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A NSW Legislative Council estimates committee meeting has been told that the state’s prison system is about to get a new “extreme high risk restricted” prisoner category – and an extra media officer.
The beefed-up media unit and the new category will allow the Department of Corrective Services to better manage some of the state’s most dangerous personas.
“These men are the worst of the worst,” Attorney-General John Hatzistergos told The Daily Grind, “and we need state-of-the-art tools to successfully manage and build their public profiles.”
The Department’s media unit also houses information deemed too politically dangerous to be allowed contact with the press. Many of the most incorrigible draft statements have their files marked “never to be media release.”
The Liberal opposition criticised the expansion of the media unit and questioned the department’s need for another “spin-doctor”, but Commissioner Rob Woodham cleverly spun the situation as “I don’t have spin doctors. I have good PR people.”
The Greens immediately slammed the new classification as “back to the 19th century,” referring to a time of harsher prisons and larger media units. But the party’s Sylvia Hale withdrew her objection to the new high-security category after receiving assurances that it would apply principally to violent criminals rather than the guy who delivers her marajuana.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the new category was introduced “for a small percentage of inmates suspected of subversive or illegal behaviour,” although the percentage of NSW prisoners suspected of illegal behaviour should probably be slightly more than “small”.
The Greens also slammed this 19th century gaol's architecture as "back to the 19th century."
