Wednesday, May 18, 2005

International conference: Prisoners and their families

Prisoners and their families: sustaining the links: an international perspective

NEPACS' third national conference looks at the importance of family relationships to an offender and the trauma and disruption to family life caused by a prison sentence. It focuses on how statutory and voluntary sectors can work with prisoners and their families, particularly examining:

a) research into families and prisoners, including the effects of imprisonment on the roles of parents and its consequent effect on the family

b) what is being done or can be done to ameliorate the effects of separation and improve the resettlement prospects of prisoners

c) what challenges are presented for the Criminal Justice System in the light of research?

The conference approaches this subject from an international perspective, with principal speakers from Europe, Canada, and England and Wales, providing an overview of the challenges and approaches they experience. The day will be interspersed with a number of workshops relating to the theme and allowing delegates to engage with the issues.

Collingwood College, Durham
NEPACS News

Janet Smith
Manager, Information Services
Australian Institute of Criminology
GPO Box 2944
Canberra ACT 2600
ph (02) 6260 9264 fax (02) 6260 9299
email janet.smith@aic.gov.au

By Janet Smith posted 18 May 05

Related:

A VISIT TO THE NSW HRMU, SUPERMAX PRISON
The pre-requisite to visit the HRMU is a security check that can take up to six months. Complaint to the NSW Ombudsman 2004.

Chronology of a Tasmanian Prison System: A Documented Report
We believe that the people of Tasmania - both victims of crime and the general public - have the right to know that the Tasmania Prison Service is delivering a humane and just system of containment that is conducive to the reintegration of inmates back into Tasmanian society.

Risdon prisoners' seize prison to protest mistreatment
Apparently one prisoner had been mistreated and held in isolation in an SHU (Segregation Housing Unit) [Solitary Confinement] because, he'd had and altercation with a screw. SHUs cause severe mental harm - regarded as torture - and are a cruel, inhumane and degrading way to keep prisoners.

No Safe Place
In a brief four month span from August 1999, five men died in Tasmania's Risdon prison. Their deaths have put the state's corrections system in the dock and led to the planned demolition of a jail which even the State's Attorney-General now calls an "appalling facility".

Association for the Prevention of Torture
The Optional Protocol requires 20 ratifications to enter into force. All States Parties to the UN Convention against Torture should seriously consider ratifying the OPCAT as soon as possible. National Institutions and others promoting the human rights of people deprived of their liberty need to be informed of their potential role as national preventive mechanisms under the OPCAT.

Corrected or Corrupted
A psychiatrist from the prison Mental Health Team attached to Queensland Health made the comment that 25 per cent of inmates suffer from a diagnosed mental illness.

ICOPA XI International Conference on Penal Abolition
We are excited to announce that ICOPA X1, the eleventh International Conference on Penal Abolition will happen in Tasmania, Australia from February 9 - 11,2006. Please pass this onto all networks.

Ex-Prisoner Locked Out of Prison
The NSW Department of Corrective Services (DCS) has revealed a policy which bans ex-prisoners from entering prisons.

Justice Action: Access to our community
NSW: Justice Action went to the NSW Supreme Court before the last Federal election on the constitutional right for prisoners to receive information for their vote. The government avoided the hearing by bringing prisoners' mobile polling booths forward. We pursued it after the election. This is the report.

CUBA: A letter to Amnesty USA
I write as an Australian prisoners' rights campaigner who has been watching Amnesty's interventions over the arrests and jailing of several dozen "dissidents" in Cuba over the past two years. I have also visited Cuba on two occasions.

Unlock the Box:
Unlock the Box is a product of many years of struggle to shut down the Security Housing Units in California. During this time, the United Front to Abolish the SHU was created as a forum to coordinate the actions of everyone involved in this campaign.

Breakthrough in prison revolt
Philippines: The Un-Australian: "NEGOTIATORS last night made a breakthrough in the 12-hour standoff with al-Qa'ida-linked militants?, (suspected and imprisoned people) who staged an escape attempt from a Philippines prison that left six people dead."

Deaths in isolation as prison segregation increases
The use of segregation [solitary confinement] of prisoners as punishment has been increasing recently in Australia, the US, and the UK. Segregation can be used for protection or punishment, but in both cases it results in extreme psychological stress. An indication that segregation is being over-used is the appearance of deaths in custody from suicide of those placed in segregation.

Put in the way of self-harm in a place intended to protect others
UK: Sarah Campbell, 18, spent the last hours of her life in the segregation unit of Styal prison, Cheshire. "The seg", as those places are referred to, used to be known as "the block", short for punishment block. [ Seg is a bullshit word for Punishment, Solitary Confinement, Torture, Mental Illness, Self-Harm, Human Rights Abuse and that is State Terror.]

FAMILIES OF PRISONERS FORUM
14,500 children in NSW go to bed each night with a parent in prison!