Risdon Prison Near Hobart
Prison Action & Reform (Tasmania)PRISON ACTION AND REFORM REPRESENTATIVES, ALONG WITH LAWYER AND POLITICAL COMMENTATOR GREG BARNS, WILL BE COMMENTING ON THE DECISION BY JUDY JACKSON TO BAN PAR FROM RISDON PRISON AT 3PM TODAY OUTSIDE PARLIAMENT HOUSE.Vickie Douglas founded Prison Action and Reform after the gross failures of the system took the life of her young son after he was raped.
Since then, she and other PAR volunteers, have brought to the public's attention scandalous and inhumane events that have occurred in the prison - which Judy Jackson would have otherwise covered up.
Prison Action and Reform advocates on the behalf of prison officers and prisoners in the interests of a just justice system.
Today they have been banned from the jail.
This decision will have a devastating impact.
PAR and Greg Barns will be commenting on this decision at 3pm today outside Parliament House.
By Prisoners Action and Reform posted 18 May 05Related:Chronology of a Tasmanian Prison System: A Documented ReportWe 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 mistreatmentApparently 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 PlaceIn 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 TortureThe 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 CorruptedA 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 AbolitionWe 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 PrisonThe NSW Department of Corrective Services (DCS) has revealed a policy which bans ex-prisoners from entering prisons.
Justice Action: Access to our communityNSW: 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.