The lack of air conditioning at a WA jail has been raised with the Human Rights Commissioner and UN. 

Australian Human Rights Commissioner Lorraine Finlay has reflected on living conditions and prisoner welfare at Roebourne Regional Prison (RRP) in WA’s north.

Advocates have been pushing the WA Government to install air conditioning in all of the prison’s cells after the region hit a record 50.5 degrees last month.

Ms Finlay told a recent estimates hearing that cooling at Roebourne jail has been the subject of “considerable recommendations over a considerable period of time and still hasn't been addressed at a state level”.

Australia ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT) in 2017, but Ms Finlay says it has not been fully implemented.

“OPCAT in and of itself won't solve those problems [at Roebourne],” she said.

“But what it does do is create oversight of them, it shines a light on them, and hopefully through that it can help encourage every state and territory government, and the national government, to ensure there are those minimum human right protections in places of detention across Australia.”

The Aboriginal Legal Service of WA (ALSWA) has written to the United Nations to ask for support, raising “serious concerns about inhuman and discriminatory living conditions” at the prison.

“The conditions at RRP pose significant risks to the safety and health of the prisoners and are a flagrant breach of Australia's obligations under international human rights law,” chief executive Dennis Eggington wrote.

“It's clear to us the absence of air-conditioning in many of the cells at RRP breaches the [UN's] Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.

“We also consider that the lack of appropriate measures to ensure effective climatic control in light of the soaring temperatures at RRP amounts to cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment or punishment.

“Approximately 80-90 per cent of the prison population at RRP identifies as Aboriginal.

“In ALSWA's view, the conditions at RRP would not be tolerated if the majority of people in the prison were not Aboriginal.

“The Department of Justice has continually failed to remedy the situation and pleas from ALSWA and other organisations to the WA government have fallen on deaf ears.”

The WA Government has previously pointed out that there are fans in every Roebourne cell and air conditioning in the recreation hall.