Beds Unexpanded for Thirty Years: WA Court Rules Government Forced to Illegally Detain Mentally Ill Due to Lack of Resources

Justice Terence Palmer of the Supreme Court of Western Australia, in a scathing ruling, found that government officials were forced to detain mentally ill individuals in regular prisons in violation of the law itself, due to a severe shortage of beds at the state's only forensic psychiatric facility for mentally ill prisoners.

According to ABC News Australia, the case involves a man in his 40s, using the pseudonym SJQ, who suffers from treatment-resistant paranoid schizophrenia. A magistrate had previously ruled him unfit to stand trial on an assault charge due to his mental condition and ordered his transfer to the Frankland Centre at Graylands Hospital for treatment. However, because the centre could not provide a bed, SJQ was forced to wait at Hakea Prison in southern Perth for approximately two months, during which he did not receive appropriate psychiatric treatment, until his solicitor appealed and he was transferred.

ABC News Australia, citing the ruling, noted that the Frankland Centre has had only 30 beds since opening in 1993-94 and has never been expanded since; meanwhile, the number of prisoners in Western Australia has grown to four times the level when the centre opened. Justice Palmer explicitly rejected the defence from government lawyers that staff had "done their best under limited resources," writing: "Those responsible for the care of the mentally ill involved in the criminal justice system should not be placed in a position of having to act unlawfully due to a lack of resources." He added that the case "reveals a systemic failure deserving of condemnation" and that bringing it to light was in the public interest.

The ruling disclosed that over many years, the state government had received multiple warnings but failed to take effective action. According to ABC News Australia, the Western Australian Inspector of Custodial Services warned as early as 2018 that the number of beds at the Frankland Centre had been "insufficient for more than a decade"; four years later, the office further found that the facility had "inhumane" conditions constituting a violation of human rights. However, the state government's response was not to appoint a preliminary planning contractor for a nearly A$200 million expansion project until April this year.

ABC News Australia reported that the Frankland Centre had a 99% occupancy rate in the last financial year, and before SJQ was ordered to be transferred, there were already 18 people on the waiting list, including another patient in a similar situation; the longest wait time had reached 212 days.

Debra Zanella, head of Ruah Community Services, which operates Western Australia's only mental health legal service, told ABC News Australia that the ruling came as no surprise to those in the field. She noted that the systemic stigmatisation of mentally ill prisoners directly caused the failure identified in the ruling. "In no other area of our healthcare system would we refuse anyone that kind of care," she said.

The state government has launched a nearly A$200 million expansion project at Graylands, with plans to add 32 new sub-acute beds for male forensic psychiatric patients. However, according to ABC News Australia, the government has yet to announce a definite timetable for completion and operation. A state government spokesperson said in a statement: "The state government is considering the ruling and will continue to coordinate between the justice and health systems to ensure that those in need are placed in the most appropriate setting as soon as practicable."