Guardian Australia investigation last week.
In a five-month investigation of 248 hanging deaths spanning two decades, the Guardian found that 57 inmates had died using hanging points that prison authorities and state governments knew about but failed to remove.
The hanging points often remained despite repeated suicides and explicit coronial recommendations that they be removed, in one case allowing 10 hanging deaths from a single ligature point at Brisbane's Arthur Gorrie prison over 20 years.
The death toll from continued inaction on obvious hanging points has prompted outrage from families of the dead, justice reform experts, Indigenous leaders, and the federal government, which has now twice publicly called on states and territories to do better.
The deaths disproportionately affect Indigenous Australians, largely due to the failure to reduce overrepresentation in prison populations, a key recommendation of the 1991 Aboriginal deaths in custody royal commission.
On Friday McCarthy said the federal government was taking the issue 'quite seriously' and urged the states and territories, who have responsibility for correctional facilities, to act. She was asked whether known hanging points could be removed by the end of the year.
'I certainly have raised it directly with my colleagues,' she told the ABC. 'We are very serious, not just about this one issue of hanging points, Sally. We do not want to see further deaths in custody.'
McCarthy was speaking shortly before a meeting of the joint council on Closing the Gap, which she said would discuss Aboriginal deaths in custody after the deaths of two men in police custody in the Northern Territory.
'The gathering today of First Nations Indigenous affairs ministers … is testament to the fact that this is an incredibly important issue. And Australians need to see action, and this is what we're doing.'
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Her comments follow public criticism of the inaction from the federal attorney general, Michelle Rowland, who told the Guardian this week that the ongoing death toll from known hanging points was unacceptable and 'deeply concerning'.
'The attorney general strongly encourages state and territory governments to review their practices and continue to work toward effective solutions that ensure the safety and dignity of all Australians in the justice system,' she said.
The Indigenous leader and former senator Pat Dodson, who helped lead the 1991 royal commission, has also described the failures as 'totally unacceptable'.
Guardian Australia found deaths were continuing to occur from known hanging points in every jurisdiction in the country.
In New South Wales, the Guardian found 20 hangings from ligature points that were known to authorities but not removed, including three from a set of bars in the Darcy unit of Silverwater prison in Sydney. One of those deaths was that of Gavin Ellis, who suffered a psychotic illness and was a known suicide risk, having attempted to hang himself twice in the first three days in custody.
He was then not seen by a mental health clinician or reviewed by a psychiatrist for long periods before his death, and was sent into a cell with a ligature point that had been used by another inmate to hang himself two years earlier.
A third inmate used the same hanging point after Ellis's death. The state government will not say whether the bars have now been removed from Darcy unit cells.
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The toll in NSW also includes the 2017 death of a young Indigenous man, Tane Chatfield, who died by hanging at Tamworth prison. In his case, the coroner told the NSW government to audit the prison for additional hanging points. It did so but said it could find none to remove.
An independent inspection of the prison less than 12 months later found 'multiple' hanging points in Tamworth's cells, including ones that had purportedly been removed.
'When they said to us that they were going to deal with the hanging points … You think, 'OK, so no other family's going to go through this,'' his mother, Nioka Chatfield, told the Guardian.
'It's like they just pick your hopes up and they just shatter you.'
The Guardian Australia investigation found 14 deaths from known hanging points in South Australia and seven in Western Australia.
In Queensland, it identified 13 deaths from known hanging points, many of which were from a similar set of exposed bars to those used repeatedly at Arthur Gorrie prison.
Deaths continued for years after the state government was told to 'immediately' act to remove the bars, or make them inaccessible, at Borallon and Townsville prisons.
The issue of hanging points is described by experts as a 'proximate' issue in deaths in custody. Research suggests removing obvious hanging points is effective in reducing deaths but cannot be considered in isolation.
The deaths investigated by the Guardian, like that of Ellis, often involved failures in providing mental health treatment and assessment, gaps in the broader mental health system, and problems with information sharing and cell placement.
In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Indigenous Australians can call 13YARN on 13 92 76 for information and crisis support; or Mensline on 1300 789 978 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636; International helplines can be found at befrienders.org