Call for reform of prison care for mentally ill

UK: Prisons would be legally obliged to provide specialist treatment and support to mentally ill inmates under Conservative proposals set before MPs.

The plan to only detain mentally ill prisoners in jails with specialist facilities and staff was outlined in a private members' bill proposed yesterday by Charles Hendry, the MP for Wealden.

Mr Hendry, the shadow industry minister, told the House of Commons that the current treatment of mentally ill prisoners was "a stain on our society".

He highlighted the case of 29-year-old constituent Daniel Meehan, who died this year soon after being released from prison, where for 10 years his mental health and behavioural problems were not addressed.

Mr Hendry said: "A young man with profound mental health needs died because he did not receive the help he needed. At the start of the 21st century that is something that should shame us all."

The MP said the case showed official rules that all severely mentally ill prisoners would receive treatment and that none would leave without a care plan were not being followed.

He said his bill would impose a legal requirement for mentally ill prisoners to receive appropriate specialist care.

"Those with mental health requirements would only be detained in establishments with specialised facilities and staff, trained to deal with them. And a pathway programme of support would have to be developed to ensure their mental needs are met," he told MPs.

The private members bill would also require prisons to undertake an assessment of all prisoners educational needs in a bid to address the high rates of illiteracy and innumeracy among offenders. This would improve rehabilitation by giving them the skills to find legitimate work, said the MP.

The bill, which has cross-party support, will get its second reading next year.

By David Batty posted 11 November 05

Related:

Teaching role for prison staff urged in report
UK: Prison officers should play a greater role in the education of inmates to prevent reoffending, says an academic report published today. The report marks the first time that uniformed staff, who normally have little involvement in prisoner education, have been consulted at length.

A long stretch
UK: As head of prisons for England and Wales, Martin Narey tried to improve life for people on the inside. One of those inmates was Erwin James, then serving a life sentence. Now, as Narey leaves his job after a career spanning three decades, the two men meet and discuss the many problems still facing Britain's jails.

Prison officers responsible for smuggling into jails
Fresh Home Office research also confirmed the extent of abuse in prisons yesterday, and suggested that prison staff were one route for drugs to get in. The study found that smuggling by uniformed or civilian staff was thought to be "substantially increasing" the availability of heroin and cannabis behind bars.

Plea to release Biggs rejected by ruling-class
UK: Home Secretary Charles Clarke has rejected a plea by Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs to be released from prison on compassionate grounds.

Prisons chief hits at 'gross' overcrowding
Martin Narey, a civil servant who has served every Home Secretary since 1989, highlights statistics showing that thousands of mentally ill inmates and a record number of children now constitute a significant part of the prison population.

Clarke faces a fight over probation overhaul
UK: The home secretary, Charles Clarke, yesterday confirmed his plans to abolish 42 local probation boards and instead create "a vibrant mixed economy" in the management of 200,000 offenders in the community.

The devilish advocate
UK: The devilish advocate John Hirst taught himself law in jail, and has never lost a case against the prison service. Erwin James meets up again with the former 'lifer' who won inmates the right to vote.

Racism still rife in jails, five years after the murder of Zahid Mubarek UK: The prison service will be strongly criticised for continued racial discrimination against ethnic minority inmates by the official report from the Zahid Mubarek inquiry.

UK prisoners should get vote, European court rules
UK: Laws setting out who can and cannot take part in elections are to be rewritten after the European court of human rights today ruled in favour of giving British prisoners the right to vote.

Prison plan 'will cut reoffending'
UK: A network of community prisons to help cut the number of criminals who re-offend has been outlined by Home Secretary Charles Clarke.

Clarke to scrap plan to peg prison numbers
UK: The home secretary, Charles Clarke, has said he is to abandon his predecessor's aspiration of pegging the prison population in England and Wales at 80,000. He will also drop plans to put a legal obligation on the judges' sentencing guidelines council to take the size of the prison population - currently 77,000 and rising - into account when laying down the "going rate" for major crimes.

Crowded jails 'boosting suicides'
UK: The chief inspector of prisons warned that an overcrowding crisis in Britain's jails was leading to an increase in prisoner suicides.

Chief justice calls for new approach to law and order
UK: The retiring [ruling class] lord chief justice, Lord Woolf, made a passionate plea for a new approach to law and order which would see a major shift away from punishment towards the solution of problems which generate crime.

Britain's only prison ship ends up on the beach
UK: The last inmates have departed and a skeleton staff is left guarding Britain's only prison ship - in case anyone is minded to break in rather than out.

Throw away the key
The one profession to get results on recidivism has been sacrificed to Labour's desire to lock up criminals in private prisons.

Judges' misdeeds will remain secret
UK: Judges who are disciplined for bad behaviour will not have the findings against them made public under a complaints regime to be launched next year.

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.

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.

Adelaide's Glenside psychiatric hospital: Escape from hell?
A third person has escaped from the Adelaide's Glenside psychiatric hospital as health authorities prepare to begin a second review of security.

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.

Statement of the Villawood Hunger Strikers

Posted at the request of the Chinese hunger strikers in Villawood, on strike since 19 October

Statement:

(translated from Chinese)

We are six hunger strikers from Villawood Immigration Detention Centre (VIDC) in Sydney, Australia. In order to protest against the compulsory detention policy and mental and physical impairment caused by the long-term detention in VIDC, during which many people have suffered from long-term insomnia, dysphoria, and even mental breakdown, six of us detainees started the hunger strike on 19th October, 2005.

Six of us all came from the mainland China, among us five people are seeking refugee status while another person is asking for family reunion.

We were persecuted by the communist regime in our own country where people lost their fundamental freedom, human rights, democratic rights and rule of law. We were forced to flee from China to come to Australia where people enjoy their fundamental freedom, human rights, democratic rights and rule of law.

Like newly born babies, we are seeking protection here in a democracy. But due to the inadequacy of the detention policy in Australia, we were forced to lose our freedom again and may, at any moment, be deported back to China and face severe persecution again.

Our hearts are bleeding

Is it that hard for us to live as a normal human being? Is it that hard for us to be treated like the staying Chinese after the Tiananmen Square Massacre?

Has the communist regime in China returned us the fundamental rights of freedom, human rights and democratic rights? Has the rule of law become dominant in China now?

Has the Chinese Communist Party stopped persecution against political dissidents, "underground churches" and Falun Gong?

All the above questions explain themselves, and certainly do not need our explanations.

Hereby we solemnly declared that we request the Australian Government to provide us the refugee status, family reunion and humanitarian refuge. It is also the aspirations of all the detainees at the Villawood Immigration Detention Centre, Sydney.

Australian people, we need your help!

From six hunger strikers in Villawood Immigration Detention Centre, Sydney 30th October, 2005

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.

By Chinese hunger strikers in Villawood posted 2 November 05

Related:

Hundreds attempt self-harm in detention
More than half of the 900 self-harm incidents over three years occurred in the Baxter detention centre.

Justice for Vivian Alvarez Solon
The Refugee Action Collective organised Melbourne's contribution to a National Day of Action to demand compensation for Vivian Alvarez Solon and an end to forced deportations...

Lawyer contradicts Vanstone over detained kids' case
The lawyer for two Sydney school children held for four months in immigration detention has disputed the version of their experience given by the Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone.

Is Cornelia Rau running for her life?
Wrongfully detained woman Cornelia Rau has travelled to Melbourne, in breach of a South Australian mental health order.

Baxter visit convinces Burke of need for royal commission
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.

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.

Hundreds attempt self-harm in detention

More than half of the 900 self-harm incidents over three years occurred in the Baxter detention centre.

Nearly 900 immigration detainees have tried to harm themselves in the past three years, Immigration Department figures reveal.

The figures show there have been 878 attempts at self-harm and half of those attempts occurred at the Baxter detention centre in South Australia.

The details have been provided in response to a freedom of information request made by Sydney academic and author Denise Leith.

Dr Leith says the figures are appalling.

"These are people who have sought from us asylum," she said.

"These are people who probably are in pain or have been traumatized."

The head of Psychological Medicine at Adelaide's Women's and Children's Hospital, Jon Jureidini, has assessed detainees at Baxter.

"After people have been in detention for extended periods of time, almost all people that I've come across have harmed themselves in some way."

By Injustice posted 21 September 05

Related:

Justice for Vivian Alvarez Solon
The Refugee Action Collective organised Melbourne's contribution to a National Day of Action to demand compensation for Vivian Alvarez Solon and an end to forced deportations...

Lawyer contradicts Vanstone over detained kids' case
The lawyer for two Sydney school children held for four months in immigration detention has disputed the version of their experience given by the Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone.

Is Cornelia Rau running for her life?
Wrongfully detained woman Cornelia Rau has travelled to Melbourne, in breach of a South Australian mental health order.

Baxter visit convinces Burke of need for royal commission
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.

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.

Ohio's Abu Ghraib

US: Before becoming an Ohio State Penitentiary physician, Dr. Ayham Haddad experienced a different side of incarceration as a political prisoner in Syria. After being arrested, tortured, and released, Haddad immigrated to the United States to begin a new life.

Now a general practitioner at Ohio's only supermax, located off state Route 616 in Youngstown, Haddad has a comparative perspective few could imagine. The doctor is amazed to find that certain human rights issues aren't being taken more seriously in the U.S. "In Syria, I was in solitary confinement for four months," Haddad reflected. "But here, prisoners are kept in solitary confinement for years!"

On June 13, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy expressed a similar concern, finding that "conditions at [the Ohio State Penitentiary] are more restrictive than any other form of incarceration in Ohio, including conditions on its death row." Kennedy also noted a holding policy that retained prisoners "for an indefinite period of time, limited only by an inmate's sentence."

Kennedy was referring here to the fact that Ohio supermax prisoners are disqualified from eligibility for parole. After surveying 26 out of 30 states operating supermax prisons, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights found that only Ohio and Maine were making this exception.

In 2002, when the two civil rights groups took the state of Ohio to court, the Ohio State Penitentiary had been operating for 3 years, and 200 of its prisoners had been in solitary confinement for more than three years. In most states, at least some of these prisoners would have qualified for parole.

The story of Kunta Kenyatta is a case in point. While serving a sentence at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, the Cleveland native became eligible for parole in 2002. But after being transferred to the newly opened Ohio State Penitentiary, in 1998, his parole was indefinitely suspended. "If I hadn't sued to get out of there, I would have been there until 2016," said Kenyatta, who served 16 years for a crime committed in his youth.

It is the idea of indefinite detention that troubled Haddad most. "I love America," he told me over a glass of Arak. "But you can punish people and put them in the hole for a month or two. You can't put them in solitary confinement for five years!" The doctor shook his head in disbelief.

Kenyatta was paroled in November 2002 following a successful class action suit that challenged the legitimacy of his transfer. The soft-spoken man whose African name meant "the musician" said the prison administration had sent him to the penitentiary for having been a political disturbance. Kenyatta had dreadlocks, political books such as the works of Malcolm X and Nelson Mandela, and he was helping other prisoners to legally change their names. "They accused me of trying to form an unauthorized group, which to them made me one of the worst of the worst."

Breeding violent fantasies

At the Youngstown supermax, prisoners are locked in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, in bleak concrete cells measuring 7*_b-11 feet. Each cell has a sink and toilet, a small desk, a concrete stool, a concrete slab with a thin mattress, and a slim rectangular window.

The idea of living in a concrete box without knowing how long you'll remain there is known to create trauma symptoms similar to those experienced by hostages: anxiety, headaches, lethargy, insomnia, nervous breakdowns, perspiring hands, and heart palpitations.

According to Craig Haney, a psychology professor at the University of California, prisoners often begin experiencing these effects after ten days in solitary confinement. Haney concluded that supermax incarceration also greatly undermined a prisoner's prospects for successful reentry into society.

Kenyatta said he'd have lost all psychological balance if not for his pen-pals and books. "It's really stressful, and often times you explode and get mad." He recalled how illiterate inmates were hit the hardest. "They were basically cut off from the world. So some of them started smearing feces in their faces, or taking it out on their cell doors."

Even the most resilient individuals carry the scars of solitary confinement long after being released. Now, two years later, Kenyatta keeps his Canton home meticulously tidy, and has said it would be difficult to imagine living with anyone else.

Ohio's Abu Ghraib?

The lawyer and historian Staughton Lynd said he wasn't surprised to hear reports that prisoners of war [and scapegoats and patsies] in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib were victims of torture and other human rights violations. He could imagine this treatment being an extension of patterns he'd observed at maximum-security prisons in the U.S.

"What this country learns to do to the 2 million people in its prisons, it has extended to other people all over the world," Lynd said. "And of course, it does so easily, because these people are very often of dark skin."

The retired attorney lives in a small bungalow in Niles, from which he and his wife Alice are leading the fight to humanize supermax prisons. Their work is inspired by their advocacy of civil rights. In the 1960s, Staughton Lynd was the director of the Mississippi Freedom Schools and also taught history to black students at Spellman College.

The Lynds worked as labor lawyers when the steel mills shut down in Youngstown. When they closed, the prisons came, and the two lawyers realized that regulating them would be their next struggle.

During a May 21 public tour of the 500-bed facility, the Ohio State Penitentiary's spokesperson, Keith Fletcher, said that one shouldn't forget that a supermax was "not a spa." And although prisoners there were the "worst of the worst," they still received television, medical coverage, and the option of a vegetarian menu. The supermax prison was also air-conditioned with "tempered air." During the tour, Fletcher downplayed solitary confinement's effects.

Noting that the United Nations mandates that all prisoners have access to fresh air, I wondered whether the supermax's "tempered air system" violated this mandate, and attempted to ask the Ohio State Penitentiary warden, Marc Houk, about the issue. However, the spokesperson informed me that Houk was "not entertaining interview requests at this time relative to living conditions."

The design for supermax prisons originally emerged in the 1970s in response to an increase in prison violence nationwide. In the social climate of the Reagan years, legislators began favoring the idea of isolating troublemakers in expensive new high-security facilities as they also cut funding for rehabilitation programs. By 1997, 45 states and the District of Columbia as well as the federal prison system were operating super-maximum prisons.

But in the mid-1990s, the supermaxes became the subject of an increasing number of lawsuits and human rights protests. Prisoners and their attorneys reported a rise in the routine use of stun belts, stun guns and restraint chairs. It was at this time that the battle against Ohio's only supermax prison began.

Humanizing the hole

In January 2001, Charles Austin and 28 other prisoners filed a lawsuit claiming that Ohio had violated their Eighth Amendment rights. The prisoners argued that medical and psychiatric care and recreation were inadequate at the supermax, and physical restraints were too harsh. Prisoners received medical injections through their narrow food slots, for example, and had both hands handcuffed to the wall during medical exams.

In February 2002, the plaintiffs won a significant legal victory when a federal district court ruled that the state must follow strict due-process guidelines before sending prisoners to the supermax. The number of inmates dropped significantly after a court-ordered review of individual cases determined that two-thirds of the prisoners did not meet the criteria for such restrictive confinement. "The supermax was built to hold approximately 450 prisoners," Lynd said. "There are now roughly 250. So, you can say we've very nearly cut the population in half."

The state of Ohio is looking for a way to fill those empty cells. In March, officials announced plans to move Ohio's death row from Mansfield to Youngstown. The $157 daily cost per inmate would drop if the facility were filled, state officials argued. Specific details have not been disclosed.

The ACLU has filed legal action to block the transfer of about 200 death row inmates. The hearing is set for Aug. 18 before U.S. District Judge James Gwin. ACLU lawyers will argue that the wholesale transfer of an entire category of prisoners violates the concept of individualized hearings.

Lynd, who works as counsel for the ACLU on the case, said he believes the relocation of death row prisoners to Youngstown would lead to a deterioration of their mental health, more suicides and an increase in requests to "volunteer" for execution.

"We are fighting Ohio's plan to move death row tooth and nail," Lynd said.

After once meeting with a supermax client who'd been handcuffed with his arms behind his back for 2_ hours, the attorney remembered sharing his gut response to the incident with his wife: "Give me a teaspoon, so I can start tearing this place down."

Daniel Sturm teaches journalism at Youngstown State University in Northeastern Ohio. He is a German journalist who covers underreported social and political topics in Europe and in the United States.

By Daniel Sturm Posted 10 August 05

ZNET

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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.

Sounds like she's running for her life?

Ms Rau's sister Christine Rau has expressed frustration at the state-based system governing mental health orders, which makes it difficult for South Australian authorities to act in Victoria?

Christine Rau says she is aware of her sister's movements and will focus now on getting her back to Adelaide.

Run Cornelia run!

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Peter Qasim ... accused of being uncooperative

The Federal__ opposition's? spokesman on Imagination, laurie ferguson, (another well paid loser) says the proposed release of long-term detainee Peter Qasim could set a worrying precedent.

Too right he's been there too long and now he has a mental problem. I guess that's one way to get to the truth aye laurie?

Mr Qasim is among 50 people invited to apply for a bridging visa by Imagination Minister amanda vanstone.

john hoWARd says Sin-ator vanstone's decision is a sensible way of dealing with the situation.

That was after they gave him a mental problem!

hoWARd: "I have full confidence in her using this discretion," he said.

But Labor's Imagination spokesman, laurie ferguson, says he is not convinced the case sets the right example.

"I would think that up to recently there are issues as to his cooperation," he said.

ferguson says it is unpalatable to keep anyone in detention for such a long time.

But he believes until recently Mr Qasim has not been cooperative with authorities.

"I think it would be a very worrying precedent for people in Australia where we might establish a system where people aren't cooperative, they don't really clarify who they are, where they come from, what their political and religious or political and ethnic backgrounds are," he said.

"Because of lack of cooperation we define them as stateless like genuine stateless people. I do not think this is an easy issue."

But I wonder how he'd be if he had a 'mental illness' and tried to think about the issue of being stateless?

By Propaganda Monster 21 June 05

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Prisoner's cell death

InsideTime The National Monthly Newspaper For Prisoners

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.

The apparent suicide of Stanley Murphy, 64, takes the number of deaths in custody since the start of June to eight. Murphy, from Torquay, was discovered by staff at Dorchester prison on Tuesday.

The chief inspector of prisons, Anne Owers, has voiced her concerns, linking the issue of suicide to problems of overcrowding and mental illness in Britain's jails.

Ms Owers said that self-inflicted deaths were occurring in institutions "at the sharp end of the problem we have of prison overcrowding".

She added: "Some while ago, we closed our big mental hospitals on the premise that people would get care in the community. They don't. They tend to end up in our prisons."

USA Prisons

The New Asylums

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Australian Prisons

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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.

By Injustice posted 20 June

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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.