Four Corners: Oct 16

Monday’s Four Corners “Trapped” by Alexandra Blucher reveals allegations of the torture and mistreatment of people living with disabilities and mental illness who are locked up indefinitely by the state.

Around Australia an estimated 700 people who have been charged, but not convicted, of crimes are being detained in the forensic system.

In some of the most extreme cases, they’re locked up for years in solitary confinement with no release date.

Some have been determined too great a risk to live in the community because of their history of violence and complex behaviour.

The United Nations has condemned this treatment, and along with the Disability Royal Commission, has called for an end to their indefinite detention.

Reporter Alexandra Blucher has gained unprecedented access to forensic patients and their families. In this program she enters a facility to speak to one man who’s spent more than two decades in custody.

He remains indefinitely detained.

The program also features another patient who’s spent 11 years secluded in a high-security unit with only a caged outdoor area, sometimes pitching a tent to obscure himself from the constant CCTV surveillance.

Blucher exposes the extent of harm that can be done to patients by forcing them to live in these conditions – in some cases making them more dangerous.

“Trapped” is an unflinching portrait of the forensic system and the dilemma we face in balancing the safety of the community and the basic human rights of people living with a disability.

Monday 16 October at 8.30pm on ABC.