A prisoner with an assistive chair in Queensland. A Human Rights Watch report has delivered a scathing assessment of Australia’s treatment of prisoners with disabilities. Photograph: Human Rights Watch, 2017/Daniel Soekov

Christopher Knaus

Prisoners with disabilities are being locked in solitary confinement for prolonged periods, living in nappies, urinating in bottles and suffering physical and sexual abuse, including at the hands of carers, a damning new report has found.

A detailed Human Rights Watch investigation of 14 prisons in Western Australia and Queensland has delivered a scathing assessment of Australia’s treatment of prisoners with disabilities, particularly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. 

The report recorded harrowing accounts of rape and sexual violence. It raised serious concerns about a prisoner-carer model that appoints inmates to look after fellow prisoners who have high support needs. In one prison, six out of the eight carers were convicted sex offenders, Human Rights Watch said.

Researchers were told that one inmate with high support needs was repeatedly raped by his carer. The abuse was only detected when the inmate’s bloodied and soiled sheets were discovered during a cell search, according to the report.

In another case, an Indigenous inmate with a cognitive disability was sexually assaulted in a shower, only to be punished when it was brought to the attention of guards.

“He struggled to report it, but when prison staff found out they sent him to a detention unit, awaiting transfer to another prison,” the lead researcher, Kriti Sharma, told Guardian Australia. “He was treated as a perpetrator instead of the victim.

“To add insult to injury, prison officers taunted him and joked about how his attackers were in the cell next door, which further traumatised him.”

Investigators spoke with 136 current or recently released inmates with disabilities, and more than 100 other experts, including prison staff, health experts, lawyers, academics, families, government officials and activists. 

Guardian Australia understands the findings of the report have been shared with federal cabinet ministers in a detailed briefing. It has also been shared with Queensland and Western Australian state governments.

Both state governments responded to Human Rights Watch, saying they had extensive measures to prevent and respond to physical and sexual violence, properly assess and support prisoners with disabilities, and limit the use of solitary confinement. 

The report documents 32 cases of sexual violence and 41 cases of physical violence. Of the 14 prisons it investigated, nine were found to lack proper access to basic facilities – toilets, showers, bathroom and kitchens – for people with a disability.

One inmate who used a wheelchair said he had to urinate in a bottle. Another said he was forced to wear nappies. 

“I have to wear a nappy every day,” he told Human Rights Watch researchers. “I don’t feel like a man; I feel like my dignity is taken away.” 

The Queensland state government conceded some prisons lacked proper accessibility.

Overcrowding pressures forced double-bunking in nine of the 14 jails studied, the report said, forcing two and sometimes three inmates into a cell designed for one. 

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Disproportionate use of solitary confinement was also common for those with a disability. Prisoners with psychosocial disabilities were kept with no meaningful contact for up to 22 hours a day, often for periods of weeks, months and, in the worst cases, years, according to the report.

That potentially puts Australia in breach of international standards, and the advice of Juan Méndez, the United Nations special rapporteur on torture, who has said solitary confinement “of any duration, on persons with mental disabilities is cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment”.

Human Rights Watch is calling for inquiries into the use of solitary confinement for those with psychosocial disabilities, and for governments to abolish the practice.

“Frankly, it’s inhumane,” Sharma said. “Solitary confinement is psychologically harmful for anyone but, for people with mental health conditions, it’s devastating.”

The report also documented allegations of mistreatment and bullying by fellow inmates and guards, targeting those with a disability. 

Guardian Australia spoke with one former prisoner, James Condren, who has an intellectual disability, and said he had been treated poorly in the New South Wales prison system, by staff and fellow inmates. 

He said he was called a “spastic” and had his prescription medication seized during cell searches. Toy cats that gave him comfort were treated as contraband on arrival in one prison, he said, and ripped apart. 

“I was crying for my catty,” he said. “It looks after my mental health, my cats.”

Another inmate with a psychosocial disability told Human Rights Watch: “The staff terrorise people in the [detention unit]. ‘Heel, dog, heel,’ they said to me … They opened up the grate [in the cell door] and laughed at me.

“I swallowed batteries in front of them. [One officer] spat in my face. He said, ‘I will punch your teeth all over the cell.’”

The problems were exacerbated by a lack of prison staff training and understanding of physical and psychosocial disability, the report said. Inmates with a disability were not properly assessed upon entry to prisons.