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Daniel Hope has been incarcerated his entire adult life since his arrest in the western suburbs as a baby-faced teenager.
Held almost entirely inside the confines of maximum security prison units, the 31-year-old has – for the past decade at least – served his time without any serious violence against others, but the system says he’s still too dangerous to be released.
Hope is preparing to fight for his freedom in the Supreme Court this week, as the state makes a bid to keep him detained long after his pending release date, claiming he’s too institutionalised to live in the community.
Hope believes the system is “playing God” with people like him, those whom the system has failed to rehabilitate and instead kept segregated from others for years.
“I think it’s very calculated and smells of a set-up against him,” lawyer Neil Howard says. “The system has already completely failed him.”
With only weeks left to serve on Hope’s sentence for a brutal prison guard assault, Howard says the state has lodged documentation seeking a rarely sought detention order, which, if granted, would hold Hope in prison longer than any judge ordered.
In documentation seen by this masthead, Corrections Victoria alleges Hope is seriously violent and an ongoing risk to the community.
A letter signed by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Brendan Kissane, says an assessment found Hope is a high risk of committing a serious violent offence if released.
“We confirm that the Director of Public Prosecutions is making an application for a detention order in respect of you. Given that the order is unlikely to be determined before your sentence expires, the director is also applying for an interim detention order,” Kissane wrote to Hope last month.
Howard says that since Hope’s last parole hearing over a year ago, denied on the basis that he was a threat to his longtime partner, Corrections Victoria has done nothing to prepare him for release.
Hope grew up in Melbourne’s western suburbs, one of seven siblings, before he was taken from his family aged 10. Within months, he came to the attention of police for street violence, according to assessment reports.
Psychologists found that from a young age, he perceived unfair treatment from authority; Hope agrees, saying more bluntly that he was angry.
As a young inmate, his behaviour in custody was described as poor, disruptive and aggressive.
Hope believes guards would target, disrespect and single him out for unfair treatment. It was documented that he often refused to follow directions, telling staff he felt like he was being treated like “Hannibal Lecter”.
In one report, seen by this masthead, a psychologist found that the breaking up of Hope’s family had shaped his opposition and mistrust towards authority, with his violence directed towards custodial staff when he was imprisoned.
What followed were long periods in solitary confinement. At one point, Hope claims he spent eight months deprived of a mattress.
At its worst, he says he was placed in the Olearia unit at Barwon Prison, where he was only able to communicate with other prisoners through a fence.
“I’m the big guy everyone’s scared of,” he reportedly told staff in 2025.
When he was refused parole in 2024, a report found he lived with entrenched anti-authoritarian attitudes and psychopathic traits; staff felt intimidated by him.
“His capacity to demonstrate behavioural change in the community is untested,” the report said.
“He’s never had the opportunity to establish prosocial networks. Given that he has spent his adult life in prison, he is likely to face significant challenges upon his release.”
Medical experts have diagnosed Hope with conditions including ADHD and complex PTSD, in part due to the restrictive custodial environment he’s spent most of his life in.
They found that ongoing detention was also likely to prolong and exacerbate his conditions, with a detention order likely to provide Hope with the ultimate example of unjust treatment.
Hope and his family know that even outside the system, not everyone wants him released, including the victims of Hope’s violent crimes.
In 2017, he was jailed for 10 years for what a judge said was “extreme violence resulting in catastrophic harm” when he beat prison guards after being forced to move units. One guard was left with life-altering facial injuries and nerve damage.
“Desistance from violence would therefore require a fundamental shift in identity, achievable only through the monumental task of establishing and maintaining a prosocial life in the community,” a psychologist found in May.
“Mr Hope has never resided independently in the community as an adult. [He] has been assessed as posing a high risk of committing a serious violence offence … if he were released.”
If a detention order is granted, Hope will be moved to a rarely used, purpose-built unit within the confines of Barwon Prison, which itself has been dubbed a “monster farm”.
The Piper Detention Unit opened in 2019 and was designed to house high-risk people who have finished their court-imposed sentences but remain an unacceptable risk to the community.
One of the first inmates of the Piper unit was convicted terrorist Abdul Nacer Benbrika, who was behind Australia’s first homegrown terrorist cell.
On the outside, Hope’s partner of five years, who asked not to be named, says she has put support in place to aid his rehabilitation, including psychology appointments, job prospects and stable accommodation. His ongoing detention, she says, is a breach of his human rights and stands in the way of his rehabilitation.
She believes the system has made Hope the institutionalised monster authorities describe, but her weekend visits and daily phone chats have helped “put the angry guy away”.
The detention application is due to be heard in the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
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