CORRECTIONS Victoria bosses who said last night’s prison riot over banning smoking in jails was ‘not what it expected’, needed only to look at hit Foxtel drama Wentworth to get a hint of what would happen.
An almost prophetic episode of the show screened in April saw inmates at the fictional Wentworth Correctional Centre go ballistic went prison governor Joan ‘The Freak’ Ferguson (Pamela Rabe) put in place a blanket smoking ban.
The result? Inmates rioting, setting fire to mattresses in the recreation yard, and the prison in lockdown before a truce of sorts was negotiated — including a slow introduction of the ban to give the fictional inmates more time to quit.
Prophetic show ... Authorities could learn a thing or two from <i>Wentworth</i>.
Wentworth has long drawn inspiration from the stories of real-life inmates, and this one was no exception.
Sources from within the Melbourne Remand Centre said today cigarettes had started running out a week ago, fuelling tensions in the prison. It was also claimed stocks of tobacco were being stashed by inmates, then uncovered in cell checks, and prisoners who smoke were recruiting — sometimes forcibly — nonsmoking inmates to buy the weekly quota of cigarettes to add to their supplies.
All of these incidents were touched in Wentworth’s season three opener.
Ultimately the episode, called The Governor’s Pleasure saw prison heads agree to a softer approach to the smoking ban — something Corrections Victoria bosses had already tried ahead of last night’s riots, which lasted some 15 hours and saw three prison staff and five inmates injured.
Prison riots ... Footage from Channel Seven shows prisoners running wild. Source: Supplied
Victoria Corrections Commissioner Jan Shuard said corrections had done “an enormous amount” of work leading up to the ban with only 10 to 20 per cent of inmates unable to kick the habit at the time of the riot. Nicotine replacement therapy, a quit program and addition recreation activities would continue, she said.
In three seasons Wentworth, a reimagining of 1980s Australian hit series Prisoner, has won accolades for its gritty, realistic and sometimes brutal prison storylines. Recognition came at this year’s 2015 Logie Awards, where Wentworth won Most Outstanding Drama Series and lead Danielle Cormack, who plays prison top dog Bea Smith on the show, won Most Outstanding Actress.
The smoking ban at Victorian prisons remains in force from today.
Over at fictional Wentworth, where season three wrapped in fiery style — complete with explosions far eclipsing the lighting of a ciggie — and filming of season four is yet to start, the ultimate test of the full ban is still to come.
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