with zero binding temperature standards to protect them
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Australia's prisons hold people who are unable to protect themselves from extreme heat.
They cannot open a window, move to a cooler room, or leave a facility reaching dangerous temperatures.
The law removes those options when it removes their liberty.
Extreme heat in correctional settings is a documented health crisis with a documented racial dimension.
First Nations people make up over a third of Australia's adult prison population.[2]
They are held disproportionately in the facilities most exposed to heat.
Climate change is intensifying this crisis with every passing summer. Heatwaves are becoming more frequent and more severe across all Australian climate zones. Prison infrastructure designed for the 20th century is operating in 21st-century heat.
Australia has zero binding national temperature standards for correctional facilities. Each state and territory manages its own framework. Individual prisons operate with varying degrees of cooling, monitoring, and heat response protocols.
The result is a two-tiered system in which the most disadvantaged Australians carry the greatest thermal risk. Incarcerated people have almost no capacity for self-protection. Their safety depends entirely on the institutions that hold them captive.
That dependency creates a legal obligation. The duty of care owed to incarcerated persons is among the most stringent in Australian law. Whether that duty is being met in conditions of extreme heat is a question warranting direct and sustained examination.
This investigation examines the standards governing heat management in Australian prisons. It assesses the accountability mechanisms available to regulators. And it asks whether those mechanisms adequately discharge the state's obligations to those it holds in custody.
As of 30 June 2025, there were 46,998 adult prisoners in Australia.[1] Of those, 17,432 were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. That number represents a 10 per cent increase from the previous year.
First Nations adults are imprisoned at a rate of 2,500.2 per 100,000 adults.[3]
The corresponding rate for non-Indigenous Australians is approximately 148 per 100,000. The disparity is the product of accumulated structural disadvantage, unaddressed across generations.
First Nations people make up under 4 per cent of the general Australian population.[4]
They account for 37 per cent of the adult prison population. Closing the Gap Target 10 aimed to reduce that disparity by 15 per cent from the 2019 baseline. The rate has worsened by 30 per cent instead.
The health profile of First Nations prisoners compounds their heat vulnerability. Nearly 38 per cent of First Nations prison entrants carry a current chronic physical health condition.[4]
Mental health disorders affect approximately 43 per cent of Indigenous adults entering prison.
Chronic conditions including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and renal impairment all elevate heat-related morbidity and mortality risk. First Nations Australians carry higher burdens of these conditions than the general population. Prison concentrates this compounded risk inside built environments with limited cooling capacity.
People entering prison are also more likely to have experienced homelessness, unemployment, and trauma. These factors correlate with poorer baseline health status. Heat stress layered onto pre-existing vulnerability creates cascading clinical risk that facilities are structurally ill-equipped to manage.
Incarcerated women face specific compounding factors. First Nations women represent one of the fastest-growing segments of Australia's prison population. Their exposure to heat in overcrowded and poorly ventilated facilities adds a further dimension to an already disproportionate burden.
Roebourne Regional Prison sits in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, more than 1,550 kilometres north of Perth.[6]
It is consistently identified as the hottest prison in Australia. The facility opened in 1984 and was constructed without air conditioning as standard.
In January 2022, temperatures in the town of Roebourne reached 50.5 degrees Celsius.[7]
Cell temperatures inside the prison approached that figure. Overnight temperatures in cells commonly exceeded 33 degrees, and regularly remained above 35 degrees before midnight.
The majority of Roebourne's prisoners are First Nations people. Advocates, legal services, and inspection bodies raised warnings about the facility's thermal conditions for more than two decades. Each warning produced commentary and deferral rather than structural action.
The WA Office of the Inspector of Custodial Services conducted nine inspections of Roebourne from 2003 onwards.[5]
Its 2022 inspection took place during extreme heat, with daily temperatures exceeding 40 degrees. The Inspector had raised grave concerns about thermal conditions in 2020 and reiterated those concerns in 2022.
In November 2022, under sustained public pressure, the WA government pledged $10 million for air conditioning in every cell.[7]
Installation was initially scheduled for the 2023-24 financial year. That deadline passed without a contractor even being selected.
The Aboriginal Legal Service of WA wrote to Corrective Services Minister Paul Papalia in early 2024.[6]
CEO Wayne Nannup described the ongoing conditions as "distressing" and potentially fatal. He urged the government to complete the installation without further delay and declared further failure was unconscionable.
Air conditioning was ultimately installed in Units 1 and 2 between September 2024 and July 2025.[5]
The prison population was reduced and units were closed one at a time during installation. Roebourne returned to full capacity once works were complete, more than two decades after the first recommendation to install cooling.
The 2008 death of Mr Ward, a Ngaanyatjarra elder, remains the most visceral illustration of state failure under extreme heat. He was 46 years old. He died of heatstroke on 27 January 2008, in the rear pod of a prison transport van.
Mr Ward had been arrested in Laverton for alleged drink-driving and refused bail.[8]
The following day he was transported 360 kilometres to Kalgoorlie by private contractor GSL. The journey took approximately four hours through extreme summer heat.
The air conditioning in the transport van's rear compartment had malfunctioned.[8]
Outside temperatures exceeded 40 degrees Celsius that day. The temperature inside the rear pod was estimated to have reached 50 degrees or above.
On arrival at Kalgoorlie hospital, Mr Ward had a core body temperature of 41.7 degrees.[8]
He had sustained third-degree burns to his abdomen from contact with the metal floor. The WA State Coroner described his death as "wholly unnecessary and avoidable."
The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission condemned Mr Ward's treatment as "cruel, inhumane and degrading".[9]
His death forced a complete overhaul of prisoner transport in WA. The state acquired air-conditioned vehicles fitted with electronic temperature alarms.
The Inspector of Custodial Services noted in 2015 that Mr Ward's death had produced national standards for prisoner transport.[13]
It had generated no equivalent focus on thermal conditions within prison cells. The transport oversight was remedied. The cellular oversight remained unaddressed.
Mr Ward's death was preceded by warnings from the Inspector about the condition of the vehicle fleet. Those warnings were ignored until a fatality forced action. The pattern of warning, inaction, and crisis would repeat in subsequent years at Roebourne and Alice Springs.
Alice Springs Correctional Centre is the main maximum security prison for the Northern Territory. It is located 25 kilometres outside Alice Springs, in the desert interior of Australia. Its official capacity is 470 inmates, a figure it has routinely exceeded.
On Boxing Day 2023, fifteen prisoners attempted to escape their cells during a heatwave.[10]
External temperatures reached 37 degrees Celsius. Cells at the facility had no air conditioning units. Prisoners reportedly used t-shirts and pedestal fans to rip a hole in a ceiling.
The Justice Reform Initiative described the conditions as "inhumane". Union secretary Erina Early called Alice Springs a "very hot box".[10]
The NT Ombudsman had separately recommended air conditioning be installed. The NT government took zero structural action in response to any of it.
By February 2025, the Alice Springs watch house was holding up to 20 women in a single cell.[11]
Affidavits submitted to the Alice Springs Local Court described unbearable heat, overcrowding, and malfunctioning air conditioning. Aboriginal Peak Organisations NT condemned the conditions as a clear violation of human rights.
The Northern Territory records both the highest incarceration rate and the highest recidivism rate in Australia. First Nations adults are imprisoned at a rate far exceeding any other jurisdiction. This concentration of medically vulnerable people in facilities with inadequate cooling creates compounding clinical risk.
The NT government's response to heat concerns at Alice Springs comprised monitoring temperature levels and providing additional cold drinking water.[10]
No commitment to structural cooling upgrades followed the Boxing Day incident or subsequent advocacy campaigns. The Justice Reform Initiative described the situation as "waiting for a tragedy."
Jesuit Social Services argued in 2024 that Alice Springs reflected a broader failure to adapt justice systems to climate realities.[12]
Air conditioning was identified as a minimum first step. Continued inaction was described as additional punishment inflicted on people already deprived of their liberty.
Australia's correctional facilities are governed by state and territory legislation. There is zero federal standard setting minimum or maximum temperatures for prison cells. This produces a fragmented and inconsistent regulatory landscape across eight jurisdictions.
The Guiding Principles for Corrections in Australia represent a national statement of intent for correctional services. They are high-level and outcomes-focused. They carry zero binding legal force on individual facilities or jurisdictions and create no enforceable temperature obligation.
The Nelson Mandela Rules, the UN's Standard Minimum Rules for prisoner treatment, apply to Australia through its international obligations. The Rules require adequate ventilation and protection from extreme temperatures. Compliance is assessed through UN reporting mechanisms with limited domestic enforcement capacity.
At the state level, each correctional system operates under its own legislation and internal policy framework. Western Australia's Department of Justice produced heat management policies for prisons after the Mr Ward inquest. These policies set administrative guidance rather than enforceable temperature standards.
A 2015 thermal review by the WA Inspector of Custodial Services made a damning finding.[13]
The Department had classified climate control in prisons as "low relative priority" in 2013 and 2014. The Department had conducted no systematic research into cell temperatures. It provided no evidence to justify its position.
The review noted that newer WA prisons set a cell temperature range of 18 to 30 degrees as a standard.[13]
Older facilities, including Roebourne, operated with zero equivalent standard. The review described a two-tiered system in which regional prisoners in older infrastructure carried greater thermal risk.
Without binding temperature standards, duty of care obligations become the primary legal avenue for challenging inadequate heat conditions. That framework is inherently litigation-dependent. It responds to harm rather than preventing it.
The duty of care owed by the state to incarcerated persons is well-established in Australian law. It requires the state to take reasonable steps to prevent foreseeable harm to those it holds in custody. Extreme heat during an Australian summer is foreseeable harm.
Mr Ward's death established that failure to maintain safe thermal conditions in custody can constitute a breach of duty.[8]
The coroner found the death wholly avoidable. It resulted from failures that had been warned about repeatedly and ignored systematically.
Australian courts have yet to impose a binding temperature standard on any correctional facility. Litigation over prison conditions has produced findings and recommendations rather than mandatory minimum standards. The legal framework rewards individual complaints rather than requiring structural reform.
The Inspector of Custodial Services model, operating independently across several jurisdictions, provides the closest equivalent to systematic oversight. Inspectors can make recommendations. Those recommendations can be rejected, deferred, or simply left unimplemented without legal consequence.
The Roebourne timeline illustrates the limits of that model with precision. Recommendations for adequate climate control were made in 2010, repeated in 2013, reiterated in 2020, and reiterated again in 2022.[13]
Installation commenced in 2024. The delay spanned more than a decade of identified and documented risk.
Accountability for heat-related harm in prisons runs through complaint mechanisms, coronial inquests, and parliamentary scrutiny. These mechanisms have value. They function too slowly to protect the person sweating in an un-airconditioned cell on a 45-degree afternoon.
The Closing the Gap framework includes Target 10: a 15 per cent reduction in First Nations incarceration rates by 2031.[3]
The rate has moved in the opposite direction. Targets without enforcement mechanisms generate reports rather than outcomes. On heat in prisons, as on incarceration rates, Australia is worsening what it has pledged to improve.
Australia holds tens of thousands of people in correctional facilities that offer almost no legal protection from extreme heat. It holds First Nations people in those facilities at a rate 17 times that of the general population. It manages those facilities under a framework producing guidance and reports. That framework has yielded zero mandatory minimum temperature standards.
Roebourne is a record of what happens when the state knows a risk and acknowledges the obligation. Then it defers the remedy for two decades. The Alice Springs story is that same pattern in motion. The death of Mr Ward is what happens when the deferral ends and a body reaches its limit.
Incarcerated people have no ability to choose their environment. They depend entirely on the state to keep them safe. When that environment becomes dangerous through extreme heat, and the state has all the tools to act, failure is inexcusable. It is a breach of duty of care.
The fix requires binding temperature standards across all Australian jurisdictions. It requires infrastructure investment in older facilities concentrated in remote and regional Australia. And it requires political will to treat those in state custody as people for whom the state is fully responsible.
- Australian Bureau of Statistics (2025): Prisoners in Australia, 2025
- Australian Institute of Health and Welfare: Adults in Prison
- Productivity Commission: Closing the Gap Dashboard — Outcome Area 10, Incarceration
- AIHW (2024): The Health and Wellbeing of First Nations People in Australia's Prisons 2022
- Office of the Inspector of Custodial Services WA: Announced Inspection of Roebourne Regional Prison (2025)
- Aboriginal Legal Service of WA (2024): Roebourne Regional Prison — Cells Still Without Air-Conditioning
- The Justice Map (2024): Australia's Hottest Prison Is Still Without Air Conditioning
- Office of the Inspector of Custodial Services WA: Background — The Death of Mr Ward
- SBS NITV (2018): 'Cooked' to Death — Ten Years After the Death of Mr Ward
- National Indigenous Times (2024): 'Inhumane Conditions' — Calls to Air-Condition Alice Springs Prison
- SBS NITV (2025): Accounts from Inside the Alice Springs Watch House
- Jesuit Social Services (2024): Climate Emergency and Prisons Don't Mix
- OICS WA (2015): Thermal Conditions of Prison Cells — Review Report