We need safe prisons to back up law and order promises

The Liberal Party’s promise to fund mobile policing units must be backed by funding to ensure that extra pressure is not placed upon WA’s already overcrowded prisons, the WA Prison Officers Union said today.

Today’s announcement follows promises of out-of-hours court hearings and mandatory sentencing for break-and-enters.

“The Liberal Party is running on a law-and-order platform. But any measure designed to crack down on offenders will flow through to more people in our prisons,” said WAPOU Secretary John Welch.

“Western Australian prisons are already under pressure. We have seen a surge in assaults on prison officers.

“The Liberals need to explain how their promises will impact on numbers in custody and how they will resource prison officers to handle any additional impact on the prison population,” said Mr Welch.

“Safe and properly-resourced prisons are the bedrock of an effective law and order regime. Prison officers deserve answers to their questions about how they’ll be supported to deal with the promised law and order crackdown.”