1990 Strangeways Prison riot administrative offices on the lower floor and the chapel on the upper floor. Remand prisoners were held in wings G, H, I and K of a separate prison, linked to the main prison through workshops and a kitchen. The Certified Normal Accommodation Figure for Strangeways, the number of prisoners the prison was designed to hold, was 970. The population of the prison had increased in the months before the riot, from 1,417 in January 1990 to a peak of 1,658 on 27 March. On 1 April, the prison contained 1,647 prisoners – about 925 convicted adult prisoners, 500 remand prisoners
Fremantle Prison riot was staged as a diversion by twelve men including Brenden Abbott, to assist a mass escape from the prison. During the two weeks prior to the riot they collected 3 litres of fuel from lawnmowers, which they managed to conceal in their drink bottles. Fremantle Prison was built using convict labour during the 1850s, based on the design of Pentonville Gaol, and was used as the maximum security prison for male offenders in Western Australia. During the 1890s the size of the cells were doubled by removing an adjoining wall between two cells. The conditions in the cells remained unchanged