Investigation into the conduct of Corrective Services NSW officers at Lithgow Correctional Centre - Operation Estry
- Findings
- 5
- Recommendations
- 19
- Published responses
- 3
- Report length
- 92 pages
Findings 5
Allegations are not findings. A commission's finding or opinion of corrupt conduct or misconduct is not a finding that a person is guilty of a criminal offence, and the commissions say so in their reports.
serious corrupt conduct
FindingThe Commission is satisfied that Mr O’Shea engaged in serious corrupt conduct from February 2014.
serious corrupt conduct
FindingThe Commission is satisfied that Mr McMurtrie engaged in serious corrupt conduct from February 2014.
serious corrupt conduct
FindingThe Commission is satisfied that Mr Graf engaged in serious corrupt conduct from February 2014.
serious corrupt conduct
FindingThe Commission is satisfied that Mr Duncan engaged in serious corrupt conduct from February 2014.
serious corrupt conduct
FindingThe Commission is satisfied that Mr Taylor engaged in serious corrupt conduct from February 2014.
Recommendations 19
Recommendation 1
That the personal assistant to a general manager (GM) of a correctional centre be required to enter all submitted incident reports into CSNSW’s electronic systems.
Recommendation 2
That CSNSW ensures its policies and procedures discourage the sharing or misuse of passwords. These requirements should also be reflected in the relevant officer’s training.
Recommendation 3
That CSNSW introduces controls to ensure that, if required information is not entered into the Offender Integrated Management System (OIMS) within a specified period of time, a report will be generated and a review conducted by an appropriate officer who will be required to report to the GM.
Recommendation 4
That CSNSW: supplies body cameras to correctional officers who are likely to be involved in use of force (UOF) incidents and prioritises the supply of these cameras to correctional officers assigned to the immediate action teams (IATs) provides correctional centres with the means to readily obtain footage from these body cameras and store it for a sufficient period of time.
Recommendation 5
That CSNSW: mandates the videorecording of the destruction of contraband drugs found on inmates or in their cells provides correctional centres with the means to readily obtain such footage and store it for a sufficient period of time.
Recommendation 6
That CSNSW ensures all correctional centres have sufficient technical resources to retain all CCTV footage that is necessary or desirable to retain under CSNSW procedures concerning the UOF and targeted searches.
Recommendation 7
That CSNSW requires that in all contraband at correctional centres is photographed at the time of discovery. This requirement should be reinforced via relevant CSNSW training, compliance and audit programs.
Recommendation 8
That CSNSW communicates to the GMs and managers of security (MoSs) at all correctional centres that they cannot be involved in a review of any UOF package if they were involved in or a witness to the UOF in question. Instead, the UOF package must be externally reviewed.
Recommendation 9
That the activities of the IATs be included in any relevant Operational Performance Review Branch reviews, such as reviews of correctional centres against service specifications.
Recommendation 10
That following review by the MoS and GM of a correctional centre, UOF packages be sent to a centralised CSNSW business unit, which should: receive this package before CCTV footage is overwritten have direct access to relevant CCTV footage receive any other related technical product, such as recordings or photographs review either (i) all UOF packages it receives or (ii) a proportion of the UOF packages it receives that is sufficient to readily identify systemic issues that relate to a particular correctional centre.
Recommendation 11
That CSNSW develops specific, independent assurance mechanisms surrounding the searching of cells. These mechanisms should examine whether CSNSW procedures are being complied with, and good practice is being applied, in relation to the: discovery of contraband, including videorecording requirements reporting of the discovery of contraband confiscation and disposal of prohibited substances.
Recommendation 12
That CSNSW implements a coordinated strategy to improve the cultural environment for correctional officers within its centres, with a view to alleviating the burden imposed on those officers who report the misconduct of others. Logically, those measures might include: focused training and education on the importance of reporting misconduct within a corrections environment support for complainants and protection of their identity avenues for making anonymous reports and identification exposure and action in response to those who engage in bullying, harassment or other forms of reprisal.
Recommendation 13
That CSNSW monitors the treatment of those officers who have assisted the Commission in this investigation.
Recommendation 14
That CSNSW takes sustained measures to prevent the practice of “therapy”, “cell therapy” or like practices being applied to inmates.
Recommendation 15
That CSNSW investigators have ready access to (i) relevant CSNSW documents, such as UOF packages, and (ii) other evidence, such as CCTV footage, in a manner that does not in any way depend on, or alert, other CSNSW staff.
Recommendation 16
That CSNSW reviews its procedures for the initiation and escalation of investigations. Among other things, this review should address the need for independence and objectivity.
Recommendation 17
That CSNSW reviews its investigation function to ensure that it: is staffed in a manner that enables it to meet timeframe key performance indicators without compromising investigation quality has access to appropriate technical resources, including a case management system that sufficiently caters for its needs.
Recommendation 18
That CSNSW prioritises the completion of its investigation manual.
Recommendation 19
That staff responsible for CSNSW’s project regarding systemic issues identified in this investigation consider and action the following issues: whether any of the conduct identified in the Commission’s investigation occurs at other correctional centres the evidence and findings made by anti-corruption agencies in Queensland and Western Australia how data analysis of its information holdings can facilitate the identification of misconduct by correctional officers and issues that may be systemic within the corrections sector in NSW.
Published responses 3
Coverage
This publisher
- Reports on investigations made public before 2016 are not online: the ICAC keeps only a summary for each, and copies must be requested from the ICAC. Those records hold the ICAC's published summary; findings and recommendations are not extracted.
- The ICAC copyright statement reserves all rights (fair dealing aside). OPAX keeps short verbatim finding and recommendation passages with links to the original report.
- Findings are read from the summary chapter of each report PDF. Where a finding's particulars run past the cited page only the finding statement is kept, and reports whose layout could not be read confidently are marked not_extracted.
- Agency action plans and progress reports are listed as documents; their contents (implementation status for each recommendation) are not parsed.
- Report PDFs without a text layer (scanned images, for example Operation Scania) are not OCRed; their findings stay not_extracted.
- Many pre-2016 summaries give only the month a report was made public; those records carry no date and a note with the month, because the schema holds day-level dates only.