Cornelia was lucky that talented, compassionate, mercifull,tenderhearted, loving, caring, thoroughly decent and extremely honest amanda vanstone didn't strip her of her citizenship and send her to Pakistan or Afghanistan. Perhaps amanda wasn't feeling to well that day. Regards, numbat

While not attempting to diminish the wrong that was carried out in failing to properly identify and treat the mental health condition of Cornelia Rau, her situation would probably not be unique, and it is now recognised that a high percentage of males and females in prison have conditions of mental ill health.

The ration of males to females in prison is approx 15 to 1, with a similar percentage of male and female prisoners with mental ill-health problems. This means that in overall numbers, there are many more male prisoners than female prisoners in need of treatment.

What is most likely is that incarceration without proper treatment may very well worsen the condition, and eventually the person is released with a deteriorated mental health problem. That can then lead to re-incarceration. From the Criminal Justice and ental Fact Sheet at…http://www.mhcc.org.au/factsheets/factsheet1_Criminal_justice.htm

“A study of 500 psychiatric patients found only a 4% lifetime crime prevalence, indicating “no inherent link between mental illness and crime,” but there remains “a strong causal link between mental illness and incarceration.” (MHCC, 2003, studies also show that 25-45% of urban males are arrested before they turn 18) Lifetime arrest rates for people with a mental illness range from 42-50%.”

The author of this article has mainly identified mentall ill health amongst female prisoners, but in terms of resource allocation to treat mental ill health overall, I would think that there should not be an over-concentration on treating mentally ill females, to the exclusion of mentally ill males.

why is this the fault of the federal government? Didn't Keating / Hawke / Evans etc INVENT "Detention Centres" so as to hold people they suspected of being Illegal immigrants to Australia?
Arrested by Queenland cops & detained for SIX MONTHS prior to being sent to Baxter & not a sqeak from the LEFT. As soon as she is sent to Baxter the left goes nuts & completely exonerates their comrades in the form of the Beattie Government whilst raising the old chestnut of THE 'MORALITY OF DETENTION CENTRES'...
I'm sorry but no matter how much of a 'nanny bedwetting state' our liberal left wants us to be the feds our NOT responsible for this. Baxter is for people who upon entering this country cannot prove who they are. The fact that she insisted 'she was an illegal imigrant from Germany named Anna Schimdt and had a fake passport to support this claim means that the system works.
If you want to apportion blame then look to the Qld labor party & the Richmond reforms, incidently, implemented under a federal Labour government, just like all our detention centres, but hey, when did the left ever tell the truth

The Hawke government established detention centres in order to check out the status of asylum seekers before they were released into the community. This apparently remains ALP policy. However, the processing of refugee claims then was relatively fast so that people were not left to rot indefinitely behind barbed wire, and they retained access to legal rights recognised under international law.

The difference under the Howard government is that the detention of asylum seekers is now "indefinite" for those who cannot prove refugee status (and 90% have turned out to be genuine refugees) and cannot be returned to their country of origin. There are children who have been in these centres for years. The centres are legal black holes where no access is allowed by independent lawyers, medical specialists, journalists, or human rights advocates, who might shine some light on the conditions endured. Further, these centres are now run by private companies for profit and not by government agencies, and accountability is minimal.

In the Cornelia Rau case, she was detained in a Queensland jail for six months by federal Immigration, not because of any breach of Queensland laws. She was then moved to Baxter, where her condition remained undiagnosed or treated, despite repeated complaints from advocates and fellow inmates, and she was brutally mistreated, including being confined in an isolation cell. She suffers from schizophrenia.

If you were a director of a detention centre, would you be in any hurry to reduce your income by allowing your management to discharge a revenue-unit? Come now, you would be derelict in your duty to your shareholders.

The government - and I use that word in the loosest, non-partisan terms - is at fault here for being unable to safeguard the rights of the individual. To argue otherwise is to be contemptuous of those in society less able to take care of themselves.

So, the "system" has flaws. What is being asked of the present government - all that is being asked, in fact - is that the enquiry into the faults in the system is conducted in the open. This is the honest way to address the problem.

I think the article mainly uses the case of Cornelia Rau, to help highlight the situation of many people who are mentally ill, but have been incarcerated into prisons where minimal treatment is being provided. (EG “We are frustrated because the same, systemic inhumanity is meted out daily to thousands of mentally ill prisoners and detainees and most of their shocking and heartbreaking stories will never come to light.”)

However this situation has not been un-recognised in the past, even by the Criminal Justice System. In a seminar on Mental Health and Criminal Justice held in 2002, Judge Frank Walker said the following :-

“The reality is that NSW gaols have replaced the old Lunatic Asylums of the 1950's as the place of care for some 4,000 citizens of this state suffering mental illness. The economic rationalists in our Treasury no doubt see logic in that change. It costs about $60,000 annually to keep a prisoner and $200,000 to provide a secure hospital bed.”

at … http://www.abc.net.au/rn/arts/radioeye/crime/essay.htm

With so much money involved in providing treatment for the mentally ill, attempts may be made to avoid a general inquiry into prisons, where many mentally ill people are presently being kept.

The Cornelia Rau case has focused national attention on the appalling conditions inside the detention centres. Similar to the Habib case, the Rau case raises important questions about our attitudes as a nation towards arbitrary detention by the executive rather than the judiciary, and indefinite incarceration and torture in concentration camps here and abroad.

This is not a conversation that the Howard government wants us to have. Better that the loyal shock-jocks and their acolytes run riot whipping up the usual hatred and fear against individuals, as they are doing, right on cue. This obscures the more complex questions about where our nation is heading in disregarding our commitments to international laws and conventions on human rights.

The reason Verandah Sandstone announced a closed inquiry with limited terms of reference by Mick Palmer is to get the issue off the front pages as fast as possible. So fast that she was unable to answer detailed questions about the inquiry procedures at her announcement last week. A closed enquiry means that further public discussion on the wider implications of the Rau case are muted for the time being.

An open inquiry into the Rau case, such as a royal commission, would have opened the gate for continuing public debate about the morality and legality of the detention centres under the Howard government. Not safe for the government now that parliament is back in session.

Meanwhile, the condition of mental health services, deplorable as they are, have become the focus of discussion. A neat diversion because this keeps the pressure up on the State governments who have the major responsibilities in this area, and off the Howard government and the detention centres

The majority of this article (IE 90%) is on mental health treatment of “prisoners”, of which “detainees” are a small percentage (eg “Our agenda [Sisters Inside] is to shine a light inside hundreds of solitary confinement cells so the community can see the ill and disturbed people huddling there in pain and terror”).

The plight of mentally ill prisoners is also in many other articles in the press (EG “Rau is only an extreme example - our prisons are full of mentally ill people”)

at … http://www.smh.com.au/news/Opinion/Rau-is-only-an-extreme-example--our-prisons-are-full-of-mentally-ill-people/2005/02/08/1107625210505.html

Grace,let's be honest here.The reason why most of these people are in detention centres is that they have been rejected as being true refugees, ie being persecuted by their Govt.or others.In the main they are economic refugees who want a better life.They are in detention because they are using our legal system to appeal time and time again.They can go home at will, but choose not to.

It is shame upon us all that Cornelia Rau was treated so badly,but don't try to draw parallels between those who have chosen their detention on grounds of appeal and the mentally ill who have been largely abandoned by us all.

Sayeret - of the 9160 boat arrivals in the three years to June 2002, 90% or 8260 were found to be genuine refugees (Mike Steketee, The Australian, today).

That is, after years of cruel incarceration in our detention centres, where their trauma was ignored and mistreated in a similar manner to Cornelia's, it was finally concluded that these 8260 people, including many innocent children, had a well-founded fear of persecution or death if forced return to their homelands. Those countries of origin included Iraq under Saddam and Afghanistan under the Taliban.

These people were not economic refugees, or "illegal immigrants", they were genuine refugees who came to our shores seeking sanctuary.

Some of those found not to be refugees, are nevertheless to be detained "indefinitely", not because they don't want to get out of a country that treats them so viciously, but because they have no "homeland" to go to. Mohammed Qasim has been locked up for more than 6 years at enormous cost. This is longer than the average jail term for robbers and rapists. Why are we doing this?

Read Petro Georgiou's article "We Have Abandoned our Dearest Values on Asylum", in the SMH today.

Sorry, that was addressed to Arjay not Sayeret.

In her latest book "Human Cargo: A Journey Among Refugees", Caroline Moorehead has some fairly strong words on our recent treatment of asylum-seekers. She tells some stories that I hadn't picked up on from our local coverage, for example Philip Ruddock referring to Shayan, the traumatised Iranian lad, as "it".

She also mentions an organization I had not heard of, the "Professional Alliance for the Health of Asylum Seekers and their Children", which apparently has a roll of some 50,000 doctors and health workers, dedicated to alleviating their suffering.

Grace ,if you are a refugee ,you are supposed to go to the closest country and register as such.Why are these people from the Middle East by passing hundreds of coutries just to reach us?There are 20 million refugees in the world,plus billions who live in abject poverty.Can a population of a mere 20 million accommodate them all?
Are you willing to live like them and give up all your possessions?
These people have to evolve at their own pace.We can't become the bleeding heart recepticale of the world.We are hard pressed looking after our own,and can do without the complexities of religious fundmentalism and the threats of Jihad.
Racist you say?These people are escaping oppression!Well many children who have been victims of pedophiles end up being thus, as adults.What does this tell you about human nature? People bring their baggage with them and all will not be well in the "LAND OF OZ"

arjay: Fine do not let them in but whilst they are waiting for deportation treat them as human with mercy and decency and not as rabid animals. If the guards perved on our Australian inmate just imagin what they are doing to the asylum seekers. Regards, numbat

Cornelia Rau ended up in a dtetention centre because she is MAD. The problem lies NOT with the Queensland government for locking her up after she convincingly deceived the police. Nor does it lie with the federal government for locking her in Baxter Detention centre because Cornelia lied as only a mad person can lie - so convincingy that all the specialists who interviwed her believed her concocted stories.

Ms Kilroy who claims to have worked with the mentally ill for so long should be more honest in her article. The mentally ill person who is intelligent is a better chess players than the average person. He/she is an expert in the art of deception and guile.

The real issue is that Cornelia Rau was able to deceive 'experts' at a hospital for the mentally ill in NSW. She was able to be gain day release as a prelude to full release into an unsuspecting community. She was able to beguile others even though it was to her own detriment. If Ms Kilroy and her Sisters Inside really care about the mentally ill, they should focus on this issue and demand solutions to the questions that are raised in this contect. I rather suspect, cynically, the issue is one of securing future funding for Sisters Inside instead of seeking real solutions to the real problems that result in the mentally becoming homeless and their ending in places and circumstances even more tragic than than those of the Baxter detention centre.