Jo Faith, Newtown
Many thanks to The Echo for printing ex-magistrate David Heilpern’s remarkable article articulating the ongoing tragic situation surrounding Deaths in Custody in NSW prisons, and the gross negligence of NSW Corrective Services in failing to remove ‘hanging points’ in NSW Prisons 21 years after the Nagle Report demanded that they be removed!
This omission supports the mythical social belief that First Nations peoples (who are the most incarcerated people globally) have a tendency to ‘commit suicide’ once they are incarcerated. If this is so, why it necessary for a First Nations person, who is brain dead, to have their feet chained to the hospital bed when they are on a life-support machine after coming to prison for a weekend to pay off a debt, and consequently receiving a hit on the head?
Why is it that the grieving family are told that they ‘have only 10 minutes to view the body, as the machine will be turned off, and their organs removed’. No paperwork is presented. The total is now 450 First Nations people dead in custody.
Much darker stories will one day surface. Are Australians prepared to really understand how very racist our nation is?
