On January 7, 1990, Australia's only murder inside a women's prison occurred at Brisbane Women's Correctional Centre at Boggo Road. The old jail, overcrowded and dilapidated, had been simmering with barely contained tension for some time. Many of the 106 women were locked together; two to a cell, in the "bottom" section of the jail behind a gate that prison officers chose to keep shut, restricting the already minimal movement of prisoners and ensuring a tinderbox environment of festering pressures.
It was a humid, soupy Brisbane summer. In the aftermath of the festive season it was a high-stress time - mothers locked away from their children, women separated from other loved ones. As I remember it, it was an afternoon heavy with threat - if someone looked at another person the wrong way, we knew they'd blow.
I was sitting next to Debbie Dick when two women, wielding sharpened barbecue forks, came from behind us on a covered veranda outside the dining room. I was fit and wiry and managed to swing away from the blades. But Debbie Dick didn't stand a chance. Storm Brooke, who later confessed to her murder, had broken into a frenzy of stabbing, which stopped only when I picked up a chair and crashed it onto her back. Brooke ran off with the weapons; I was bleeding with a slight wound to my chest. As I crouched over Debbie Dick, life ebbed out of her on the hard concrete floor.
Two notable actions occurred in the aftermath of the murder: my refusal to "dog" (I chose instead the prisoners' code of payback); and an extraordinary, but short-lived, experiment in reform by a government prepared to take the "punishment" out of prisons.
In the ensuing years, the unlikely results of these two actions coalesced to produce the controversial prison advocacy organisation Sisters Inside and to catapult me into the public eye more spectacularly than my original sentence for drug trafficking had done.
At the beginning of 1990, at the same time as Storm Brooke was sharpening her weapons and biding her time, Queensland was still congratulating itself on electing its first Labor government in 32 years. Wayne Goss was elected in December 1989 with a clear mandate to reform the state's tired and backward institutions after the sordid revelations of the Fitzgerald Inquiry.Keith Hamburger, appointed director-general of Corrective Services, had reformist ideas, too, but Debbie's murder was the catalyst for the kind of change even a new government might have been shy of. Together with the new manager of the prison, George Brand, he did the opposite of what would be expected today: he loosened the rules. Effectively, Hamburger and Brand opened up the prison.
The idea was to involve the community in the running of the prison and to get prisoners out and interacting with the community. Prisoners were given more leave of absence, enabling low-security women to spend more time with their families; supervised outings were organised and women could attend university and other courses; and community organisations were invited into the prison to discuss ways to improve general conditions.
Initiatives aimed at getting prisoners into the community worked well. Women were given some trust, and a stake in their own futures, often for the first time in their lives; they were given responsibility and limited power over their own rehabilitation; and enticing tastes of a better life outside.
The notorious bottom gate at Boggo Road was left unlocked at Brand's direction. Low-security prisoners worked in a plant nursery just outside the wall. Prison officers took a group running along the nearby river path several times a week; there were canoeing expeditions, a dinner at the Crest Hotel.
There were no escape attempts. Over time, the separation of various factions inside, combined with the less-oppressive atmosphere, defused the unspoken demands for payback. My single-minded obsession with avenging Debbie's murder abated.
The involvement of community organisations, however, fell flat. My actions these days are predicated on one enduring philosophy: a "power with", as opposed to a "power over", approach to people. It was those community organisations' "power over" approach that failed them, an approach that still fails the do-gooders who come to Sisters Inside anxious to help.
In the beginning, these agencies came into the prison and spent all their time talking to management. No one came near the women. No one came to us to ask how to fix the problems - and we were the ones who knew. Later, some of these people got to know us and attached themselves to us as friends. But that only lasted while we followed their line. Once we got on our feet and began to challenge them and some of their actions, we were dropped or accused of "going back to our old ways".
We quickly found that once you step outside the do-gooder's vision for you, they ditch you. It is a relationship built on their power over you. Once you start to get your own power, and walk the same arena, they're off. It happens again and again.
When, after my release, I formed a fledgling support group to advocate for the rights of women prisoners, there was no question about who would form the steering committee: Sisters Inside would be run by women inside. The management committee outside would listen, and then act.
But there was more to learn. In the beginning, Sisters Inside was focused on a group of lifers and long-term prisoners. These were the women who had formed my coterie, those whom I had come to know in prison, those who trusted me. In prison culture, there is a long-established distrust of short-termers and a general disregard for what is perceived as their "whingeing".
When Sisters Inside was funded by the Queensland government to run its first program and employed staff, I was forced to rethink the power relations; I had to walk my own talk.
If Sisters Inside was to support women in prison it needed to support all women in prison. Before that, we were set up against each other, long-termers kept short-termers at bay. But trauma is trauma, no matter how long you endure it. I had to recognise that and so did the lifers. We had to focus on the system as the enemy, not each other.
This was personal. Storm Brooke, the woman who murdered Debbie Dick, the woman I had schemed to kill in revenge, was locked up in isolation for months after the murder. Several years later, when members of the newly formed Sisters Inside were meeting in the prison chapel, Brooke and her associates were still corralled, separated from other prisoners.
I knew that if the Sisters Inside's philosophy was going to work and be respected, Brooke needed to be involved. We needed all the women on side, so we had to pull her in. And I had to convince the lifers that if it was going to be about all women, it couldn't be all women except her.
Brooke - aware of the implications of my refusal to tell tales - readily accepted the invitation, and in the years since, we have slowly worked through our personal issues. At each Sisters Inside management meeting, we inch forward. It hasn't been easy. I know she still struggles on a day-to-day basis with what happened, just as I do.
At least part of my struggle was resolved in the days of the do-gooders and their attempts to fix things in the aftermath of Debbie Dick's murder. This was a time when I was still determined to kill Brooke, a time when I dreamed vividly of letting her blood run as freely as Debbie's had.
A group of prisoners was asked to stand up in front of community representatives and other inmates, [prisoners], to talk about their experiences of incarceration. I sat down to write. I recorded everything from my first taste of prison as a 13-year-old, when I was locked up in the notorious Wilson Youth Hospital, and the days of violence, abuse and tragedy that followed.
I had been no more than a tearaway child, a truant who brawled with my mother and regularly ran away from home. Wilson Hospital was my parents' last-gasp solution. It was a genuine attempt to reform a wild, but scarcely criminal, daughter. It was shockingly ironic that my admission to this reviled institution had the reverse effect.
Months after I was admitted, my father died suddenly from a massive heart attack. The staff, who were determined to punish me as much as possible, told me I had killed him. It was a pronouncement that reverberated in my adolescent heart. It convinced me of my innate badness. It made me believe I deserved to be hurt and punished over and over. My life became a litany of violent relationships, alcohol-fuelled rage and a "come and get me" attitude to the world.
None of this was obvious to me in early 1990. I wrote my piece for the gathering in the prison gymnasium and rehearsed it with my mates. But when I stood up in front of this group, I began to realise what I was saying: that I'd taken responsibility for Dad's death. I was 29 and for 15 years I'd believed I'd killed my father.
For the first time I really confronted it. I broke down completely, sobbing.. Someone came up to me and offered to finish reading it, but I said: "No, I've got to do this."
Afterwards, everything changed. I realised I wasn't a bad person, that I did not need punishment. I realised I was the victim of a system that betrayed young people and shoehorned them into a life of imprisonment, grief and marginalisation.
My adolescence was lost. My first days in detention set the blueprint; I spent most of my teenage years in and out of Wilson. My uncontrollable anger and outrage fuelled others' anger against me. I endured isolation and humiliation. I was vilified as wild and beyond redemption. Looking back now, I am no longer surprised at my violence, the petty crime, the mistrust of anything mainstream or "straight" in the world. From the age of 13, I had been set up as one of the underclass, a receptacle for blame.
But since my revelation, after my imprisonment at Boggo Road for drug trafficking in 1989 - under the Bjelke-Petersen government's draconian mandatory life sentences - my path has been determined and unrelenting. I wanted to ensure that my own children did not get caught in the quicksand that awaits many children of prisoners, and to work towards the abolition of prisons.
My mantra is that prison doesn't work. More than 60 per cent of women released from prison return to prison. That's a 60 per cent failure rate. If any of our other big institutions or government departments ran those kinds of figures, they'd be shut down.
Lives are ravaged and sometimes destroyed even by short prison sentences. The jailing of two high-profile women in Queensland last year - former chief magistrate Di Fingleton and former One Nation leader Pauline Hanson - has brought the problem to the public's attention. When Hanson was released she spoke tearfully of her desire to hug her family - women in prison are traumatised, they are strip-searched if they want to touch their children or partners when they visit. These were just two ordinary women. Did the community feel safer because they were locked up? Is it really about public safety? Or the kind of punishment that keeps hurting for the rest of your life?
Since my release, I have graduated with a degree in social work and am nearly through a law degree. Last year, I was awarded an OAM for services to women in prison and the community, and won the Queensland Telstra Businesswoman of the Year Award - Community and Government.
Sisters Inside now employs 12 full-time staff and I am its director. The power is in the hands of those inside, not the do-gooders on the outside. This way Sisters Inside provides the support I never had. Of course, there will always be women who fall through the cracks with us, too, but that will be their choice. They know they can keep coming back to us and we have women who do keep coming back. Eventually it will be all right for them. Other organisations - the do-gooders, the helpers - will turn them away because they've failed once, or twice. Not us. We're not here for the thankyous.
By Debbie Kilroy and Kris Olsson Sisters Inside posted 11 May 04
Related:
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Australia: Prisoner Abuse Not Just in Iraq
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Doctor Ron Woodham I presume?
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Justice Brian Sully subscribes to jail retribution
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I was bashed by colleagues: warden
A prison officer doing his rounds at Parklea jail ended up in the emergency ward claiming he had been beaten unconscious by four colleagues.
Probation and Parole in NSW
I am a prisoner at the Goulburn Prison I refer to the New South Wales Crimes (Administration of Sentences) Act 1999 Sect 135.
At The Ministers Pleasure?
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Bronson Blessington speaks out
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A review of psychiatry, law and politics in Victoria
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PRISON 'THIS INDEFINITE IDEA'
My name is Steve and I'm at Palen Creek Prison Farm near Rathdowney in Queensland. I was the subject on an "Intelligence Report" written by a QLD prison officer in 1996.
20 Million for trial and no Legal Aid to appeal?
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Violent prisoners in anger-control trial?
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NSW Prisoner Hunger Strike: Ivan Milat day 28
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HRMU: Harm-U for Hicks, Habib?
At the HRMU there are no minimum standard guidelines adhered to and security of the prison over-rules the prisoner's medical needs. Prisoners are self-harming because of the environment they are kept in already.
Today Paedophiles TOMORROW You!
This legislation came to the for during the campaign for the State election in March 2003, Carr announced a plan to introduce child sex offender orders in New South Wales, to restrict the movement of convicted paedophiles in places frequented by children.
Obituary: Garry Nye born 3/4/52 died 1/3/04
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Cheney's bid for review denied
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MILAT WAS FRAMED FOR TOURISM $$$$$
The bodies of seven backpackers were discovered at the Belanglo Forest in 1992. The victims were German, British and Australian origin. Australia at the time of the discoveries was well advanced in its bid for the Olympic Games to be held here in year 2000.
NSW Prisoner Hunger Strike: Ivan Milat
It looks like Premier Carr's anti Milat Campaign is working well again, his application to the Judge in chambers to seek an order to be allowed to orally argue his appeal to the High Court was refused.
Brett Collins: Speech to Nagle Symposium 25 years on
I was serving 17 years, was in segregation and had served five of the almost ten I eventually did. The prison movement outside had made the Royal Commission aware of the plight I was in as one of the prisoner organisers. That attention meant I was safer from that time on. Although two years later I was returned to Grafton with the classification of intractable.
REPORT CARD ON NSW PRISONS
Ending the 'institutionalised bash' now replaced by the institutionalised 'solitary confinement' cave their heads in bash. Former Royal Commissioner Justice John Nagle and Professor Tony Vinson are the keynote speakers at a seminar this week marking 25 years since the landmark Nagle Report into NSW prisons.
Jails the new asylums?
QUENTIN DEMPSTER: Asylum seekers -- no, not what you think -- but those who are so disillusioned with the current approach of our mental health system that they believe we should go back to the old ways and rebuild the asylums.
Inside Out Community Forum
Inside Out Association of NSW Incorporated is a newly formed initiative aiming towards developing genuine educational, rehabilitative, and re-integrative programs and assistance packages for prisoners and others effected by the criminal justice system, [criminal law system.]
Government justice not personal justice
Mr Collins said that, " No one is entitled to add to the court sentence to wreak personal vengeance on the offender, this is government justice not personal justice."
Risk Assessment Tools: Justice Health
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Experts: The Prisoner's Dilemma
[One] reason we are so-so scientists is that our brains were shaped for fitness [to the peopled environment], not for truth. Sometimes the truth is adaptive, but sometimes it is not. Conflicts of interest are inherent to the human condition, and we are apt to want our version of the truth, rather than the truth itself, to prevail.
Ron Woodham my faithful Commissioner?
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Sentencing: Violent crime and practical outcomes
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The Nagle Report 25 years on
On 25 February 2004 the Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales and the Centre for Health Research in Criminal Justice will be co-hosting a seminar to celebrate the Nagle Royal Commission. The seminar will be held in Parliament House, Macquarie Street Sydney, from 5.00pm. Entry will be free, but seating will be limited.
Practicably Perfect
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Defining JA Mentoring
Mentoring is not a new concept. Justice Action graduated its first class of Mentors in December 2003. A good idea has legs of its own, and so the concept of one-on-one support for vulnerable people finding their way in society is now being taken seriously.
Call for royal commission into NSW prison health system
Mr Tony Ross a social justice activist said yesterday that a royal commission into the health system in NSW should be wide reaching to ensure that the Corrections Health Service, [Prisons Health Service], is also exposed because of reported widespread cover ups in the prisons health system.
CONS COMMIT CRIMES IN HASTE, NOW CAN REPENT AT LAWTEY Yes some peasants were out of work, hungry and desperate and had to find a way to feed their families, as they were not born with silver spoons in their mouths, Lord. They just robbed from the rich and gave to poor.
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NSW Police Association wants sentencing powers?
NSW Police Association president Ian Ball said Inspector Borland now feared for his safety because of a 63 year old man being released from prison after doing a quick 18 for manslaughter.
Conditions in the HRMU
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Man wrongly imprisoned awarded $1m
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Forensic Hospital at Long Bay
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NSW leaves nation behind in rate and cost of jailing people
NSW not only has the most prisoners of any Australian state but also has the most violent prisoners, among the highest rates of recidivism and an increasingly expensive prison system, a Auditor-General's report says.
HRMU Solitary Confinement And Stopping Violence
I refer to your article on the (HRMU) HIGH RISK MANAGEMENT UNIT AT GOULBURN, TOTAL ABUSE OF POWER:
Database clears up crimes but not used to clear up miscarriages?
NSW Police Minister John Watkins said at the launch of a Sydney conference of international forensic experts meeting to mark 100 years of fingerprinting in NSW.
But there are Keys!
Charles Dickens said, "Life is a secret and you haven't got the key." "And you never will have."
NSW PRISONS: A TOTAL ABUSE OF POWER
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Justice Kirby concerned at self-representation
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A veil of secrecy makes justice in jail a different kind from court justice
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Hanson: I no longer support mandatory sentencing
One Nation Party founder Pauline Hanson has revealed she contemplated suicide while serving an 11-week jail term in Brisbane. Miss Hanson told about her time in jail and her future plans.
A Question of Innocence
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Children of Prisoners' Support Group
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NSW Corrections Health Service: Response
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Solitary Confinement: Our very own Alcatraz
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The Sentencing (crime of murder) and parole reform act 2003
We wish for each and every prisoner to be brought in front of a Judge to have closure on their sentences, a fixed non-parole period on an individual basis, to give these people a chance to be able to rehabilitate and to stop them being used as Political Prisoners.
Prisoners as citizens and duty of care
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Long Bay: Corrections Health Services in NSW prisons
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Home detention for people who make mistakes
LEARNERS are getting home detention sentences by the State Government diverting people from the anti-social prison system.
MULTICULTURAL SISTERS INSIDE
Sisters Inside is a community organisation that works with women in prison, pre and post release. We challenge the injustices that impact on women in prison, their children and families.
NSW Terrorist Minister leads the way
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MENTAL ILLNESS AMONG NEW SOUTH WALES PRISONERS
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Yatala Labour Prison Adelaide Going Backwoods: response
Thank you and your team for your support. I have been trying to write you back. However the person has now stopped me from using the computers and education centre and the typewriter has been broken.
On the treatment of prisoners at the NSW HRMU
Prisoners sister's letter from her brother: Following our phone conversation some weeks ago I would like to set out a few points on the treatment of prisoners in the High Risk Management Unit at Goulburn (Super Max) (Guantanamo Bay).
Review of Justice Ministers claims about conditions at HRMU
Minister for Justice John Hatzistergos stated on 15 July 2003 concerning the prisoners at the High Risk Management Unit at Goulbourn.[Prisoners held in solitary confinement and tortured endlessly in a Supermax Prison at Goulburn.]
Lithgow Prison: This is no Irish joke!
Allow me to introduce myself to you my name is John Smith I am writing to you for your help in regards to Corrective Services Jail at Lithgow, I am a prisoner at this centre and I am serving a long sentence. I originally came from Ireland a number of years ago.
Lithgow prisoners speak out about rations
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NSW PRISON CORRUPTION AT THE HRMU
The High Risk Management Unit at Goulburn [Solitary Confinement Supermax, Torture, Gulag,] alleged to have been the first Australian jail of the 21st century and the most secure in the Southern Hemisphere (it was claimed in an article SMH 14 May 2001).
The Daily Telegraph licensed to set up prisoners?
A man who smuggled a mobile phone into a Sydney jail and took pictures of stockbroker Rene Rivkin has been sentenced to 400 hours of community service.
International Prisoners Justice Day 2003
Justice Action, Prisoners Action Group and others celebrated this year's IPJD by visiting Silverwater Jail Complex and talking to the visitors as they went in and came out. We handed out copies of the media release and Framed to the visitors (who took them inside!) and showed our support for prisoners and their families, talking through the loud hailer so prisoners inside would be aware of our presence.
Weak NSW Government suspends Innocence Panel
The DNA evidence panel is under investigation and the New South Wales Innocence Panel's operations have been suspended and a review of how it works ordered.
Is Prison Obsolete?
Eileen is a senior lecturer in the School of Social Work UNSW where she teaches and researches in the areas of social policy and social development. She has been the chief researcher, and has also collaborated on projects and publications regarding prisons, the criminal justice system and women, public and social housing and indigenous matters. She has recently completed major research on ex-prisoners, accommodation and social reintegration. Eileen has been active in using research to argue for policy change in the NSW criminal justice field for some years.
Escape proof but not so the prisoners mind
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Parents on the inside leave children on the edge
They have been dubbed the forgotten generation - the innocent casualties of their parents' crimes. New research shows that in 2001 14,500 NSW children had a parent in jail. And 60,000 NSW children under 16 have experienced the incarceration of a parent, more than half enduring the trauma of separation before they turn five.
New video to create empathy in violent criminals?
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Junee Prison, NSW Parliament and Noble Cause Corruption
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Beyond Bars: Sentencing reform
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Yatala Labour Prison Adelaide Going Backwoods
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Inspector General of Corrective Services Debate
Below is our response to Justice Minister Hatzistergos' comments in a debate in Parliament on July 2, 2003 regarding the impending decision about the future of the Inspector General of Corrective Services in NSW.
Hatzistergos: The Daily Telegraph's prison mates
Who convinced a prisoner on periodic detention to take a mobile phone into prison to take a photo of Rene Rivkin? The prisoner said no and contacted the Daily Terror to say no.
PRISONERS OFFER OF RECONCILIATION
Premier Bob Carr, Deputy Premier Andrew Refshauge, Senator Aden Ridgeway, and other community representatives have been invited to receive the message from the men of "The Hole.
Goulburn Solitary Confinement: Midnight Special
If you ever go to Goulburn HRMU yeah, you better walk right, you'd better not breathe and sure thing better not fight. The next thing you know the SCU gonna arrest you and Rotten Ron send you down and you can bet your bottom dollar Lord, you'll be chaingang bound.
Carr defends prison handling of political PRISONER
Bob Carr should be ashamed of himself after giving the prisons Commissioner Rotten Ron Woodham another filthy job setting up Phuong Ngo as one of the most dangerous prisoners in the State.
How the QLD Dangerous Prisoners Act failed the first test
What is dangerous? Everyone is dangerous naturally it really depends on how far a person is pushed. Standing on a mountaintop with someone walking you backwoods towards the edge would promote fight or flight and if there is nowhere to fly but over the edge you may choose to respond. When a person breaks the law they lack social skills or are repressed into breaking the law.
Prison rehab programs in 'disarray': Opp
The New South Wales Opposition says rehabilitation in the state's prisons is in disarray. But the states prisons could never rehabilitate in the first place. So how can it be in disarray? The space station as it is known cannot rehabilitate because it's only a dot on the community map, as it were, in relation to how people were raised.
RESPONSE TO REVIEW OF INSPECTOR GENERAL OF PRISONS
Justice Action calls for the retention of the office of Inspector General and a restructure of the legislation making it truly independent.
Old bureaucrats to say whether they felt there should be an effective inspector of bureaucrats?
JA is urgently working on a response to the 31 page review of the position of the Inspector General of Corrective Services position released by the Minister on10/6/03.
High Risk Management Unit (HRMU) INSPECTION
This letter is to request permission for an independent inspection team to examine the 75-cell HRMU at Goulburn Jail. The proposed inspection team consists of specialist doctors, jurists, members of the Corrections Health Service Consumer Council and prisoners representatives.
MJA - BBCD Outbreaks in NSW prisons
Seems some of our friends in & around Corrections Health Service (CHS) were able to take advantage of a couple of recognised cases of needle sharing by HIV positive prisoners to gather data for a study.
Intractables
As an ex-Grafton intractable (1971-1975) and the only living ex-prisoner to have served the longest time inside Katingal (1975-1978) I feel qualified to offer the following personal observations:
Intolerable Conditions of Prisoners at Goulburn's HRMU
We wish to with respect, level a serious complaint against the Chief Executive Officer, Corrections Health Services, Dr Richard Matthews.
NSW death in custody, false imprisonment, and assault
Knight's case sparked headlines after it emerged that his suicide in John Moroney Correctional Centre [prison] in Sydney on January 22 occurred 18 days after his official release date.
Victorian (Australia) Juvenile Deaths in Custody & Post-Release has just been published on the British Journal of Medicine Quotes (BJM): "The risk of death was nine times higher in male offenders than in the reference Victorian male population. Although the estimate is unstable because of the small number of deaths, female offenders seemed to be about 40 times more likely to die than the reference Victorian female population."
The Criminal Law (Rehabilitation of Offenders) Act 1986 Qld
The Criminal Law (Rehabilitation of Offenders) Act 1986 (Qld), requires that any person who has committed an offence which is less than 10 years old or which resulted in a prison sentence of more than 30 months, must disclose that offence if requested eg. for employment purposes. If a criminal record is disclosed in a job application, it is unlikely that person will be given the job.
NSW Serious Offenders Review Council
In response to a letter we have received from Mr K C who has said that he is serving 24 years and 10 months commencing on 29/8/1991 with his earliest release date being 28/6/2016 with 4 years parole and full time 28/6/2020. He said that he contacted the Serious Offenders Review Council in writing but received no response.
Justice Action's complaints about ACM to the NSW Ombudsman fell on deaf ears The Federal Government is reviewing allegations that the company it pays to run Australia's detention centres the same company who runs Junee Jail in NSW has fraudulently reduced staffing levels in at least one centre to increase its profits.
Token Parole Board reforms silent on Govt bungle
The Carr governments token reforms of the Parole Board are minimalist and still fail to explain the election cover-up of mismanagement, which contributed to an inmate's [a prisoners] death.
PAROLE BOARD REWARDED? FOR DEADLY MISTAKE
The Justice Minister has released government reforms to the Parole Board following the death of an aboriginal inmate, which was due to a Parole Board error.
Sentencing innovation breaks vicious circle of jail terms
"Three months' jail for one punch in a pub fight is too much," said the victim. The victim's comment counted because he and the offender, Robert Bolt, a Nowra Aborigine, were making history in the first case of circle sentencing, a new way of deciding punishment for indigenous offenders.
Letter from the mother of a prisoner on remand at the High Risk Management Unit Goulburn Correctional Centre I am writing to give you permission to make any inquiries on my behalf as I am invalid pensioner who doesn't drive and been only well enough to travel by train once in 15 months to see my son Scott Simpson. I have enclosed a copy of Scott's letter and also a copy of gaol papers form I have to fill out and wait to see if I'm allowed in to see him. He doesn't get any visits. He is in the Supermax and deprived of any privileges not even legal Aid will fund a solicitor to see him in Goulburn.
WA Jail trade in 'sex for favours'
THE West Australian Government has ordered an inquiry into claims guards at Perth's main women's prison are trading favours for sex, and encouraging inmates to form lesbian relationships.
NSW prisons over-crowded. Gov't orders investigation into death in custody
In January this year, a 23-year-old Aboriginal prisoner was found hanging in his cell in a Sydney jail 18 days after he was due to be released.
Yes Minister: 'Justice Action meets John Hatzistergos Justice Mininster' We have taken a few days to pass this on, as we wanted clarification of the minister's statement about the purposes of imprisonment before publishing it.
Beyond Bars Alliance colleagues
There are certainly problems with the IG's terms of reference and the position is not nearly as strong as it should or could be but it should not be lost it should be strengthened (along the lines of the UK IG of Prisons) to provide an independent voice to the Parliament regarding activities and processes that otherwise happen behind prison walls.
Submissions for Review of Inspector General
There is a very serious attack happening on the office of the NSW Inspector General of Corrective Services. A secret and flawed review is taking place at this moment, and we call upon all individuals and organisations interested in the area to make their views known.
Two thirds of a billion dollars and DCS can't work out what authority they have? "Two thirds of a billion dollars of taxpayers money and the Department of Corrective Services can't work out what authority they have to hold the people who are in jail."
Australia: Private Prisons, Junee NSW
When I got to Junee I was given nothing except bed linen. That's it! No clothing. I had to put my name down for clothing, which they said I could get on Saturday. When I went down to get my clothing on Saturday I was told they had nothing but I was told that I could buy what I wanted on their monthly buy-up. In the mean time I got rashes between my legs from the dirty clothes I had on.
Justice Action meets with new Minister for Justice
John Hatzistergos Minister for Justice is meeting with Brett Collins and Justice Action today at 11:30 a.m.
ARUNTA PHONE SYSTEM: IDC Lithgow Prison
The prisoners of Lithgow Correctional Centre have requested that the Lithgow Inmate Development Committee write to you on their behalf and ask that the phone systems heavy burden upon the prisoners at this institution and their families be reviewed. I will outline the problems.
Health problems denied in prison
Lithgow Correctional Centre (IDC) Inmate Development Committee "Currently there are 72 inmates on the doctors waiting list with only one doctor coming fortnightly and usually on a weekend".
NSW Prisons Inmate Development Committee speaks out
I am writing on behalf of the IDC Inmate Development Committee in area 3, MSPC at Long Bay. Area 3 is where, the Department is congregating minimum-security offenders within maximum-security walls whilst awaiting mandatory programs at Cubit (Sex Offenders Program).
THE GULAG TREATMENT - The Trauma Of Court Appearances When Incarcerated Prisoner transport vehicle 10th January 2003 It's about 4.40am, very darkoutside and although I'm expecting it, it is still intrusive when my dreams are interrupted by the sound of my name, it is the officer checking that I'm awake ready to face the long day ahead.
Sir David Longland Correctional Centre
If it were possible to characterize the term B Block attitude in a modern dictionary, it would read something like "demeanor of inhabitance" or "state of mind or behaviour of occupants".
SIR DAVID LONGLAND CORRECTIONAL CENTRE QLD - CELLS IN B BLOCK The cells in B Block are like no other in any Queensland prison. After Mr. Cooper was severally embarrassed by the Abbott and Co escape on 4th November 1997, he visited B Block and the surrounding grounds. It was that visit, by Cooper, that set in motion a plan (up the ante) to make sure security in B Block would never embarrass him again. It was like closing the gate after the horse has bolted.
Inspector General Ignored On Womens Prison
Four months after a report from the Inspector General on Mulawa Correctional Centre, key recommendations involving safety and welfare of prisoners and staff have been ignored. Kathryn Armstrong (former chair of Inmate Development Committee) and Annabel Walsh, released from Mulawa Womens Prison in February, have produced an independent report confirming the findings of the Inspector General.
Distribution of: 'How to Votes in prisons'?
Justice Action have received information from Andrew Burke of the NSW Greens that they have enquired with the Department of Corrective Services as to the procedure for distributing their How To Votes in prisons in the period before the election.
Getting Justice Wrong DPP make full admissions
Back in May 2001 Nicholas Cowdery QC made an error at law by giving a speech called Getting Justice Wrong at the University of New England, Armidale Thursday, 31 May 2001. Sir Frank Kitto, Lecture now published at the DPP website. At page six, paragraph 3 under the heading:
NSW ELECTION 2003: VOTE 1 GREENS
Inspector-General: The Greens believe that the role of the Inspector-General is crucial to the proper functioning of the prison system. It has never been more important to have a powerful watchdog role than today. Section 3.11 of our Criminal Justice Policy commits the Greens to "strengthening the role of the Inspector-General of Prisons."
Long Bay Prison: The latest inside story
Private food purchases called Buy-Ups that normally take care of the prisoners additional food nutrition in Jail has been changed.
Doing time even harder: 146 prisoners far from home
The United States, however, has detained without trial about 650 men from 43 countries. They include Australians David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib, who are held at the Guantanamo Bay naval base as part of the sweep against global terrorism [scapegoats for the Coalition of the Killing's, pre-emptive strikes, occupation and genocide for resources in the Middle East.]
Human Rights 'Framed'
Here is a quick report on our Human Rights Commission approach on Framed (the quarterly magazine of Justice Action) being banned from all NSW prisons. After 42 issues went in.
Prison Privatisation: Death camps looming in NSW
I asked for the identification of the person I was speaking to and was told that I was not entitled to that information. I needed to verify the call and asked for a name or number to register my call because I was asked to get those details by my coordinator.The person refused to identify themselves either by name or number. I asked to be transferred to a senior person and was refused. The person I spoke to then hung up the phone.
Corrections Victoria and criminal acts: SCS-4\320 UPDATE
You have stated "Section 30 of the Corrections Act 1986 and the Information Privacy Act 2000, restricts the release of confidential information regarding prisoners, I therefore am unable to provide any information regarding this matter."
Death camps looming in Victoria
A letter was received on 15 January 03 from SCS-4\320 a remand prisoner in Victoria's Barwon Prison I later found out that the prisoner was in the Acacia High Security Unit.
Take crime talk beyond the bars:'lobby group'
A coalition of academics, crime experts, welfare and church groups is preparing to launch an intensive pre-election campaign aimed at refocusing the attention of NSW politicians from harsh sentencing reforms to crime prevention strategies.
Six weeks, six months, six years: inmates have little chance of making fresh start More than 15,500 people are released from NSW prisons each year, twice the number of 20 years ago. But new research shows many ex-prisoners find it impossible to reintegrate into society and, months after release, are worse off than before they went to jail.
NSW A-G moves to stop criminals and ex-criminals selling stories
From next month criminals or ex-criminals who try to profit (earn a living for paid work, like writing a book etc..) from their crimes in New South Wales will have the proceeds confiscated.
NSW Govt criticised over criminal justice record
Key criminal justice groups have described the New South Wales Government's record on justice issues as a "disappointing performance".
APPOINTMENT OF KLOK IS: 'DECLARATION OF WAR'
The decision of the Carr government to appoint John Jacob Klok as the new Assistant Commissioner for Corrective Services in charge of security represents a statement of contempt to all those concerned about law and justice in NSW.
Prisoners Representatives Excommunicated
Ron Woodham, Commissioner Corrective Services stated "[this Department] does not recognise Justice Action as an advocate on correctional centre issues." He has ordered a ban on all Justice Action material inside the NSW prison system. This resulted from a request for the approval of the latest edition of Framed (the Magazine of Justice Action) to be distributed throughout NSW prisons as has occurred for the past ten years.
Dept of Corrective Services: Rotten Ron Woodham on the ropes
This is The Freeedom Of Speech and The Press in a goldfish-bowl! Herr Goebells has spoken. Zieg Heil! (Which means, actually: "aim-for health!" incidentally)Apologies for not making meetings ... my first experiences with Woodham (then a -screw-gestapo-minor-with-a-friendly-dog - AND YOU KNOW WHAT IT MEANS WHEN EVEN HIS DOG DOESN`T LIKE HIM?)
At the Minister's Pleasure The case of Michael Kelly
Michael is caught up in a particularly cruel version of the game of Cat and Mouse. Because he is classified as a forensic patient under the Mental Heath Act of NSW, the Minister for Health is his master, not the Minister for Corrective Services. And the Minister for health will not let him go.
EX-PRISONER UNEMPLOYMENT: SENTENCED FOR LIFE
Name removed by request served time in prison decades ago. Shes still being punished today. According to commonwealth and state legislation, ex-prisoners applying for jobs must declare any conviction that fits into the following categories: less than 10 years old, more than 10 years old but served more than 30 months in prison.
ARE YOU INNOCENT?
The Australian Law Reform Commission had recommended that the Innocence Panel be independent and have the power to investigate alleged miscarriages of justice.
RESTORING TRUE JUSTICE:
Australian prisons are fast becoming the new asylums of the third millennium. The prison industry is booming, while Australia spends far less on mental health services than similar countries.
Medical records Alex Mitchell's lost world
Perhaps we can get your medical report and spew it around publicly so you can see how it feels. But surely we do not have to go that far. And of course we are law-abiding citizens and I should think it would be enough to remind you of your ethics to report at all.
NSW Department of Corrective Services attack right to privacy
Corrective Services Minister Richard Amery has a problem attacking prisoners right to privacy.It seems to us that a civil society is best served when social justice laws are applied to all people regardless of their circumstances. Once government starts making exceptions which disadvantage certain groups and individuals, such laws are meaningless.
Litigants are drowning: in the High Court
There were so many self represented litigants appearing in the High Court that more than half of its registry staff's time was taken up in dealing with them. The "go it alone" litigants have to take on tasks well above their qualified league causing them stress. This growing problem cannot be left unchecked.
Everyone wants to get out of 'jail' but 'Framed' wants life: Rotten Ron on the ropes On 2 May 2002, Justice Action received a faxed letter from Manager of DCS Operations Support Branch saying that, in his view, articles in Framed edition #42 'lack balance and integrity' and he is therefore 'not prepared to recommend this issue of Framed for placement in to correctional centre libraries.' Prisoners and those concerned about prisoner issues have very few sources of information.
Methadone addicts formed within: 'NSW Prisons'
The New South Wales Opposition has accused the State Government of turning jailed heroin users into Methadone addicts.
Murder charge first for DNA data bank link, but not the same as solving the murder Mass DNA testing of prisoners has [allegedly] led to the first NSW case of a person being charged with a previously unsolved murder as a result of a controversial gene-matching data bank.
Prisoners can prove innocence for $20?
Les Kennedy Daily Telegraph reported today that" Prisoners who believe that DNA will prove they were wrongly convicted will have the chance to prove their innocence for a mere $20 administration fee. The move comes 20 months after NSW inmates were asked to provide DNA for comparison with a databank of DNA from unsolved crime scenes for possible convictions.
NSW opposition pledges review of detention laws
A spokesperson for Justice Action Ms Anal Advice said " NSW Prisons are a sex offence if you have been raped, bashed and squatted down to be strip searched. People should be diverted from going there at all material times".
Civil libertarians condemn planned changes to prisoners' privacy rights The New South Wales Government is using a recent case involving [framed] serial killer Ivan Milat to justify its decision to remove the privacy rights of prisoners. But really just another attack on Ivan Milat from Parliament House.
The punishment: Is the 'crime'
The punishment is the crime according to retired chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia Justice Alistair Nicholson. "Smacking a child ought to be seen as assault".
NSW prisons - primary industry bailed up!
In many quiet regional centres around NSW there is a new primary industry shaping up. It has something to do with Bail but not with bales. The minister for Agriculture Richard Amery who also has the prisons portfolio is now committed to farming prisoners.
Black Nexus
The Separation of Powers Doctrine is nowcontaminated witharangeofcolours, now leaving us with a black shirt on a once blue bridge that crossed that thin blue line. The 'Amery and Woodham show'.
Prison Mind Games-Do they exist?
Directives are given inside the prison system that are not consistent with the law in NSW. And not in the good interests of the health and well being of the prisoners.
The Government is likely to abolish the Inspector General of Corrective Services position The Mulawa inspection report recommendations below strictly illustrate how important he is.
Chronology - A History of Australian Prisons
[Allegedly:] The events that have shaped NSW prisons - from convict days through royal commissions, to the Supermax of today. [I say allegedly because no one should trust Four Corners [Walls], why? Because they spill out the propaganda of the day for the Government, whether it be wrong or right. A government that lies and has no remorse about it.]
Justice Action
Justice Action is a community based organisation of criminal justice activists. We are prisoners, academics, victims of crime, ex-prisoners, lawyers and general community members. We believe that meaningful change depends upon free exchange of information and community responsibility.
Beyond Bars Alliance colleagues
I imagine all of you received Justice Action's email yesterday regarding the position of Inspector General of Corrective Services.
Community Restorative Centre
NSW spends more than half a billion tax dollars a year on prisons. It costs $60,000 to keep someone in maximum security for a year: more than double the minimum wage. CRC looks for and implements better solutions to the high social and economic costs of crime.
Sisters Inside Inc
Sisters Inside Inc. is an independent community organisation, which exists to advocate for the human rights of women in the criminal justice system, and to address gaps in the services available to them. We work alongside women in prison in determining the best way to fulfil these roles.
Smart Justice
Smart Justice does not support any party but calls for investment in prevention, alternatives to custody and initiatives that tackle the causes of crime. It is important to dispel the myths about 'law and order' and promote real solutions to crime and violence.
Shine For Kids
What happens for a young person who has a parent in prison?There are a lot of consequences for children or young people who have a parent in prison. During Groupwork the kids themselves have identified as being:
Children of Prisoners' Support Group
Children of Prisoner's welcomes Ann Symonds as our first Patron at this years AGM and screening of "The Space in Between" video , and will have a visual display to demonstrate the invisible population of children effected by parental incarceration.
