Detention Centre confirmation.

[Catzeyes]

I realise there is no way private details can be given out to just anyone (inc. PIs) regarding an inmate of a detention centre, however besides the Legal Institute website, for NSW would anyone on this forum know if there is any other avenue that can 100% confirm the incarceration of a person?

Any replies would be welcome as I wouldn't have a clue.  PM is fine if preferred.  I really need to know soon, in order to close a file.

Thanks in anticipation.

[Krusty1]

Hi Lesley,
I worked for Corrections Victoria and unfortunately you don’t have many avenues.

(Here in Victoria) If you call a prison and ask if a person is in fact incarcerated they call taker can only confirm or deny if the person is in fact held in custody, "however" they are NOT permitted to tell you which prison the person is in.

So you can in fact confirm that he/she is in custody, just not where.

In saying that there are ways to work out where they are "likely "to be. For instance, here in Victoria every male held in custody will firstly go to the M.A.P to be assessed. They are then sent out to and appropriate remand prison. Most go to the M.R.C but high profile may go to some of the other bigger max security prisons in the state.

So here in Vic if they have only been in custody a short while, say a few weeks, they are likely to still be at the MAP but if its a bit longer then they are probably are at the MRC etc.

I know its probably not what you are after, but hope it helps anyway.

Thanks for the comments in your newbies Post recently.

Krusty

[chrisr]

Lesley do you mean a detention centre (i.e. immigration detention)  or a prison?

For IDCs, you could try the same approach - call and ask to speak to the person; you'll need to know which IDC to call, but there aren't many of them... so if the person was living in Brisbane, then call the nearest IDC (there's a list on Immigration's website) and ask if they know of the person.

For prisons.. well.. getting information out of governments is difficult; best you can do is try to call around as Krusty1 suggested and see what you can find out - from my recollection of corrections victoria, his information is correct.. they'll usually confirm if someone is an inmate or not, but not where they are.

[Catzeyes]

Thank you for your replies.

It is a prison detention centre.  

I don't usually get tangled up with these types of enquiries, but it is ongoing from an initial investigation and I just wanted to 'tidy up' the file before closing.

Thanks again.

[Pcart13]

Try a pretext phone call to the prison "after hours". Tell them you are a process server and you have to serve on prisoner "name".
Ask the person if they would confirm he's still in custody there" before I travel from ?" (pick a place of some distance).
You might have to try it a few times till you strike the right person. After lock up time the prisons are generally quiet boring places and officers are thankful at times to have something to do. Sound sincere and be extremely polite.

[Catzeyes]

Thank you. File is long gone closed now, but will keep that in mind.

[Cabal]

I know this is an old post but, interestingly, I had a job the other week where the POI disappeared before I could get back to them to get a supplementary statement regarding the incident I was investigating. Associates of his told me that they thought he was in custody but were not certain and could not (or would not) provide any details as to why they thought this.

I rang the local police station and enquired as to whether they had him as he was rather instrumental to the investigation.

I was told that they could not divulge whether or not he was in custody but advised me not to spend too much time looking for him.