Disabled prisoners have opened up about their horrific experiences behind bars, revealing they have been sexually abused and locked up in tiny cells for 22 hours a day.
People with disabilities make up almost 50 per cent of the prison population in Australia.
Nearly all the disabled prisoners spoken to for a Human Rights Watch report said they had been placed in solitary confinement, locked up in a small cell for up to 22 hours a day with no outside contact.
Disabled prisoners routinely face sexual and physical abuse in prisons, including being locked up in solitary confinement
People with disabilities make up almost 50 per cent of the prison population in Australia
A disabled prisoner who wished to be known as Pete said he was sexually abused and beaten by other inmates aged 14 while in a juvenile correction centre.
‘It went from physical to mental to sexual, and that’s where I think a lot of my dramas began because I had my self-esteem kicked out of me,’ he told the ABC.
He said his intellectual disability, depression and anxiety made him a target.
‘They tend to push you around a little bit more and think that you’re just not a normal person.’
Pete said the abuse continued when he went to an adult prison aged 20.
‘The times that I have been beaten up, there has been no assistance,’ he said.
A West Australian prisoner said he was forced to wear a nappy because his wheelchair can’t fit in the jail’s bathroom or toilet.
‘I have to wear a nappy every day. I don’t feel like a man; I feel like my dignity is taken away,’ he said.
An Aboriginal prisoner had the same issue and had to urinate into a bottle.
Human Rights Watch released a new report on Tuesday entitled ‘I Needed Help, Instead I Was Punished’ which details the conditions of prisoners with disabilities face in Australian jails.
Researchers interviewed 275 people including 136 current or recently released prisoners with disabilities from Western Australia, Queensland and New South Wales.
They were given unfettered access to 14 WA and Queensland prisons.
A disabled prisoner who wished to be known as Pete said he was sexually abused and beaten by other inmates aged 14 while in a juvenile correction centre
The report found prisoners with disabilities are often neglected because of staff shortages, a lack of training and resources.
‘People with disabilities get lost in bigger prisons. If you’re not screaming or kicking, and if your disability isn’t visible, you’re under the radar,’ a WA prison psychiatric nurse was quoted in the report.
It also raises concerns about prisoners with disabilities being locked in solitary confinement as punishment for bad behaviour or after mental illness episodes.
In one case, researchers said a female prisoner with a disability was kept in a windowless, perpetually-lit, padded cell for an entire month.
One Queensland psychologist working on a prison program said it was ethically challenging to make decisions about solitary confinement.
‘A (prisoner) is having suicidal thoughts and you stick them in a box with nothing but their thoughts.’
The report found prisoners with disabilities are often neglected because of staff shortages, a lack of training and resources
The report said there was evidence prisoners with disabilities were facing increased bullying, harassment, physical violence and sexual abuse.
‘I was sexually assaulted (by other prisoners)…. I know at least one of them raped me, but I kind of blacked out,’ one prisoner with a cognitive disability told researchers.
Guards were sometimes the perpetrators of abuse, the report found.
‘They catch you when you’re working by yourself and touch your boobs, bum, or put a hand around your waist. Or they make stupid comments like, ‘You’ve been here a while, you must be horny’,’ a female prisoner said.
Aboriginal people are over-represented in the Australian prison population and so too are indigenous people with disabilities.