page_title: Fremantle Prison
section_title: Prisoners
hierarchical_section_title: Fremantle Prison / Staff and prisoners / Prisoners
caption_attribution_description: English: This was taken ca 1971 when it was still a maximum security prison.
context_page_description: Fremantle Prison, sometimes referred to as Fremantle Gaol or Fremantle Jail, is a former Australian prison and World Heritage Site in Fremantle, Western Australia. The six-hectare site includes the prison cellblocks, gatehouse, perimeter walls, cottages, and tunnels. It was initially used for convicts transported from Britain, but was transferred to the colonial government in 1886 for use for locally-sentenced prisoners. Royal Commissions were held in 1898 and 1911, and instigated some reform to the prison system, but significant changes did not begin until the 1960s. The government department in charge of the prison underwent several reorganisations in the 1970s and 1980s, but the culture of Fremantle Prison was resistant to change. Growing prisoner discontent culminated in a 1988 riot with guards taken hostage, and a fire that caused $1.8 million worth of damage. The prison closed in 1991, replaced by the new maximum-security Casuarina Prison.
  The prison was administered by a comptroller general, sheriff, or director, responsible for the entire convict or prison system in Western Australia, and a superintendent in charge of the prison itself.
context_section_description: Convicts were introduced into Western Australia for three main purposes: inexpensive labour, additional labour, and an injection of British government spending into the local economy. During the initial years of transportation, convicts were generally young, from a rural background, and of good character, having only committed minor offences – potential future colonists, after their sentence had been served. By the 1860s the majority were older, more serious offenders from urban areas, including political prisoners considered to be "difficult and dangerous". Following the transfer of Fremantle Prison to local control in 1886, it became Western Australia's primary prison. In the late 1880s and 1890s the number of inmates swelled dramatically. This increase predominantly comprised prisoners serving shorter sentences of under three months. The number of inmates in 1897 was 379, and Inspector of Prisons James Roe viewed the prison as "inconveniently full".
  Despite a large expansion of the prison system, the problem of overcrowding remained throughout the 20th century, as did Western Australia's high incarceration rate relative to the rest of Australia. The nature of prisoners changed, with three times the proportion of 16- to 19-year-olds in 1984 compared to 1898, and a growing over-representation of Aboriginal prisoners to nearly half the incarcerated population. Sentences also increased in length, such that in 1984 more than 80% of inmates were serving more than a year. In the 1970s and 1980s, there was an increasing number of people committed for violent crimes, but still a minority of the population. Both staff and prisoners, however, perceived a notable increase in violence during these years, coinciding with the rise of illegal drugs in prison, and of sentences for drug-related offences.
caption: Prisoners in front of Main Cell Block, c. 1971
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