Nagle's report, handed down in 1978, described "an inefficient Department administering antiquated and disgraceful gaols; untrained and sometimes ignorant prison officers, resentful, intransigent and incapable of performing their tasks.
[7] Officers serving at Grafton were entitled to a curiously named "climatic allowance", intended to attract "capable, tactful and robust" men and compensate them for the "arduous nature" of their work.
This began when the prisoner arrived with a "reception biff" and continued throughout the man's sentence whenever he was thought to breach "written or unwritten rules".
[8] The abuses at Grafton continued undetected for some 30 years, but by the 1970s the prison had acquired a reputation for brutality and questions began to be asked in Parliament and the media.
Corrective Services changed its approach to managing the so-called intractables, opening the 40-bed Katingal Special Security Unit at Long Bay in 1975.
[12] Following the second Bathurst riot, the Liberal Premier, Sir Robert Askin, promised an inquiry – but this was deferred pending the outcome of criminal charges against the rioters.
[13] On 31 March 1976, Askin's successor, Eric Willis established the promised royal commission, with Supreme Court justice John Flood Nagle presiding.
Although Wran did not amend the terms of reference, Mitchell and Derwent were demoted to consultant roles, and Radzinowicz – considered too conservative – was sacked.
Hearings were conducted in an adversarial manner, with Counsel Assisting the commission, David Hunt, examining Departmental staff, current and former inmates, and other witnesses.
These included violence at Grafton Gaol, the role of Long Bay's Katingal unit, and allegations of inappropriate behaviour by officers at Goulburn and Milson Island.
[17] The commission also considered more general issues of policy: management, staff conditions, external oversight, classification, security measures, inmate work assignments, education programs, remissions, probation and parole, sentencing, record-keeping, public relations, research, and planning.
Its 630 pages excoriated "an inefficient Department administering antiquated and disgraceful gaols; untrained and sometimes ignorant prison officers, resentful, intransigent and incapable of performing their tasks.
Under Askin, restrictions on off-track betting had begun to be relaxed with the spread of government-owned totalisator agencies, and a 1971 court decision had effectively legalised abortion.
On 19 March 1979, it appointed Vinson as chief commissioner alongside Day, Arnold Bailey, Dr John Ellard and Frank Hayes.
[26] Of the others, including the men who committed the assaults at Bathurst and Grafton, Nagle wrote that he saw "no purpose at this late stage of recommending criminal prosecutions.
Nagle called for the Department to take over the Cumberland Hospital site at North Parramatta, and to proceed with a major expansion of the Bathurst complex.
Katingal, the special unit at Long Bay which had replaced Grafton as the last stop for high-risk inmates only in 1975, was closed on Nagle's recommendation.