1990 Strangeways Prison riot with many excerpts from the letters being appended to the finished report. The "Woolf Report" was published on 25 February 1991, and blamed the loss of control of the prison on the prison officers abandoning the gates outside the chapel, which "effectively handed the prison to the prisoners". Woolf described the conditions inside Strangeways in the months leading up to the riot as "intolerable", and viewed a "combination of errors" by staff and management at the prison and Prison Service as a central contributing factor to the riot. He also blamed the failure of successive governments to "provide the resources
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