Introduction
The Department of Corrections, through the Prison Services (PS), currently manages over 6,000 offenders daily, at 18 locations throughout the country.
The Department contributes to the government's key goals, with the primary focus being to protect the public by directly working towards the achievement of the contributory outcomes of safe communities and reducing re-offending.
The Department also contributes to safer communities, in particular by providing a safe environment for staff, offenders and the public.
To assist with the primary focus of protecting the public, PS has developed a National Incident Response Policy that identifies how major incidents will be dealt with to ensure that the response brings the incident to a safe and swift conclusion, minimising the risk to life and the safety of any person and damage to property.
A National Incident Response Framework
To manage incident response, PS has developed a National Incident Response Framework.
This framework provides for:
- A structure for incident response, including the level of resource which is applied to different incidents;
- Different roles and responsibilities for incident response;
- Establishment of staff trained in incident response to perform incident response functions; and
- Each prison to develop and maintain emergency response plans to assist with the management of incidents and emergencies.
Incident Response Structure
Emergency Plans
PS has adopted the Coordinated Incident Management System (CIMS) for managing incident response.
This international standard provides a framework for handling incident response, and is particularly useful when coordinating an incident response with other agencies (e.g. Police, Fire Service, and Ambulance Service).
Each of the 18 prisons has developed comprehensive emergency response plans that outline how civil defence emergencies and serious incidents will be managed.
The emergency response plans are reviewed at least annually, and are developed based on best practice principles. The Department uses the planning and command SMEAC (Situation, Mission, Execution, Administration and Logistics, Command and Communication) format for the development of emergency plans.
Emergency response plans are an important part of the Department’s requirement, under the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act 2002, to continue essential functions to the optimum extent. PPS has developed a business continuity plan (BCP), and the objective of this is to return the prison site to business as usual quickly and to minimise risks during an emergency.
Clear Roles and Responsibilities for Managing Incidents
The PS National Incident Response Policy has set out guidelines for managing incidents. These guidelines identify the different roles, and recognise that responsibilities will vary based on the type and seriousness of an incident.
A clear statement of roles and responsibility will allow all staff to understand the authority for calling up, authorising deployment and managing the incident when an incident response is required.
Incident Response
Putting this policy into operation (other than for Level 1 response) is based on the suitable equipped and trained staff to respond to incidents. These trained staff will be declared and deployed to perform any incident response function.
Staff trained in incident response are located at most of the 18 PS prisons, and can provide support on a regional and, where required, inter-regional basis.
Trained staff are not dedicated fulltime for incident response, but rather are able to provide specialist skills for an incident response. The level of training in incident response capability is generally higher than the level of incident response training that all custodial staff receive.
When the decision to deploy trained staff is made, some of these staff may be able to respond immediately as they are currently on shift. In addition, staff may be called back to assist with the incident response. The staff brought together to respond to an incident will generally be referred to by their actual title e.g. Advanced C&R.
To recognise that there are varying degrees of incident response required, four levels of incident response have been identified. The level of response required is determined by the circumstances of the incident.
Level 1
- Level 1 is generally an incident involving a single prisoner e.g. a prisoner has barricaded him / herself in a cell and refuses to allow staff entry into the cell.
- Level 1 will normally involve any staff on shift as the skills required are generic to all staff e.g. first aid.
- Level 1 does not normally require staff to use specialist incident response clothing and equipment.
Level 2
- A Level 2 incident is one requiring a response from staff with specialist skills, or in larger numbers than required for a “basic” C&R response.
- Level 2 incidents do not require staff off-roster to be called in but can be managed by trained staff on duty.
- Level 2 level incidents will normally involve small groups of prisoners.
- Level 2 will utilise local (normally site-based) trained staff members for incident response.
- Support from external agencies (e.g. Police) is not required for a Level 2 incident.
- The Prison Manager can declare and deploy to a Level 2 incident.
Level 3
- A Level 3 incident will not generally require assistance from an external agency (e.g. Police, Fire Service), although they may be on “Standby” in case the incident escalates.
- In most circumstances trained staff on shift will not be able to provide an adequate response; therefore other staff trained in incident response will be called back to the prison to provide assistance.
- Level 3 incidents will involve larger groups of prisoners or a reasonably serious emergency situation.
- This level of response will require an Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) to be established. The EOC supports the overall incident response.
- A Level 3 incident is declared by the Prison Manager but the response is deployed by the Regional Manager.
Level 4
- A Level 4 incident is the most serious type of incident or emergency and requires assistance from one or more external agencies (e.g. Police, Fire Service).
- The incident will require staff trained in incident response to be called back to the prison to provide assistance.
- Staff trained in incident response from other prison sites within the region may be required to provide assistance.
- An Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) will be established.
- Except in the event of an automatic fire alarm, a Level 4 incident can only be declared and deployed by the Regional Manager.
Watch Point
- This National Incident Response Policy applies to most incidents that require a staff response.
- This policy should be read in conjunction with E.08 Responding to Incidents.
Responding to Emergencies
The circumstances of each incident will determine the process to be used and the level of authority to be invoked. This section establishes this hierarchy.
The First Responding Officer (FRO) will deal with many incidents (E.02.02) but there will be times when a more specialist approach is required or staff trained in incident response are required. In these cases the following responsibilities apply.
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First Responding Officer (FRO)
- Notifies the Unit Manager (or On Call Manager) of an incident that may require staff trained in incident response to be deployed through the control room.
- Can declare and deploy a Level 1 incident response.
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Unit Manager
- Notifies the Prison Manager or On Call Manager of the need to call up a staff trained in incident response to respond to an incident.
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Prison Manager (or On Call Manager)
- The Prison Manager can declare and deploy a Level 2 response for responding to an incident at their site.
- The Prison Manager must advise the Regional Manager (or AGM Ops or GMPS at National Office if the Regional Manager is not available) when a Level 2 response has been deployed at their site.
- The Prison Manager can declare a Level 3 response, but must ask their Regional Manager (Assistant General Manager Operations [AGM Ops] or General Manager PS [GMPS] at National Office if the Regional Manager is not available) to authorise the deployment of Level 3 resources.
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Regional Manager (or AGM Ops or GMPS)
- The Regional Manager can authorise deployment of a Level 3 response.
- Only the Regional Manager can declare and deploy a Level 4 response.
- In the absence of the Regional Manager the AGM Ops or GMPS at PS National Office can authorise the deployment of a Level 3 response, and declare and deploy a Level 4 response.
