3.9 (474)

Australia’s Most Murderous Prison: Behind the Walls of Goulburn Jail

by James Phelps
3.9 (474)
BEHIND THE WALLS OF GOULBURN JAIL

An unprecedented spate of murders in the 1990s – seven in just three years – earned Goulburn Jail the ominous name of ‘The Killing Fields’. Inmates who were sentenced or transferred to the 130-year-old towering sandstone menace declared they had been given a death sentence.

Gang alliances, power plays, contracted hits, the ice trade, the colour of your skin – even mistaken identity – any number of things could seal your fate.

The worst race war in the history of Australian prisons saw several groups – Aboriginal, Lebanese, Asian, Islander and Anglo – wage a vicious and uncontrollable battle for power. Every day there were stabbings. Every day there were bashings. And then there was murder

A controversial policy known as ‘racial clustering’ might have put an end to the Killing Fields, but soon something far scarier would arise, something called Supermax . . . Within the stark white walls, clinical halls and solitary confinement, it is where Australia’s most evil men are locked away. It is home to serial killer Ivan Milat; the ‘Terror Five’, militants who plotted attacks across Sydney in 2005; Brothers 4 Life founder Bassam Hamzy and gang rapist Bilal Skaf, to name a few.

Murderers, terrorists, serial killers, gangsters and rapists – soon you will meet them all inside Australia’s most murderous prison.

Publication date
  • July 16, 2015