Prison officers fear deaths in custody under Queensland bill

Prison officers fear there could be deaths in custody and increased assaults on staff under a proposed Queensland bill exempting them from having to consider prisoners' human rights. 

The bill removes a requirement for corrective services staff to comply with, or properly consider, prisoners' human rights. 

If passed, prisoners would have no basis to complain to the Queensland Human Rights Commission. 

The ABC has spoken with current and former officers who oppose the changes and fear they will only make their jobs more dangerous if jails become more crowded and prisoners' human rights are not respected. 

Their names have been changed for safety reasons and because of their employment. 

Jordan works in a regional Queensland jail and is concerned prisons could move to triple bunking, where three prisoners are housed in a cell built for one. 

The ABC understands triple bunking is not currently occurring throughout the state. But Together Queensland, a union that covers prison guards, warned last week that "triple bunking" would have to be considered once new breach bail laws come into effect due to an expected influx of prisoners.

"We don't want it. It's going to be bloody awful," Jordan said. 

"Putting three people in a [small] square cell is a f***ing bad idea." 

Threats to staff had escalated, Jordan said, as prisoners became increasingly frustrated by overcrowding. 

"I'm worried there will be deaths in custody," he said. 

"[Prison staff] are thinking, are we going to get flogged [by prisoners] because they're pissed off?" 

Jordan said prisoners were already being kept in cells for up to 20 hours a day and waiting up to eight months to see a dentist, even without the human rights exemption. 

"If we don't facilitate the stuff that they need, they don't get that, and that's not right," he said. 

"We have a much better day if they are happy. We have much better rehabilitation opportunities for them if we can get them to their courses, their visits and into medical." 

Trent, a former correctional officer, is also worried about the potential of triple bunking prisoners. 

He said officers must look through a small window overnight to check whether prisoners are breathing. 

"One hundred per cent [there could be a death]," Trent said. 

"There's no way you're going to be able to see all three prisoners by looking through that window with one of them sleeping on a mattress directly below the door on the floor." 

But some advocates say it is victims' rights that are being overlooked. 

"Human rights, weirdly, does not seem to consider the person who had the rights, whose life has been taken in the first place by someone else," Brett Thompson, the chief executive of the Queensland Homicide Victims' Support Group, told the parliamentary committee earlier this month. 

He was responding to concerns raised by the Bar Association that limiting prisoners' human rights and parole options could leave the community less safe.

Queensland Corrective Services (QCS) did not respond to the ABC's questions about triple bunking, cell hours or dental wait times. 

"QCS is firmly committed to keeping Queenslanders safe and ensuring the safety and security within correctional centres," a QCS spokesperson said.

"[We] are delivering more beds to increase capacity and have increased staff by more than 2,000 officers in less than 24 months." 

QCS told the parliamentary committee the proposed changes were needed to keep officers and the community safe, particularly when managing dangerous sex offenders. 

The exemption would apply to those on remand and all prisoners, not only those convicted of murder or sex offences.

Corrective Services Minister Laura Gerber said: "The Crisafulli government will always put the rights of victims ahead of the rights of offenders."