Howard refuses to explain Scott Parkin's deportation

Speaking on Neil Mitchell's program on 3AW this morning, Prime Minister John Howard refused to explain why peace activist Scott Parkin was detained and deported from Australian last week.

Transcript of conversation with Prime Minister John Howard, Neil Mitchell program, radio 3AW Melbourne.

Neil Mitchell: We'll take another call. Iain, go ahead, please.

Iain Murray: Hi Neil. Prime Minister, my name's Iain Murray. I work as a nonviolence trainer, and I'm the person who helped the peace activist Scott Parkin to plan a workshop that we were to deliver on the day that he was swept off the streets and detained without charge, so I know that the workshop we planned to hold had nothing whatsoever to do with violent protest. In fact, we're both deeply committed to nonviolence, and we were planning to teach the exact opposite.

NM: What about throwing marbles under horses, and things like that?

IM: That's ludicrous, we had no -

NM: Well, it's not ludicrious, I've seen it happen myself.

IM: Sorry?

NM: It's not ludicrous, I've seen it happen.

IM: Well, its a ludicrous tactic and Scott and I would never advocate something 'ah' such as that. It doesn't fall within our definition of nonviolence. So, Prime Minister, I'd like to know why a man who advocates only peaceful methods of protest has been locked up in solitary confinement for five days and then thrown out of the country.

Prime Minister John Howard: Well, we had advice, which I am aware of the substance of that advice and on the basis of that advice he was removed from the country. He has not right to be here, as a foreigner, he had a visitors visa ...

NM: Are you willing to say what the substance of the advice was?

PM: No, I'm not, because it's a long standing practice not to disclose advice of that kind. The leader of the opposition was briefed on the substance of the advice, and I am quite satisfied on the advice I have that it was proper that he be removed.

NM: Presumably, he won't be allowed back in the country?

PM: Not if the circumstances of that advice continue to obtain.

By Iain Murray posted 24 September 05

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It is understood that Ms Rau was granted several days' leave by psychiatrists at the Central Northern Adelaide Health Service to attend the Mildura Writers' Festival but failed to return as promised.

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I spent this Easter in the desert. I spent this Easter protesting at Baxter detention centre to draw the world's attention to the injustice of Australia's racist and inhumane mandatory detention system and treatment of asylum seekers.

Detention Centres, Solitary Confinement
On Friday night the NSW Council for Civil Liberties awarded Sydney solicitor John Marsden honorary life membership. Julian Burnside was invited to make the speech in Marsden's honour. In the course of his speech, Burnside referred to the unregulated use of solitary confinement in Australia's immigration detention centres, criticising it as inhumane and also as unlawful.

MP urges asylum seekers' release
A federal Coalition MP has called for the release of all asylum seekers being held in immigration detention centres.

Australian held in Baxter detention centre
It has been revealed an Australian resident has been locked up in Baxter Detention Centre in South Australia for the past four months. Authorities had been unable to establish her identity since she was found wandering in far north Queensland last September.

Did Cornelia Rau have a mental illness?
CORNELIA Rau returned to psychiatric care in Adelaide, just days after being released into the community, appears to be very suspicious indeed!

Submission to Senate: Inquiry into Mental Health 2005
We appreciate that the urgent issues of Human Rights and other abuses including institutionalisation and the use of force, and the lack of progress on Burdekin are being examined by the Committee.

Govt defends decision to detain Korean woman?
The Immigration Department says there was no unlawful detention in the case of a Korean woman recently held at South Australia's Baxter detention centre?

Rau ordeal a raw deal
Ms Rau spent time in a Queensland prison and a hospital before being handed to immigration authorities who kept her in detention for another four months.

Australian held in Baxter detention centre
It has been revealed an Australian resident has been locked up in Baxter Detention Centre in South Australia for the past four months. Authorities had been unable to establish her identity since she was found wandering in far north Queensland last September.

Lawyers want Baxter detainee released for treatment !
Lawyers acting for a hunger-striking detainee inside South Australia's Baxter detention centre have asked the Federal Court to order a psychiatric assessment for the man, saying he needs to be in mental health care, not detention.

Baxter protesters 'being denied water, sleep'?
One of the three Iranian men has been on the roof of the gymnasium since Sunday last week, with two others joining him on Tuesday.

Detainees urged to abandon rooftop protest!
Kathy Verran from Rural Australians for Refugees, says one of the men has since come down and has been taken into the management unit. solitary confinement for Xmas?

Advocates warn of detention centre riot risk
A prominent refugee advocate warns South Australia's Baxter Detention Centre is on the brink of a major riot. A protest involving about 25 male detainees broke out at the centre on Tuesday, over a new system which is delaying the process of dispensing medication to detainees.

Advocates warn of detention centre riot risk
A prominent refugee advocate warns South Australia's Baxter Detention Centre is on the brink of a major riot. A protest involving about 25 male detainees broke out at the centre on Tuesday, over a new system which is delaying the process of dispensing medication to detainees.

Villawood detainees go on hunger strike
A refugee advocacy group says up to 200 detainees at the Villawood Detention Centre, in Sydney, have begun a hunger strike to draw attention to their situation ahead of the federal election.

Afghan children lose High Court battle against detention
Lawyers have lost their constitutional challenge to the detention of four children at a South Australian immigration centre. Four siblings from Afghanistan, aged between seven and 15, have been in detention since they arrived in Australia in 2001.

Democrats to keep up pressure over asylum seekers
The Australian Democrats will maintain their pressure on the next federal government over Australia's treatment of asylum seekers, if the party can retain its strength in the Senate.

Don't rock the Boat Howard!
PRIME Minister John Howard today denied the children overboard affair had swayed the 2001 election? Mr Howard has spent the week defending himself against claims he had been informed that nobody in Defence believed children had been thrown overboard by asylum seekers.

Baxter detainee continues hunger strike
A detainee at the Baxter detention centre near Port Augusta in South Australia has been on a hunger strike for a week. Sri Lankan Zeldon Daggie, 23, says he has been detained since arriving in Australia four years ago.

Senior cleric damns Baxter as 'disgraceful'
A senior world religious figure has called on the Federal Government to scrap its mandatory detention policy after visiting the Baxter detention centre in South Australia's north.

Australia's "GITMO" System
Australia's "GITMO" System In June 2002 on the PM program on ABC radio, PHILIP RUDDOCK is quoted as saying: "Well, let me just say, detention centres are not prisons. They are administrative detention.

Detention centre media ban criticised
The Howard Government has been criticised in a report by media freedom advocate Reporters Without Borders for stopping journalists covering the conditions in refugee detention centres.

Baxter visit convinces Burke of need for royal commission

A visit to any Detention Centre or prison should convince Labor to push for a royal commission into detention...

AUSTRALIA/CUBA Federal Labor's new immigration spokesman Tony Burke says after visiting the Baxter detention centre he is now more convinced then ever of the need for a royal commission into immigration detention.

Mr Burke's visit to Baxter yesterday was his first trip there.

He says even the findings of the Palmer inquiry differed to what he was told by detainees at Baxter.

"Everything that we've said about the royal commission and the need for evidence to be taken publicly was right," he said.

"It was spot on and the contradictions that were presented to me ... just confirmed that and secondly a very clear message that these detention centres should not be in private ownership.

"There should be a clear line of command from the minister, through the department to government-run centres."

He says his visit put a human face to the plight of long-term detainees.

"We believe there are better ways and the 90 per cent of cases and the 90 days that I mentioned is one of those," he said.

"But the other thing that you need is huge cultural change and unless the Government is serious about that then we're not going to get the changes on the ground that we need.

"Perhaps the first to get a removal pending visa should be the Minister."

A nurse who cared for the Australian woman wrongly deported to the Philippines, Vivian Alvarez Solon, says Ms Solon suffered serious convulsions a day before she was declared fit to be flown out of Australia.

Filipino-Australian nurse Mayette Mackintosh has said that she informed Immigration guards of Ms Solon's condition and recommended she not board a plane.

"She just starting to have a spasm and really shaking, you know, having some sort of fit," she said.

"I brought it to the attention to the two Immigration officers. They said that they have to inform the Immigration Department about the condition."

The next day, Dr Peter Wynn examined Ms Solon and declared her fit to fly.

He says he was not told of her seizure or her medical history.

"It does, it worries you a little bit. They're withholding information because it would change your approach, possibly send her to hospital that night for evaluation from the neurological department," he said.

"Other things could have been done if that was evident and that obvious."

Former Supreme Court judge Marcus Einfeld, who is advising Ms Solon, says the Immigration Department was in a rush to prove Ms Solon could fly.

"I think this doctor must have been under an enormous amount of pressure from the department to give a favourable report and that's what he did," he said.

Professor Louise Newman from the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists says it is not good enough.

"I think after this case all clinicians will be well advised in their dealings with the department," she said.

"I dare say that if this doctor had been aware that Ms [Solon] would be sent to a hospice for the dying, his decision and concerns would have been even greater."

Ms Solon's legal team is currently trying to secure compensation for her wrongful deportation to the Philippines in 2001.

Well your prisons and institutions have all fallen by the wayside so why not have a Royal Commission into prisons and detention centers? Seen as how the punishment appears to be the same even for an alleged terrorist who can be treated like the worst of the worst criminals, regardless if any case has been made against them in a court of law.

Zealots Reign Unchecked in Immigration - Nothing Has Changed

The Palmer Inquiry has identified a culture of zealotry as underpinning current Immigration Department (DIMIA) policy and practice.

By Just Us 19 July 05

Related:

Gov't Failure Card: Community
The controversial plan was yesterday raised by Queensland Premier Peter Beattie, who suggested a national ID card to prevent unlawful detention similar to that suffered by Cornelia Rau and Vivian Alvarez.

Some people want to remain anonymous
The federal attorney-general has suggested that two women wrongfully detained by the Immigration Department could have avoided being locked up if they had cooperated more with authorities.

'Anna's nightmare' in detention's living hell
Australia: IN his whitewashed report on the detention scandals, government employee Mick Palmer refers to Cornelia Rau's four months in Baxter detention centre as "Anna's journey".

Detention policy: Change Your Mind
It would not be wrong to answer in the affirmative. Another reason is that our political system is adjusting to the highly publicised breaches of human rights via individual cases such as Peter Qasim, Cornelia Rau and Vivian Alvarez Solon.

Psychiatrists dismiss Vanstone's call to limit role
Psychiatrists treating mentally-ill Baxter detainees have rejected the Immigration Minister Senator Amanda Vanstone's call for them to restrict their role to the immediate care of patients.

HREOC's deadline on child detainees passes
"We detainees request from human Australian to release us from Nauru cage" Years of waiting took their toll on asylum seekers. There are still two men there! They are suffering. (April 2006).

Tampering with Asylum
HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT THAT AUSTRALIA'S recent policies on asylum seekers are wrong, but don't quite have the statistics to back up your views?

Baxter,'akin to the time in Nazi Germany'
I went to Baxter this Easter just past, and became more aware that this time is akin to the time in Nazi Germany when the concentration camps were being set up.

Asylum seeker denied medical help, court hears
An Iranian asylum seeker was denied access to psychiatric help, despite slashing himself several times inside South Australia's Baxter detention centre, the Federal Court in Adelaide has heard.

Once You've Been to Baxter You Can't Sit on the Fence
I spent this Easter in the desert. I spent this Easter protesting at Baxter detention centre to draw the world's attention to the injustice of Australia's racist and inhumane mandatory detention system and treatment of asylum seekers.

Detention Centres, Solitary Confinement
On Friday night the NSW Council for Civil Liberties awarded Sydney solicitor John Marsden honorary life membership. Julian Burnside was invited to make the speech in Marsden's honour. In the course of his speech, Burnside referred to the unregulated use of solitary confinement in Australia's immigration detention centres, criticising it as inhumane and also as unlawful.

MP urges asylum seekers' release
A federal Coalition MP has called for the release of all asylum seekers being held in immigration detention centres.

Australian held in Baxter detention centre
It has been revealed an Australian resident has been locked up in Baxter Detention Centre in South Australia for the past four months. Authorities had been unable to establish her identity since she was found wandering in far north Queensland last September.

Did Cornelia Rau have a mental illness?
CORNELIA Rau returned to psychiatric care in Adelaide, just days after being released into the community, appears to be very suspicious indeed!

Submission to Senate: Inquiry into Mental Health 2005
We appreciate that the urgent issues of Human Rights and other abuses including institutionalisation and the use of force, and the lack of progress on Burdekin are being examined by the Committee.

Govt defends decision to detain Korean woman?
The Immigration Department says there was no unlawful detention in the case of a Korean woman recently held at South Australia's Baxter detention centre?

Rau ordeal a raw deal
Ms Rau spent time in a Queensland prison and a hospital before being handed to immigration authorities who kept her in detention for another four months.

Australian held in Baxter detention centre
It has been revealed an Australian resident has been locked up in Baxter Detention Centre in South Australia for the past four months. Authorities had been unable to establish her identity since she was found wandering in far north Queensland last September.

Lawyers want Baxter detainee released for treatment !
Lawyers acting for a hunger-striking detainee inside South Australia's Baxter detention centre have asked the Federal Court to order a psychiatric assessment for the man, saying he needs to be in mental health care, not detention.

Baxter protesters 'being denied water, sleep'?
One of the three Iranian men has been on the roof of the gymnasium since Sunday last week, with two others joining him on Tuesday.

Detainees urged to abandon rooftop protest!
Kathy Verran from Rural Australians for Refugees, says one of the men has since come down and has been taken into the management unit. solitary confinement for Xmas?

Advocates warn of detention centre riot risk
A prominent refugee advocate warns South Australia's Baxter Detention Centre is on the brink of a major riot. A protest involving about 25 male detainees broke out at the centre on Tuesday, over a new system which is delaying the process of dispensing medication to detainees.

Advocates warn of detention centre riot risk
A prominent refugee advocate warns South Australia's Baxter Detention Centre is on the brink of a major riot. A protest involving about 25 male detainees broke out at the centre on Tuesday, over a new system which is delaying the process of dispensing medication to detainees.

Villawood detainees go on hunger strike
A refugee advocacy group says up to 200 detainees at the Villawood Detention Centre, in Sydney, have begun a hunger strike to draw attention to their situation ahead of the federal election.

Afghan children lose High Court battle against detention
Lawyers have lost their constitutional challenge to the detention of four children at a South Australian immigration centre. Four siblings from Afghanistan, aged between seven and 15, have been in detention since they arrived in Australia in 2001.

Democrats to keep up pressure over asylum seekers
The Australian Democrats will maintain their pressure on the next federal government over Australia's treatment of asylum seekers, if the party can retain its strength in the Senate.

Don't rock the Boat Howard!
PRIME Minister John Howard today denied the children overboard affair had swayed the 2001 election? Mr Howard has spent the week defending himself against claims he had been informed that nobody in Defence believed children had been thrown overboard by asylum seekers.

Baxter detainee continues hunger strike
A detainee at the Baxter detention centre near Port Augusta in South Australia has been on a hunger strike for a week. Sri Lankan Zeldon Daggie, 23, says he has been detained since arriving in Australia four years ago.

Senior cleric damns Baxter as 'disgraceful'
A senior world religious figure has called on the Federal Government to scrap its mandatory detention policy after visiting the Baxter detention centre in South Australia's north.

Australia's "GITMO" System
Australia's "GITMO" System In June 2002 on the PM program on ABC radio, PHILIP RUDDOCK is quoted as saying: "Well, let me just say, detention centres are not prisons. They are administrative detention.

Detention centre media ban criticised
The Howard Government has been criticised in a report by media freedom advocate Reporters Without Borders for stopping journalists covering the conditions in refugee detention centres.

Some people want to remain anonymous

The federal attorney-general has suggested that two women wrongfully detained by the Immigration Department could have avoided being locked up if they had cooperated more with authorities.

But some people want to remain anonymous writes Just Us.

The report of the Palmer inquiry, which is allegedly looking into the wrongful detentions of Cornelia Rau and Vivian Solon, is to be released today or tomorrow even though some of that material has been leaked? [Leaked on purpose?]

Leaked drafts of the Palmer report blame the Immigration Department for failing to follow its own procedures regarding the detention of Cornelia Rau, and for exacerbating her mental illness.

But who leaked the drafts? I don't suppose there will be any investigation about that?

philip ruddock, who was the minister for immigration at the time the women were detained, says it is difficult to identify detainees without their help.

"Identification of people depends very much upon a high level of cooperation from those who are asked to prove their identity, and if that is not forthcoming, the task is always more difficult," ruddock said.

But from my memory Conelia Rau suggested she might have had a good reason for remaining anonymous in that she declared that she was not mentally ill.

She may also have been compromised by her own family who had previously placed her into a mental health facility and did not particularly want to be sent back to a mental health hospital perhaps suggesting at that time, prior being picked up by authorities that she was not mentally ill?

ruddock says he hopes that the report will not look just at the actions of the Immigration Department.

"It shouldn't disguise the problems you have in dealing with people who do not give you accurate information about who they are and their background, and the difficulties that you confront when having to deal with that are much greater than when you have cooperation," he said.

But do people have the right to remain anonymous even to government officials?

Claims contradicted

But Ms Solon's lawyer, George Newhouse, contradicts ruddock's claim that his client was uncooperative and had not given her real name.

"She actually did provide her full name, Vivian Solon, to independent witnesses who tried to pass this information on to DIMIAA [Immigration Department] officers, and they weren't interested," he said.

Ms Solon remains in the Philippines while her legal team negotiates for compensation with the Government.

She has not been asked to give evidence at the Palmer inquiry, but others have told the investigation she did give her correct name.

"I would expect that Mr Ruddock would have read the Palmer report and that this information would have been in the report," Mr Newhouse said.

"I don't understand how Mr Ruddock could possibly suggest that Vivian was the cause of her own demise."

Mr Newhouse says he believes Mr Ruddock's comments are an attempt to blunt the inquiry's impact.

"But it does surprise me that Mr Ruddock is out there criticising the victims when I understand the report is going to slam his own department, a department that bungled the Cornelia Rau and the Vivian Solon case under his stewardship," he said.

And what about the leaks?

By Tom Iggulden and Just Us 13 July 05

Related:

'Anna's nightmare' in detention's living hell
Australia: IN his whitewashed report on the detention scandals, government employee Mick Palmer refers to Cornelia Rau's four months in Baxter detention centre as "Anna's journey".

Detention policy: Change Your Mind
It would not be wrong to answer in the affirmative. Another reason is that our political system is adjusting to the highly publicised breaches of human rights via individual cases such as Peter Qasim, Cornelia Rau and Vivian Alvarez Solon.

Psychiatrists dismiss Vanstone's call to limit role
Psychiatrists treating mentally-ill Baxter detainees have rejected the Immigration Minister Senator Amanda Vanstone's call for them to restrict their role to the immediate care of patients.

HREOC's deadline on child detainees passes
"We detainees request from human Australian to release us from Nauru cage" Years of waiting took their toll on asylum seekers. There are still two men there! They are suffering. (April 2006).

Tampering with Asylum
HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT THAT AUSTRALIA'S recent policies on asylum seekers are wrong, but don't quite have the statistics to back up your views?

Baxter,'akin to the time in Nazi Germany'
I went to Baxter this Easter just past, and became more aware that this time is akin to the time in Nazi Germany when the concentration camps were being set up.

Asylum seeker denied medical help, court hears
An Iranian asylum seeker was denied access to psychiatric help, despite slashing himself several times inside South Australia's Baxter detention centre, the Federal Court in Adelaide has heard.

Once You've Been to Baxter You Can't Sit on the Fence
I spent this Easter in the desert. I spent this Easter protesting at Baxter detention centre to draw the world's attention to the injustice of Australia's racist and inhumane mandatory detention system and treatment of asylum seekers.

Detention Centres, Solitary Confinement
On Friday night the NSW Council for Civil Liberties awarded Sydney solicitor John Marsden honorary life membership. Julian Burnside was invited to make the speech in Marsden's honour. In the course of his speech, Burnside referred to the unregulated use of solitary confinement in Australia's immigration detention centres, criticising it as inhumane and also as unlawful.

MP urges asylum seekers' release
A federal Coalition MP has called for the release of all asylum seekers being held in immigration detention centres.

Australian held in Baxter detention centre
It has been revealed an Australian resident has been locked up in Baxter Detention Centre in South Australia for the past four months. Authorities had been unable to establish her identity since she was found wandering in far north Queensland last September.

Did Cornelia Rau have a mental illness?
CORNELIA Rau returned to psychiatric care in Adelaide, just days after being released into the community, appears to be very suspicious indeed!

Submission to Senate: Inquiry into Mental Health 2005
We appreciate that the urgent issues of Human Rights and other abuses including institutionalisation and the use of force, and the lack of progress on Burdekin are being examined by the Committee.

Govt defends decision to detain Korean woman?
The Immigration Department says there was no unlawful detention in the case of a Korean woman recently held at South Australia's Baxter detention centre?

Rau ordeal a raw deal
Ms Rau spent time in a Queensland prison and a hospital before being handed to immigration authorities who kept her in detention for another four months.

Australian held in Baxter detention centre
It has been revealed an Australian resident has been locked up in Baxter Detention Centre in South Australia for the past four months. Authorities had been unable to establish her identity since she was found wandering in far north Queensland last September.

Lawyers want Baxter detainee released for treatment !
Lawyers acting for a hunger-striking detainee inside South Australia's Baxter detention centre have asked the Federal Court to order a psychiatric assessment for the man, saying he needs to be in mental health care, not detention.

Baxter protesters 'being denied water, sleep'?
One of the three Iranian men has been on the roof of the gymnasium since Sunday last week, with two others joining him on Tuesday.

Detainees urged to abandon rooftop protest!
Kathy Verran from Rural Australians for Refugees, says one of the men has since come down and has been taken into the management unit. solitary confinement for Xmas?

Advocates warn of detention centre riot risk
A prominent refugee advocate warns South Australia's Baxter Detention Centre is on the brink of a major riot. A protest involving about 25 male detainees broke out at the centre on Tuesday, over a new system which is delaying the process of dispensing medication to detainees.

Advocates warn of detention centre riot risk
A prominent refugee advocate warns South Australia's Baxter Detention Centre is on the brink of a major riot. A protest involving about 25 male detainees broke out at the centre on Tuesday, over a new system which is delaying the process of dispensing medication to detainees.

Villawood detainees go on hunger strike
A refugee advocacy group says up to 200 detainees at the Villawood Detention Centre, in Sydney, have begun a hunger strike to draw attention to their situation ahead of the federal election.

Afghan children lose High Court battle against detention
Lawyers have lost their constitutional challenge to the detention of four children at a South Australian immigration centre. Four siblings from Afghanistan, aged between seven and 15, have been in detention since they arrived in Australia in 2001.

Democrats to keep up pressure over asylum seekers
The Australian Democrats will maintain their pressure on the next federal government over Australia's treatment of asylum seekers, if the party can retain its strength in the Senate.

Don't rock the Boat Howard!
PRIME Minister John Howard today denied the children overboard affair had swayed the 2001 election? Mr Howard has spent the week defending himself against claims he had been informed that nobody in Defence believed children had been thrown overboard by asylum seekers.

Baxter detainee continues hunger strike
A detainee at the Baxter detention centre near Port Augusta in South Australia has been on a hunger strike for a week. Sri Lankan Zeldon Daggie, 23, says he has been detained since arriving in Australia four years ago.

Senior cleric damns Baxter as 'disgraceful'
A senior world religious figure has called on the Federal Government to scrap its mandatory detention policy after visiting the Baxter detention centre in South Australia's north.

Australia's "GITMO" System
Australia's "GITMO" System In June 2002 on the PM program on ABC radio, PHILIP RUDDOCK is quoted as saying: "Well, let me just say, detention centres are not prisons. They are administrative detention.

Detention centre media ban criticised
The Howard Government has been criticised in a report by media freedom advocate Reporters Without Borders for stopping journalists covering the conditions in refugee detention centres.

Prisoner total rises 15% in six years

England and Wales are continuing to jail offenders at a higher rate than any other major country in western Europe, it emerged today. New research indicates that the government's use of prison as its main tool of penal policy has increased by 15% since 1999.

Despite government attempts to reduce it, England and Wales have a prison population rate of 142 per 100,000, which remains higher than France, Germany, Italy and Greece.

There are 76,000 people in jails in England and Wales, and this does not include immigration detainees. Last week Amnesty International estimated that 25,000 asylum seekers were locked up last year in the UK.

There are around 1,300 prisoners in Northern Ireland and 6,700 in Scotland.

The analysis, by the International Centre for Prison Studies (ICPS) suggests authorities around the world are sending their citizens to jail at an ever increasing rate.

As before, the United States, China and Russia are responsible for half the world's 9 million prisoners.

But whereas in Russia the prison population has fallen from more than 1 million in 1999 to 763,000 now, the total has risen in the US - by far the world's biggest jailer - from 1.86 million in 1999 to more than 2 million. There is also an upward trend in China where there are more than 1.5 million people in jail, a prison population rate of 118 per 100,000 of the population.

Rob Allen, director of the ICPS, said: "Given the high cost and disputed efficacy of imprisonment, the data should prompt policymakers in every country to consider what they can do to limit the size of their prison population. Excessive use of prison does nothing to improve public safety."

Geoff Dobson, deputy director of the Prison Reform Trust, said: "Does this country really want to be seen to imprison far more of our population than our neighbours, France and Germany, and does this help to make ours a safer society than theirs?"

The study, conducted at King's College London, shows a rise in the prison populations of 73% of those countries analysed. This applied to 64% of countries in Africa, 79% of those in the Americas, 83% in Asia, 69% in Europe and 69% in Oceania.

Of particular interest were Brazil, where the rise in the prison population was 70%, Japan, where the figure rose by 40%, and Mexico, where the increase was 37%.

The largest rise in Europe occurred in Holland, where the jail population has leapt over five years from 14,000 to 20,000, an increase of 42%. The authorities there have reacted to public calls for tougher sentences.

The changing situation in Russia is in part attributable to the work of Yuri Kalinin, the deputy minister of justice and former director general of the Russian prison service, who has made a big impact on the country's penal policy.

The biggest drop has been in the remand population. In 1996, it stood at 300,000 but that figure had fallen to 150,000 at the start of the year.

Roy Walmsley, honorary consultant to the United Nations and an ICPS associate, said: "We sought to draw attention to the huge world prison population and the vast differences in different parts of the world and in different countries. The question of how effective prisons are should be a matter of great public debate. It is to be hoped that countries with a high prison population will look at their neighbours, who imprison many fewer of their people and ask if their society is necessarily safer as a result."

Two months ago Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice, called for "greater sense" in sentencing to improve public confidence and make the criminal justice system more effective. He said detention should be primarily reserved for the most serious offences, particularly violent and dangerous offenders.

But many politicians and some within the criminal justice system hold to the philosophy first espoused by Michael Howard, that "prison works"

Earlier this year Paul Kernaghan, chief constable of Hampshire, urged judges to send more offenders to prison for the protection of the public.

By Eric Allison and Hugh Muir posted 29 June 05

Not With Our Money

Today, millions of people living in the U.S. find themselves on the front lines of a deadly "war on crime" with no end in sight. Since 1970, the number of men and women behind bars grew by nearly 600% to a staggering two million. The bulk of the newly incarcerated are not serial killers or drug kingpins, but young people of color from urban neighborhoods who have been convicted of non-violent drug offenses, and increasingly, immigrants whose only crime is being undocumented.

Politicians tell us that prison expansion will help us "win" the war on crime, but research and the lived experience of victims, offenders, families and communities suggest that over-incarceration has actually weakened the social fabric of crime-ridden communities. Thirty years of "tough-on-crime" policies have left American more fearful, more alienated, and more racially divided, yet the U.S. government touts the "success" of American criminal justice around the world.

This section will provide you with general facts about the prison industrial complex, the private prison industry and the corporations that finance it, organizing efforts to abolish the industry once and for all, and resources to assist you in your activism.

Related:

CPS drops prosecution over death in custody
UK: The family of Roger Sylvester, who died after being restrained by police officers, yesterday expressed their disappointment at a decision by the Crown Prosecution Service not to prosecute any of the officers involved.

Prisoner's cell death
UK: A prisoner was found hanged in his cell last week, the Home Office said, fuelling criticism over the soaring number of suicides in custody.

Plans for five new 'superprisons'
Recent figures show a total of 75,550 prisoners were held in 139 jails in England and Wales, nudging up the previous record of April 2004 by just six inmates.

Prison has lost its way - report
UK: Bristol prison is suffering wide-ranging problems because of inconsistent management, the Chief Inspector of Prisons has said.

Row over acupuncture for prisoners
UK: The Home Office has responded to criticism over prison inmates who are being offered acupuncture on the NHS in order to relieve stress.

Number of prisoners sent back to jail trebles
UK: The number of prisoners being sent back to jail after release has nearly trebled in the past five years, according to a report published today.

Top judge says crowded prisons cannot break cycle of crime
UK: Reoffending rates after a prison sentence are at an "unacceptably high level" and the failure of the criminal justice system to stop prisoners reoffending should shock the public, England's top judge, [Ruling Class] Lord Woolf, said last week.

All the World's a Prison: History
No doubt many of my readers, even those who are well-educated or widely read, think that the prison -- the place where dark deeds are darkly answered[2] -- is an ancient institution, a barbaric hold-over from barbaric times. In fact, the prison is of relatively recent origin, and this tells us a great deal about the pretentions and realities of modern times, and the wisdom and high degree of development of the ancients.

Decade after inspector left in disgust, report tells of filth
UK: Dirty, mice-infested cells, high levels of self-harm, and widespread bullying over drugs and medications were just some of the damning findings of a report into conditions at Holloway, Britain's largest women's prison.

Most women 'should not be jailed'
Women make up 6% of the prison population in England and Wales. Imprisonment of women should be "virtually abolished", a prison reform group has said.

Youth 'murdered for officers' pleasure'
UK: An Asian teenager was murdered by a white racist after they were placed in the same cell as part of a game to fulfil the "perverted pleasure" of prison officers, a public inquiry heard on Friday.

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.

Inquest blames jail for overdose death
UK: An inquest jury returned a verdict itemising a catalogue of faults at Styal prison in Cheshire, concluding that the prison's "failure of duty of care" contributed to the death of Sarah Campbell, 18, who took an overdose of tablets on the first day of her three-year sentence.

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.]

Britain 'sliding into police state'
The home secretary, Charles Clarke, is transforming Britain into a police state, one of the country's former leading anti-terrorist police chiefs [false flag police chiefs] said yesterday.

UK solitary confinement
UK: Segregation units are prisons within prisons - the places where the most unchecked brutality is meted out to prisoners. In recent years conditions in high security segregation units have deteriorated, and the use of long-term segregation as a control mechanism has increased.

Inquiry must root out prison racists
UK: It is difficult to imagine a more brutal murder than that of Zahid Mubarek. The 19-year-old was clubbed to death by his cellmate at Feltham Young Offender Institution in the early hours of 21 March 2000. He was due to be released just a few hours later.

Prison suicides soar as jails hire 'babysitters'
UK: Prison officers are being taken off suicide watch and replaced by unqualified 'babysitters' because the system is overwhelmed by an epidemic of self-harm.

Plan to sell off juvenile jails as job lot
UK: The government is to put out to tender all its dedicated juvenile jails that hold children under 18 in a departure in Whitehall's privatisation programme.

Failure to sack 'racist' prison staff condemned
UK: Two prison officers suspended for racism are still on full pay three years after a stash of Nazi memorabilia, neo-fascist literature and Ku Klux Klan-inspired 'nigger-hunting licences' was found in a police raid on their home.

Report slams 'unjust' jailing of women on remand
UK: Six out of 10 women sent to jail while they await trial are acquitted or given a non-custodial sentence, a report published today reveals. Introducing the report, Lady Kennedy QC calls for a complete review of the use of remand and bail for women saying it is "inhumane and unjust".

Concern as UK prison suicides hit record level
UK: More prisoners took their own lives in English jails in August than in any other month since records began, prison reformers said today.

End of years of despair as Holloway closes its doors
But now Holloway prison in north London - where Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be executed in Britain, was hanged in 1955 - has been earmarked for closure, along with several other women's prisons, which have been hit by a spate of suicides.

How detox and self-help brought suicide jail back from the brink
UK: Six suicides in 12 months made Styal jail notorious and the Prisons Ombudsman criticised the prison and its staff for serious failures. But things are changing.

Belmarsh detainees consider suicide, says freed man
UK: The first of the Muslim detainees released from Belmarsh high security prison after being held on suspicion of terrorism has told the Guardian his fellow prisoners are suffering such severe mental problems that they constantly consider suicide.

Suicides and unrest have soared, admits Home Office
UK:The already overcrowded prison population is set to go on rising and will top 80,000 within the next three years, a senior Home Office civil servant warned yesterday.

England tops the EU in imprisonment
England and Wales jail more offenders per capita than any other European, Union country, according to new figures.