Suicide and self harm are becoming such a feature of our asylum seeker detention system the Commonwealth Ombudsman has decided to investigate. This year there has been a massive upsurge in self harm in detention centres – there were 1100 last year and 54 in the first week of July alone. The government has brought in the chairman of Suicide Prevention Australia, Michael Dudley, and has claimed they have reduced the number of people in detention by more than 2000 since April to 4100. But the fact remains, there has been a huge surge in self harm. Tim Brunero spoke to Greg Barnes, the President of the Australian Lawyers Alliance, and he asked Greg if there would be an outcry if this was happening in our prison system.
