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Submission to the National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention from
Allan Clifton
STATUTORY DECLARATION
I, Allan Clifton of [address removed], Centre Manager, do solemnly and sincerely declare as follows:
Background
1. I make this statement for the purposes of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission’s Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention.
2. I am presently employed by Australasian Correctional Management (ACM) as the Centre Manager of the Perth Immigration Detention Centre (PIDC). I am on extended leave from that position as I am unfit for work at present.
3. I have been employed by ACM since 1997 and was the Operations Manager at the Woomera Immigration Reception and Processing Centre (WIRPC) from May 2000 to June 2001.
4. I have previously worked for ACM at the Fulham Correction Centre, a 612 bed medium and minimum security facility.
5. From 1990 to 1997 I worked as a prison officer and a senior prison officer at prisons and remand centres in Victoria: HM Prison Pentridge (maximum security); Melbourne Remand Centre (maximum security); HM Prison Sale (medium security and protection prisoners) and Morwell River Prison Farm (minimum security).
6. Work at the WIRPC was extremely stressful. Staff, including myself, were subjected to threats and violence and witnesses extreme events such as the riots that took place. Staff did not receive adequate support from ACM. As a result of the stress to which I was exposed at WIRPC, I developed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and major depression and this was diagnosed in November 2000. I have no prior history of PTSD or depression. I returned to work after 3 weeks on leave and continued to work until March 2002 when I ceased working and was again diagnosed as suffering from PTSD.
Conditions at the WIRPC
7. There was no focus on children at the WIRPC and it was an environment unsuited to children. By way of example, when I commenced work at the WIRPC there were about 1,400 detainees and only 2 people working in the programmes department to provide activities and education.
8. After about October/November 2000 when there was increased media focus on the operations of the WIRPC, ACM started to put more effort into the care and welfare of children, and more teaching and programme staff were employed.
Resources and Standards
9. I was aware that it was regular practice for figures in ACM reports to DIMIA to be inflated - such as hours of education and programmes delivered. Services were not being delivered adequately or at all, but figures were produced to say that they were. This took place the whole time I was there.
10. When there were audits or inspections, things were improved temporarily, but they returned to what were generally inadequate standards soon after. I was aware for some penalties being imposed by DIMIA on ACM for breaching the contract to operate Woomera, but these did not reflect the degree to which the contract were breached.
11. I did not think that DIMIA really kept a close enough eye on what ACM was doing, and had the wool pulled over their eyes in relation to the contractual obligations which were often not met in relation to the conditions of detention. Ultimately, ACM was used to running prisons and was a business run for profit. They were therefore unused to providing appropriate services in this context, especially for children, and to do so would have cost them money. I expect that this would be a problem with any private contractor.
12. For those of us working on the ground at the WIRPC, there were simply not the resources to provide the services or level of services that we were expected to provide. The head office would demand results and workers were worried that they would be sacked if they did not create the appearance that the services were being provided.
13. Staff in Woomera were trying to provide services to detainees but were not given the support or resources. We had to develop policies to deal with things such as child protection, unaccompanied minors and dealing with high risk detainees with no input or support from head office.
14. We had a fair degree of autonomy from the ACM head office provided we were within our budget. But I did not believe that they really had an understanding of what was going on on the ground at the WIRPC. This hamstrung our ability to run the centre generally and also to ensure security.
15. I recall the circumstances surrounding the riot in August 2000:
Detainees were frustrated about the visa process. There were problems with property damage and I was trying to keep a lid on it by talking to detainees. But then things escalated and fences were being pushed over and detainees were threatening to break out. We identified who we thought were the ring-leaders and they were taken into Sierra Compound where they were isolated from the rest of the detainees.
Detainees raised with me that they believed that some of the people we had removed to Sierra Compound may not have been involved in the disturbance, and they were very unhappy about their removal to Sierra. They were, incidentally, also very unhappy with those who had caused the disturbance.
I accepted that some of those removed may not have been involved in the disturbance and I wanted to release them into the general population. I negotiated with the detainees in the main compound and agreed to speak to my superiors to see if they could be released. I was of the view that the situation could continue to escalate if it was not handled carefully.
I called head office and was told by the Detention Services National Operations Manager at the time “Fuck ‘em. ACM does not back down, take them on”. I warned that there would be a riot if nothing was done, and I did not believe that we had enough staffing resources to handle the situation, but I was ignored. After I communicated the decision to the detainees, there was a riot with fires and extensive property damage. Several staff were injured during this incident . (nil detainees were injured)
Staffing at the WIRPC
16. There were not enough staff at the WIRPC. There were 80 staff for 1,400 detainees when I started there. I raised this with head office but I was ignored. The staff numbers were, to my knowledge, in breach of the ACM contract with DIMIA and we were told to “fudge” the figures
17. Staff received inadequate training. Officers with no previous experience were given 4 weeks of intensive training (6x 12 hour days per week) and lacked the necessary skills to effectively manage detainees. Staff working in areas such as Programmes did not receive any training at all beyond an induction.
18. Training in the needs of children and child protection was inadequate and I felt that I lacked experience and training with children in a detention environment. General awareness of security of children was poor. There was also inadequate training in report writing.
19. There were also problems with continuity and consistency because staff were on a 6 week rotation.
20. There was never a policy to call detainees by their numbers. Initially this was done when there were very large numbers of people. In part this was because it was difficult for staff to pronounce some of the names. It was also because some detainees wished to remain anonymous and others had used aliases and this meant that sometimes people did not realise when they were being called. There was, after a time, a direction that people be called by name and this was complied with.
Safety of children
21. I was very concerned about children’s safety when there were riots and disturbances. When there was a riot, the centre was locked down and kids were in the thick of it. It was difficult to get children out because parents often did not want to be separated from them. Staff, particularly nurses, tried their best to keep children safe. However, from an organisational perspective, there were no efforts made to prevent children from seeing violence.
22. There were concerns raised by programmes and medical staff about child abuse from male detainees. We therefore trained staff in the requirements of mandatory notification and built up a relationship with FAYS that I regarded as good.
23. Not until about the end of 2001 were families able to be accommodated in a compound separate from the single men. I was of the view that this should have been the arrangement from the beginning, but it took over 12 months to get it to happen.
24. The compound across the road from the WIRPC could also have been used to accommodate children and families.
25. During the time I worked at the WIRPC, I do not recall any incidents of self-harm amongst children.
26. When I started work at the WIRPC there was no policy or plan for the care of unaccompanied minors and they received little special care. A plan was initiated from within the WIRPC which ultimately resulted in unaccompanied minors being, in my view, properly cared for.
Medical Care
27. The standard of health care could have been better. The medical centre at the WIRPC was operating in a small demountable. The staff tried hard but kept changing over regularly and appeared to be working with inadequate facilities. I raised this concern repeatedly with the head office.
28. It appeared that appropriate levels of medical supplies were available but I was criticised on a number of occasions for calling ambulances when people required urgent medical treatment as this was a large expense. However, it did not stop me from continuing to do so.
29. I was also aware of argument between DIMIA and ACM over who would pay for hospital care required for detainees, but I was not of the view that care was ultimately withheld for this reason.
30. There was no regular health screening of children and I felt that not enough attention was given to the health needs of children. There was not, for example, a designated child psychologist.
Education and Activities
31. When I first started working at the WIRPC education was virtually non-existent. By the time I left there was a structured programme of about two hours in the morning and two in the afternoon.
32. However, I was of the view that schooling within the WIRPC was ineffective because there were too many distractions. Schooling in the community was canvassed as an option, but there was opposition from the community. I didn’t think that ACM really made an effort to try to explain to locals how it would work and address their concerns.
33. It would also have been possible to have used the compound across the road for schooling, but this was not pursued.
34. There were not enough excursions provided. Children were lucky to get out of the centre on an excursion once a month on average. In the early days I had tried to get children out to Breen Park in Woomera more regularly.
35. I recall the Woomera Management team arguing with the ACM head office in Sydney to set up a playground and play equipment for children, but they did not want to spend the money on it. The children had to play on a soccer pitch that was just gravel.
I make this solemn declaration by virtue of the Statutory Declarations Act 1959 as amended and subject to the penalties provided by that Act for the making of false statements in statutory declarations, conscientiously believing the statements contained in this declaration to be true in every particular.
Signed on 1 July 2002
Last Updated 30 June 2003.
