Are prisons required to protect prisoners from bashings?

Hi,
I'm sure prison wouldn't be so bad if not for all the dangerous people living there. I guess for there to be negligence the prison would owe a duty of care, there would need to be a breech of that duty and some sort of damage as a result of the breach. Dixon v State of Western Australia is one particular case where an inmate was attacked by another (mentally instable) inmate. In this case the Prison department have failed to take reasonable care of the plaintiff by controlling his attacker and preventing his attacker from having access to dangerous weapons. But there would need to be a breach of the duty of care owed and you would need to consider reasonable foreseeability. If an inmate was raped by a cell mate (to be honest I don't even know if there are shared cells in Australia, I'm just think of a scenario which might not have a duty owed) and the cell mate had no history of sexual violence, then while they do owe a duty of care, there is no direct breach because it would not have been a reasonably foreseeable event. But yes you could pursue a claim against the prison system.