Prison Life
In 1992 Minogue established the first ever law library in Pentridge's J Division.
Minogue has initiated many legal challenges against the Victorian government, mostly concerning his treatment while imprisoned. In 2002 Minogue applied unsuccessfully to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) seeking copies of prison management and operation manuals. His request was refused, but he was granted access to limited information and restricted to viewing such information while within the prison library. This decision has been widely criticized by academics and lawyers as promoting a lack of administrative transparency in the prison system and creating a situation where the rules that prisoners are supposed to abide by are concealed from them.
Minogue's willingness to institute legal proceedings against prison authorities has not endeared him to them. In 2003 Minogue took action in the Victorian Supreme Court against Group4, the UK based company which operates the Port Phillip Prison. The action was in relation to the prison's confiscation of his computer and much of his legal and academic materials. Staff of Group4 nearly found themselves in contempt of court when Minogue sought to have contempt charges brought against them, but he agreed to drop his application for the charges after lawyers for Group4 gave the Court an undertaking not to engage in conduct he was complaining about. Group4 settled the action by returning Minogue's belongings. Shortly after this Minogue was moved to the state run maximum security HM Prison Barwon where he stayed until his transfer to the medium security Marngoneet Correctional Centre in 2008, where he remains today.
In 2005 Minogue, who entered the prison system illiterate, completed his Bachelor of Arts Degree with Honours from Deakin University. In the same year he was accepted as a PhD. student at La Trobe University, the first prisoner in Australia and one of the few in the world to do so. Minogue uses his web site www.craigminogue.org to keep interested parties abreast of his academic work.
Minogue requests a single-bed cell while imprisoned, as is normal for Victorian prisoners, and shares his cell with a large amount of legal texts, hardcover law resource books, academic materials, PC and printer. He has helped many prisoners with legal matters and has authored a series of self-help pamphlets explaining in simple terms the workings of the Victorian criminal justice system. These pamphlets are also used in community education programs run by Victorian community legal centers and the "Court Readiness Program" run by Monash University.
On 29 October 1987, Minogue, along with other prisoners detained in the high security Jika Jika unit of Pentridge Prison, were protesting against the inhumane conditions in the unit. They began to seal off doors to their cells using a tennis net and bedding. Windows were covered with paper so the prison officers were unable to identify prisoners causing damage.
The prisoners emptied water from the S bend of the toilets in their cells. They had planned to use a wet blanket to cover their heads while they attempted to breathe the small amount of air in the sewage plumbing system when a fire was lit. Smoke rapidly filled the unit. Jika Jika was completely free of any fresh air whatsoever as it was a climate controlled division. In spite of the men's attempts to avoid the thick, toxic black smoke by breathing through the plumbing, prisoners Robert Wright, Jimmy Loughnan, Arthur Gallagher, David McGauley and Ricky Morris died in the fire. Minogue and three other prisoners survived. All four spent days on ventilators recovering in the prison hospital.
Attorney General and Minister for Corrections Jim Kennan immediately ordered the closure of the Jika Jika maximum security section of Pentridge Prison thereafter saying:
- "The level of deaths in Jika Jika has become unacceptable".
None of the surviving prisoners were charged with any offences. In the ensuing coronial inquest into the deaths in the fire Minogue gave evidence over three days. At the completion of the inquest the State Coroner found Corrections Victoria was, in his words, "moribund and corrupt". A book by Monash University academic and historian Dr. Bree Carlton, Imprisoning Resistance, examines the prisoner resistance which lead to the Jika Jika fire.
Read more about this topic: Craig Minogue
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