Lateline<\/em><\/a>, Thursday night, documents obtained by refugee activists in the Refugee Rights Action Network in Perth reveal a shocking level of self-harm inside Christmas Island. They also cast doubt on the integrity of Serco\u2019s management of the detention centre, with question marks over the accuracy of its reporting and the culture encouraged among the guards.<\/p>\n\u201cThe fact that the instructions to guards that \u2018Hoffman\u2019s are to be worn by all officers at all times\u2019 \u2013referring to Hoffman knives used to cut down attempted hangings\u2013 is a startling indication of the emergency situation inside the detention centre,\u201d said Victoria Martin-Iverson, a spokesperson for the Refugee Rights Action Network, in Perth.<\/p>\n
They also raise questions about whether Serco, the private company responsible for managing the detention is accurately reporting the degree of self-harm and attempted to suicide to avoid \u201cabatements\u201d ie fines associated with mismanagement of the detention centre.<\/p>\n
The documents summarising incidents between 9th and 20th June, records 48 self harm incidents – 12 instances of \u201cactual self harm,\u201d 32 of \u201cthreatened self harm\u201d and four of \u201cself harm attempted serious.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet individual records among the documents show there were 14 instances of self-harm on three days alone. On at least one occasion, an attempted hanging is recorded as \u201cthreatened self harm\u201d, and none of the recorded attempted hangings appear as \u201cself harm attempted serious\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is evidence enough that Serco may be less than honest with its statistics, and reason enough to hold an inquiry into its management of the detention centre, \u201d said Victoria Martin-Iverson.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn June Serco guards, were told ‘\u2026be very careful what you say around DIAC as loose lips sink ships\u2026remember your contract confidentiality\u2026’ Such instructions put a question mark over Serco management\u2019s attitude to openness and disclosure of information.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are also serious questions about the level of training and corporate concern for their duty of care to the asylum seekers. One asylum seeker seems to have been left in the ‘visits’ area now being used as a suicide watch area despite having a suspected broken arm.<\/p>\n
Another document refers to clients creating a self-harm culture using self-harm as bargaining tool. Encouraging this idea among guards can only result in them being dismissive or indifferent to psychiatrically damaged and vulnerable people.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been told by a Christmas Island guard that an asylum seeker banging their head is not considered a serious incident unless they are bleeding or unconscious. Only in a detention centre would such an attitude be tolerated,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government\u2019s policies of long term detention are primarily responsible for the toxic environment inside the detention centres, and it should not be allowed to hide behind its commercial arrangements with Serco. But Serco is doing the government\u2019s bidding,” said Ian Rinrtoul, from the Refugee Action Coalition.<\/p>\n
The Ombudsman\u2019s inquiry must include an investigation of the practices, and the toxic culture fostered by Serco inside the detention centres,\u201d said Rintoul.<\/p>\n
Suicide Prevention Australia has also written to the Ombudsman asking that the terms of inquiry to be widened to explicitly include suicide and suicide prevention.<\/p>\n
For media comment, contact Victoria Martin-Iverson 0410589064 (in Perth, 2 hours behind eastern states), Ian Rintoul 0417 275 713<\/p>\n
Also available for comment:<\/p>\n
Professor Louise Newman, director of Monash University Centre for Developmental Psychiatry and Psychology, who has seen the leaked Serco documents.<\/p>\n
Dr Michael Dudley, Chairperson Suicide Prevention Australia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CALL FOR INQUIRY INTO SERCO MANAGEMENT OF DETENTION CENTRE As revealed on the ABC\u2019s Lateline, Thursday night, documents obtained by refugee activists in the Refugee Rights Action Network in Perth reveal a shocking level of self-harm inside Christmas Island. They also cast doubt on the integrity of Serco\u2019s management of the detention centre, with question […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311091,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1145","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-press-releases"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/311091"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}