Cooma, a small town in Australia has a dark secret. The town is home to a secret gay men’s prison for ‘homosexual offenses’. Supposedly, the prison was serving as a place to experiment and treat them.
Prison for ‘curing’ homosexuality
A prison in Cooma was used for imprisoning those who committed ‘homosexual offenses’. Based on historical archives, Justice Minister Reg Downing of New South Wales (NSW)founded the place. As per BBC reports, back in 1958 Downing stated that Cooma prison is the only criminal institution in the world for incarcerating gay offenders. The jail reopened in 1957. According to ‘The Greatest Menace’, a podcast, several prison staff were not aware of the real reason why gay prisoners were segregated.
According to Patrick Abboud, the developer of the podcast, psychiatrists addressed issues relating to homosexuality with questions along the lines of ‘did your mother’s power drive you to despise other women?’. He also believes that back then, they considered ‘over mothering’ as a cause of homosexuality.
Two sides of the same coin
“Cooma was a protective institution. We’d red stamp homosexual prisoners with ‘N/A’: non-association with mainstream prisons. They were at risk of violence at bigger prisons like Long Bay (in Sydney),” stated Les Strzelecki. Strzelecki is a 66-year-old who started working in the prison as a custodial services officer in 1979. Later, he started the Corrective Services Museum in Cooma. However, on the other hand, Cliff New, a former employee believes that it was for a less humane motive. He revealed to a podcast series that psychiatrists and psychologists were regularly visiting the inmates. He interpreted them as attempts to convert homosexual men, hoping to ‘cure them’ of the ‘problem’. Moreover, the Draconian state laws of the mid-1950s cracking down on homosexuality made it a crime until 1984. Soliciting and even chatting up another man was a criminal offense leading to jail time.
As per historian Garry Wotherspoon, the punishment for anal sex or buggery was severe. Once proved, it resulted in a 14 year-long sentence. Even an attempt would earn a man over five years in the Cooma jail. Additionally, the police were inciting men to execute homosexual acts. “They’d also use hunky policemen to entrap gay men by enticing them to have sex, usually in public toilets,” stated Wotherspoon. In 1958, a government commission was established for investigating the “cause and treatment of homosexuality”. According to a statement, it included “experts in the fields of medicine, psychiatry, penology, and social and moral welfare”. However, these efforts failed. Gay men were in relationships inside the prison. Additionally, they were committing offenses to go back to their boyfriends.
