Current inspections and reviews
This list includes:
- Inspections and Reviews which have been announced and are in progress
- Inspections and Reviews which have been completed and a report is being prepared
An announced inspection of Court Custody Centre’s and the Fiona Stanley Hospital Secure Facility was conducted between September and November 2023.
A draft report is being prepared.
The inspection report is expected to be tabled in the first quarter of 2025.
An announced inspection of Boronia Pre-release Centre for Women was conducted between 24 to 29 March 2024.
A draft report is being prepared.
The inspection report is expected to be tabled in the first quarter of 2025.
An announced inspection of Acacia Prison was conducted between 14 to 23 October 2024.
A draft report is being prepared.
The inspection report is expected to be tabled in the third quarter of 2025.
An announced inspection of Wooroloo, Karnet and Pardelup Prison Farms was conducted between 14 October to 29 November 2024.
A draft report is being prepared.
The inspection report is expected to be tabled in the fourth quarter of 2025.
An announced inspection of Dowering, Roebourne Town, Walpole, Warburton, and Wyndham Work Camps is scheduled to commence in March 2025.
The inspection will assess the work camps, with a focus on:
- Prisoners’ access to work camps
- The rehabilitation and reintegration opportunities available to work camp residents, and
- How effectively work camps engage with, and contribute to, the local community.
All inspection work will be conducted within the framework of the Inspectorate’s Revised Code of Inspection Standards for Adult Custodial Services.
The inspection will assess Broome Regional Prison, with a focus on:
- Governance: Assessing the prison’s strategic vision and its connections with the broader community.
- Early Days in Custody: Assessing the support available for people on remand.
- Daily Life: Including living conditions, hygiene, contact with the outside world, and access to purposeful activities.
- Health and Support: Assessing physical and mental health services, and substance abuse treatment.
- Rehabilitation and Reparation: Assessing the provisions for education, employment, programs, and release preparation.
- Security: Including procedural security and prisoner transport.
All inspection work will be conducted within the framework of the Inspectorate’s Revised Code of Inspection Standards for Adult Custodial Services.
The inspection report is expected to be tabled in the fourth quarter of 2025.
This inspection will report on whether there have been sufficient improvements to conditions at Hakea Prison, following the issue of a Show Cause Notice after the May 2024 inspection of the facility.
A draft report is being prepared.
The inspection report is expected to be tabled in the third quarter of 2025.
All people in custody should be provided the opportunity to practice the religion, cultural or spiritual expression of their choice safely. This includes having the ability to practice any religious beliefs and access worship and faith-based groups and activities. Prison management should facilitate access to multi-faith services, and any artefacts, publications, clothing or foods necessary to allow individuals to maintain adherence to their religious lifestyle requirements.
Additionally, chaplains provide an important role connecting people in custody with faith services. They facilitate multi-faith religious and spiritual services and work with spiritual leaders to meet the needs of people in custody. They also provide pastoral care – offering emotional support to people in need regardless of faith. This often includes prisoners who are grieving or being monitored under the at-risk management system. As such, chaplains are an important element of the prisoner support system. They are also active participants in the prison or detention centre community, building strong relationships and assisting people in custody along their rehabilitation journey.
Consistent with other jurisdictions, the Department of Justice has outsourced the provision of religious and spiritual services, including chaplains. In Western Australia the Council of Churches of Western Australia Inc. (CCWA) provides these services under a five-year contract. As a Christian-based organisation, the CCWA are expected to work with leaders of other faiths as required to meet the needs of all people in custody.
This review will examine the delivery of chaplaincy and faith services for people in custody in Western Australia to assess for equity and effectiveness.
People in custody should be provided the opportunity to address their primary health, mental health, and social care needs through access to appropriate services. They must also be supported to change their behaviours and attitudes through tailored programs and services which address their needs and support desistence. These services and supports are delivered by non-custodial staff working within the custodial facility. They are often professionals who work in the areas of health, mental health, rehabilitation, reintegration, education, and vocation. And as qualified experts in their respective fields, they are integral to ensuring incarceration is an opportunity to address needs and change behaviours.
Our work frequently highlights staffing pressures within non-custodial business areas. These pressures often arise due to short- and long-term vacancies, population changes that have been not accounted for in Service Level Agreements, and other funding arrangement limitations. The result of such pressures means inadequate, limited, or a lack of services and programs for people in custody.
This review will examine the chronic shortage of non-custodial staff across the custodial estate. The terms of reference are:
- What are the Department of Justice’s service level agreements for non-custodial staffing for each facility, including current vacancies and any long-term vacancy trends?
- Has the Department of Justice conducted needs analyses for its facilities or population, and identified the most common areas of non-custodial staffing shortages?
- Is non-custodial resourcing adequate to meet the needs of people in custody, as per best practice literature?
Contact with and connection to family and friends are key factors to maintaining the wellbeing of people in custody and their rehabilitation prospects. In this Office’s 2018 review examining this contact, we found the Department of Justice was struggling to meet its legislative and policy requirements for family and social visits, due to overcrowding within the prison system. This was further compounded by staff shortages. Since that time the daily average population has increased by approximately 10 per cent from 6,873 to 7,581, staff shortages have continued to be a challenge, and the effect both of these problems have had on social visits remains considerably pronounced.
Since our last review, we have also found in-person social and family visits have been severely impacted by departmental responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the height of the pandemic, visit capacities were reduced to allow for space restrictions and other measures were implemented, such as the installation of acrylic screens and the banning of food and drinks. Many of these measures, while seeking to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, diminished the visits experience for prisoners and their family and friends. Furthermore, post-pandemic, we have continued to find some of these measures remain in practice at various prisons.
The pandemic compelled the Department to fast-track the installation of e-visit technology to ensure contact with friends, families, and official visitors could be maintained. While they should not replace in-person visits, e-visits can supplement social contact and can also help provide people in custody with a connection to friends and family who are a considerable distance away. This has been a positive, and largely successful investment by the Department. However, issues including a lack of staffing to facilitate and supervise e-visits and technological issues have been found to be ongoing concerns.
Challenges also exist for those whose primary contact with family and friends occurs through the phone system. While it is the most frequent form of contact, our inspection work continues to find unequal access and competition for phones are ongoing issues. For example, in 2022 we recommended the Department increase the number of phones at Greenough Regional Prison to mitigate the high demand. In response, the Department outlined a business case to replace the Prisoner Telephone System as part of its Long-term Custodial Technology Strategy. To date, the replacement has not occurred.
This is a follow-up review assessing progressing by the Department to our 2018 review. There is only one Term of Reference:
1. Has the Department of Justice made adequate progress since the 2018 review to ensure prisoners are maintaining contact with their family and others.
Workers’ compensation is financial compensation provided to workers who become injured because of their work. Any worker who suffers a work-related injury or disease requiring medical treatment or time off work is entitled to claim workers’ compensation, regardless of who was at fault. The workers’ compensation scheme in Western Australia is administered by WorkCover WA in accordance with the Workers Compensation and Injury Management Act 2023. General entitlements include:
- income compensation, where time off is medically required
- medical and health expenses incurred as a result of the injury
- workplace rehabilitation expenses incurred during recovery
- other expenses such as emergency transport or supportive appliances.
The impact of workers’ compensation on the custodial estate has been observed in the high amount of leave taken, resulting in staffing shortages. The level of leave taken often exceeds the relief factor built into the custodial staff rosters of facilities and creates a reliance on overtime. High levels of leave and absenteeism result in an insufficient number of prison officers being available to fill shifts, which increases the use for lockdowns and restricting access to services. The impact of non-custodial staff on workers’ compensation leave is similarly impactful on people in custody, reducing the level of service delivery from the respective business area.
During 2023 and 2024, a number of critical and potentially traumatic events occurred across the custodial estate, including detainee and prisoner deaths in custody, physical and sexual assaults on staff, and self-harm acts among prisoners and staff. Prison officers and other non-custodial staff, who are first responders to these events, may be adversely affected. As such, this may explain why the Department of Justice reported an increase lost time injury and disease incidence rate in its Annual Report 2023/24, and only a minor reduction in the severity rate compared to 2022/23 data. There was also a decrease in the percentage of injured workers who returned to work within the 13- and 26-week timeframes. In response to these issues, the Department is reviewing and updating injury prevention strategies. It is also implementing process improvements to support better returning to work outcomes, including the prioritisation of high intervention injuries.
This review will examine the trends in workers’ compensation claims, the issues preventing timely resolutions, and the impact upon prisoner experience. It will be guided by the following terms of reference:
- What are the trends for workers’ compensation claims for adult custodial services for 2019 to 2024? Particularly noting any trends associated with psychosocial injury included within the updated Work Health and Safety Act 2020 (WA) and the General Regulations 2022.
- What are the effects of the increasing claims and lost time injuries, for the prisoner cohort?
- Are there systemic barriers preventing the timely resolution of workers’ compensation claims, and return to work outcomes?
A report on this review is anticipated to be available to the public.
Many women are received into custody experiencing a range of chronic health issues, including substance withdrawal, undiagnosed health conditions or untreated mental health conditions. And it is recognised that incarcerated women have increased incidence of health conditions. A number of these women will also enter custody pregnant, which further increases the demand for sufficient health services.
Therefore, access to appropriate health care and support is essential for pregnant women in custody.
Women in custody are a vulnerable cohort, who are exposed to complex risk factors. For some women, imprisonment during pregnancy can provide greater access to medical care than what they may have received in the community. However, for others, prison can disrupt a woman’s antenatal care and sense of agency around their pregnancy journey and planning. In particular, pregnant women on short periods of remand may experience greater challenges of receiving maternal services.
Maternal imprisonment has been associated with poorer health outcomes for the mother and infant. These include, a greater risk of adverse outcomes such as preterm birth, still birth, low birth weight and admission to special care nurseries. Mothers often experience distress and isolation during pregnancy and are more likely to have mental-ill health. The use of tobacco and substance abuse while pregnant prior to (and sometimes during) incarceration is also common.
Previous OICS inspection reports have found a lack of suitable accommodation options for pregnant women. In particular, pregnant women in regional facilities often do not have access to obstetric health care and are subsequently transferred out of their community to metropolitan facilities. This is despite some regional facilities having dedicated mother and baby units, which have not been utilised for their intended purpose. Where this type of accommodation is available, it is limited to metropolitan facilities.
Previously, we have found inconsistencies in the services available to pregnant women across the Western Australian custodial estate. This often results in inequitable access to support and healthcare based on location.
This review will examine the management and supports available to pregnant women in the adult custodial estate. The terms of reference are:
- Does the Department of Justice provide pregnant women in custody support and antenatal care equivalent to community standards of care?
- What is the experience of pregnant women in custody?
A report on this review is anticipated to be available to the public.
Page last updated: 11 Apr 2025