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.

In his first major speech on penal policy, the Home Secretary also renewed his backing for greater involvement of the private and voluntary sectors in dealing with offenders.

He told a conference organised by the Prison Reform Trust (PRT): "We should aim to provide good local community prisons which allow individuals to maintain family and community ties and have the ability to provide excellent support and interventions.

"I see these prisons becoming far more engaged with their local communities, and better at building relationships with a wide variety of other organisations.

He added: "I believe that we sometimes fail to give enough emphasis to the powerful impact of supportive relationships to prisoners to realise that offenders often care deeply about letting down those closest to them and want to show that they can change but somehow just never get there.

"An offender is much less likely to re-offend if he feels part of a family and community, from which he receives support as well as owes obligations."

He said the Prison Service should move towards keeping remand prisoners separate from sentenced inmates.

There should also be "planned and guaranteed" housing for released inmates, because currently one in four serving short-term prisoners lose their homes on release.

However, developing such support packages was an "enormous task" which would take years to achieve, he admitted.

The Home Secretary added: "I see no reason of principle or practicality why offender management should not be provided by the private or voluntary sector."

By Just Us posted 27 September 05

Related:

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.

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.

Marriage Programs Try to Instill Bliss and Stability Behind Bars

US: OKLAHOMA CITY, April 12 - Marriage anxiety has gripped much of the heartland, and in Oklahoma it has reached into the cellblock in perhaps the most unexpected permutation of the state's six-year effort to bolster wedded bliss.

In the Joseph Harp Correctional Center, sprawling across the tawny plains 40 miles south of Oklahoma City, officials are running a six-part course on maintaining a healthy marriage, available for the last year or so to inmates in good standing.

"There are 600,000 Americans leaving prison in the next few years," the human services director, Howard H. Hendrick, said in explaining the effort to teach felons to be good spouses. "And those guys are all coming to an apartment complex near you."

In small workshops in prisons around the state, inmates, often with their spouses present, discuss problems like money and sex that underlie disputes within a marriage. If the examples cited might seem irrelevant to relationships separated by prison walls - how, say, an argument about washing the dishes is really about power - the inmates seemed at a recent session to have little trouble connecting to these or to deeper hidden issues like fear of abandonment.

"I had nobody," said Dunnino Moreland, 12 years into a life sentence for murder that began when he was 16. "I'd been abandoned by my family, my friends, by everybody I ever knew. I was all alone in here, forever. And then I met Tammy, and now I have someone who I care about, who comes to see me on Sundays, who I can share a life with. But I'm afraid, we're all afraid, that maybe she won't come back some Sunday."

Tammy Moreland leaned her head on the shoulder of the husband she had married just a few years ago, long after he went to prison.

"I'll be here while there's breath in my body," she said and then turned to explain to the class. "This man, who has never touched me sexually, because of this situation that we're in, has treated me better than any man I ever met out there."

She gestured vaguely toward the windows overlooking a grass yard ringed by concertina wire.

Keen to keep traditional families together and battling high divorce rates, officials in more than 24 states have inaugurated marriage programs.

The Bush administration has proposed to spend several hundred million dollars a year for five years on marriage, fatherhood and sexual-abstinence initiatives, a plan that has wide support among religious and conservative groups.. The proposal calls for $100 million in annual grants to the states, plus an additional $100 million in grants that the states would have to match.

Perhaps no state program is as ambitious or multifaceted as the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative, in a state where the divorce rate was the second highest in the nation in 1994 and has continued to hover near the top, according to officials.

Begun in March 1999 by Gov. Frank Keating, a Republican, the initiative has survived the transition to the administration of a Democrat, Brad Henry, and continues to grow. This recent push into the prisons is to be followed, Mr.. Hendrick said, by a program aimed at couples who are preparing for the birth of their first children.

Since the initiative got up and running in 2001, nearly 30,000 high-school students have received training in the skills and savvy needed for dating, sustaining relationships and getting married. In addition, 1,364 people like preachers and county agricultural extension agents have had training to teach marriage-skills classes and have conducted more than 2,000 workshops attended by more than 27,000 people, a little more than 1 percent of the state's adult population. And 1,447 of the state's religious leaders have signed a covenant that commits them to encourage premarital counseling.

The average workshop size is 12, or six couples, and the sessions have been conducted at housing projects, universities, military bases, churches, Head Start programs, drug rehabilitation centers and Indian reservations.

State officials say there is more than compassion in their decision to take the program into cells, as well. The prison chaplain, Ron Grant, pointed to a recent study of 524 California parolees.

"When they looked at all the factors affecting whether the inmate returned to prison," he said, "the No. 1 factor, more than drugs, more than race, more than any other demographic category, was whether they were part of a stable family relationship."

Mary Myrick, president of Public Strategies, a company that has a contract to help manage the initiative, said the program was having unexpected effects.

"Initially in the prisons, we were thinking about it as a reintegration tool, for those about to be released back into society," Ms. Myrick said. "But to our surprise, it has been embraced even by some who are not getting out soon, or ever, but who want to keep their relationships intact.."

The curriculum was developed by two Colorado researchers, Howard Markham and Scott Stanley, and focuses on communications skills, teaching people to slow down and listen to one another before disputes mutate into arguments.

One instructor is Aaron Cosar, 19 years into a life sentence for first-degree murder and an assistant to the chaplain. He went through the course two years ago when it was a pilot program and credits it for making his marriage so important that he celebrates not one, but five anniversaries.

There is the day seven years ago when he met his wife, Justeen; their first date; their engagement; their wedding; and, perhaps dearest to him, the first time she visited him at the prison.

"And we celebrate them all," Mr. Cosar said, gently tapping his wife's forearm with his fingers as they sat side by side on mustard-color fiberglass chairs in a playroom for inmates' visiting children.

Mr. Cosar, using one of the shorthand terms in the curriculum, said the key to his class was "understanding the filters."

Mr. Moreland, a student, explained, "Sometimes you don't actually say what you mean, or you might hear things wrong, because of the filters that you put up in front of you."

Filters, he said, are the invisible barriers that people put up between themselves, hampering communication.

That had been the subject of the first two-hour session the previous Sunday.. A second Sunday session would be about everyday "issues" like money and sex that underlie disputes or "hidden issues" like fears of abandonment - hardly irrational for someone in prison.

Between a married man's arrest and the end of his first year in prison, 80 percent of marriages break up, Mr. Grant said. For female inmates, the divorce rate is closer to 100 percent, he said.

Although some couples who have gone through the marriage program were married before the man entered prison, most married after the prison terms started.

Some, like the Cosars, met during a church group's visit. Others like Terry and Carolyn Ree met through a prison pen pal program.

"I am taking this course because I want to show how committed I am to this relationship," said Mr. Ree, who is serving a life sentence for murder.

His wife smiled.

"We are learning if we ever have an argument to step back before we say something to hurt each other," Ms. Ree said.

With prison marriages and their lack of conjugal visits, Mr. Cosar said, the major question is whether the men really want relationships or merely someone to visit them.

"It's the one thing in your week that you can look forward to, so those visits can take on a huge importance," he said.

Mr. Moreland talked about the tension of going from the prison world, with its imperative to appear strong, to a Sunday visit with his wife, Tammy.

"It used to be really hard to tell her I loved her, because it was like I was exposing a weakness," he said. "And in here, you never expose a weakness."

The most unexpected result of the program, the inmates said, is that it has helped them improve relationships in the prison with other inmates and the guards.

"I find myself using some of the techniques on people inside," Mr.. Ree said. "And it works."

But that is not why the couples do it, they said. They do it because they want to get as much as possible out of the few short hours they spend together each week and because they want to think of themselves for even a short time as a normal married couple. And then, maybe, someday, if they ever get out, they will be ready.

"It's all about knowing you have a safe place to go to," Mr. Cosar said. "A place to rest."

By RICK LYMAN posted 21 April 05

Related:

Restorative Justice and the Law
To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe."-- Marilyn vos Savant.

Restorative Justice Practices
Restorative Justice Practices of Native American, First Nation and Other Indigenous People of North America. This is part one in a series of articles about restorative justice practices of Native American, First Nation and other indigenous people of North America. The series is not intended to be all-inclusive, but rather a broad thematic overview. A related eForum article, "The Wet'suwet'en Unlocking Aboriginal Justice Program: Restorative Practices in British Columbia, Canada," can be read at:

Sobering Prison Statistics
US-If recent incarceration rates remain unchanged, an estimated 1 out of every 20 persons (5.1%) will serve time in a prison during their lifetime.

The Long Trail to Apology
Native America: All manner of unusual things can happen in Washington in an election year, but few seem so refreshing as a proposed official apology from the federal government to American Indians - the first ever - for the "violence, maltreatment and neglect" inflicted upon the tribes for centuries.

He Did Time, So He's Unfit to Do Hair

US: As someone who has done time himself, Marc La Cloche is happy for Martha Stewart.

She has managed to turn life in federal prison into a nifty career move. Her company's stock is soaring, and she has plans for not one but two television shows. It almost makes you wonder why the Enron types are fighting so hard to stay out of jail.

Brava Martha, Mr. La Cloche says. He only wishes that New York State would let him put his own prison experience to decent use. "I wish her the best," he said of Ms. Stewart. "But I think the best is going to come anyway because she's financially sound. She has avenues that one coming from my situation won't have."

That's for sure. The avenues open to Mr. La Cloche, 39 and living in the Bronx, might best be described with Joseph Heller's memorable phrase Catch-22.

Mr. La Cloche served 11 years in New York prisons for first-degree robbery. While behind bars, he turned his life around. He learned a trade, barbering.. He even had the image of a barber's clippers and comb tattooed on his right arm.

In 2000, as he prepared to be freed, he applied for a required state license. He was denied it. But that decision was reversed when reviewed by a hearing officer. For a while after his release, Mr. La Cloche worked in a Midtown barber shop.

That job did not last long.

New York's secretary of state, who has jurisdiction in these matters, appealed the granting of the license and won. Mr. La Cloche's "criminal history," an administrative law judge ruled, "indicates a lack of good moral character and trustworthiness required for licensure."

In plain language, the fact that Mr. La Cloche had been in prison proved that he was unworthy for the trade that the state itself taught him in prison.

Where is Joseph Heller when we need him? That pretty much summed up the feelings of Justice Herman Cahn of State Supreme Court in Manhattan. Two years ago, he ordered the authorities to give Mr. La Cloche another look. They have every right to expect would-be barbers to prove their "good moral character," Justice Cahn said. But Mr. La Cloche never got the chance. His criminal record alone did him in, and that was unfair, the judge said.

So the case went back to an administrative judge. The result was the same, though. Once again, Mr. La Cloche was found to lack the moral character to cut hair for a living. This time, the reason given was his "minimization" of the nature of his crime.

It is tempting to note that Ms. Stewart also minimizes her crime; she insists on her innocence. But she gets a television show or two. Mr. La Cloche has his clippers yanked.

He is now on public assistance, he says, and receives disability payments for a bad hip. Apparently, state officials believe that New Yorkers are better served having a former convict on welfare rather than in a career. One of his plans were he to get a license, Mr. La Cloche said, would be to team with "a bunch of barbers" to cut the hair of young people living in state institutions.

"What I really want is to have this contact with these kids so I can hopefully get to them and change their life around," he said. "I was raised in these institutions. But this barber license is really holding me up."

A spokesman for the secretary of state says the agency's position has not changed. In turn, Mr. La Cloche continues to pursue his license in the state courts, aided by Michele Davila, a lawyer with Neighborhood Defenders Service of Harlem.

HIS case is hardly isolated, said JoAnne Page, executive director of the Fortune Society, a group in Manhattan that helps former inmates. They keep running into "so many barriers to employment," she said.

"The question is how long do you hold that albatross around a person's neck," Ms. Page said. "We're seeing a tightening of the neck because it's so easy now to check records. We're also seeing - some of it is post-9/11 - a greater rigidity about giving people that second chance to rebuild."

It is one thing to prevent, say, a child molester from driving a school bus, she said. But to keep a convicted robber from cutting hair? The authorities, she pointed out, trusted Mr. La Cloche enough to wield sharp instruments in a maximum-security prison.

Of course, Mr. La Cloche can always look on the bright side. Unable as he is to ply his trade, he will have more time now to catch Martha Stewart on television.

By CLYDE HABERMAN posted 8 March 05

Related:

Most women 'should not be jailed'
The Howard League for Penal Reform said jail should be reserved for women who commit serious or violent offences and remain a danger to the public.

New Strategies for Curbing Recidivism
US: State and federal lawmakers are finally realizing that controlling prison costs means controlling recidivism - by helping newly released people establish viable lives once they get out of jail.

Winning goals: Rethinking Crime and Punishment
I would reallocate resources within the prison service budget to give a higher priority to rehabilitation, retraining for future employment, and an improvement in literacy standards. During my own prison journey I was struck by the astoundingly high levels of illiteracy among prisoners. Tests show that about a third of all prisoners read and write at skill levels below those of 11-year-old schoolchildren.

Six weeks, six months, six years: inmates have little chance of making fresh start Even prisoners who serve short sentences are likely to suffer long-term consequences, including increased rates of homelessness and unemployment.

The Criminal Law (Rehabilitation of Offenders) Act 1986 Qld
The Criminal Law (Rehabilitation of Offenders) Act 1986 (Qld), requires that any person who has committed an offence which is less than 10 years old or which resulted in a prison sentence of more than 30 months, must disclose that offence if requested eg. for employment purposes. If a criminal record is disclosed in a job application, it is unlikely that person will be given the job.

Judged Forever- The Orange County Register
California's largest job-placement program for parolees will be shut down May 31 after an Orange County Register investigation found that ex-convicts were sent to questionable jobs and that the state was charged for placements that did not occur.

Justice Action In 'JAIL'?
Jobs after jail: She had a drug conviction some years ago - was selected for public service job in August. A few days before she was due to start, the department concerned told her she couldn't have the job. She has also been advised that she can't sit on the committee of any organisation (e.g. NSW Justice Advocacy or similar).

SENTENCED FOR LIFE
Name removed by request served time in prison decades ago. Shes still being punished today. According to commonwealth and state legislation, ex-prisoners applying for jobs must declare any conviction that fits into the following categories: less than 10 years old, more than 10 years old but served more than 30 months in prison

'Most dangerous prisoner' released from Maximum Security

Christopher Binse was released from Goulburn Maximum Security Jail this week after serving 13 years for bank robbery. Mr Binse will be conducting a press conference at Parliament House on Friday 11th February at 10:30am.

Formerly known as 'Badness' and dubbed the 'most dangerous' prisoner in NSW, Mr Binse has become an advocate for improved rehabilitation programs in jails, particularly pre and post release programs and taken on Buddhism practises and philosophies.

During his imprisonment he has been leg-shackled and handcuffed for visits with family and in the exercise yard. He has also been denied contact visits and had community support withheld from him. Mr Binse was first imprisoned at 17 years of age in Pentridge Prison and has escaped from custody seven times.

"I was denied parole on at least four occasions because I was allegedly 'too dangerous'. Yet they release me with no housing or job. Do they want me to reoffend?" said Mr Binse.

"Rehabilitation and community support is crucial to breaking the cycle of offending. The re-offending rate can be lowered if prisoners have access to appropriate job opportunities, housing, and support systems upon release." said Kilty O'Gorman, a spokesperson for Justice Action.

Mr Binse has sought a meeting with Premier Bob Carr and Minister for Justice, John Hatzistergos to offer his experience to help government ensure education, employment, pre and post release services are improved to benefit prisoners and the wider community.

He conducted a survey of more than 140 of his fellow prisoners in C-Wing at Goulburn Maximum Security Jail, to highlight the need for more rehabilitation services. The survey showed that despite the willingness of prisoners to undertake rehabilitation and education programs, they were rarely receiving the opportunity and no incentives such as earned early release.

"Almost $1 million has been spent on locking me up. What a waste. Why can't this money be used to work with prisoners through mentoring, work and education programs to achieve better results for prisoners, their families and the wider community?" said Mr Binse.

By Kilty O'Gorman posted 10 February 05

Related:

Parklea Prison: No calls for six days
The last calls that were made out of Parklea Correctional Complex by my partner, an inmate in remand at Parklea, was on Wednesday 2 February. The phone lines for the inmates have been out of service to this date.

'Killing Rational' and Prisoner Control in NSW
I'm writing to you regarding xxxx, he has rung me a few times in the past weeks and has been drugged to the max, he rang today twice and could hardly speak to me, he said he was going to ring you and talk to you about it but he couldn't so I told him I would get in contact with you and see what you could do! He has told them he doesn't want the sedatives but they hold him down and give it to him anyway, they have drugged him 4 times in the last 2 days he said.

Prison visits in crisis in NSW
The reason I am writing today is to address a difficult situation that my husband and my family are going through. My husband is currently serving a sentence at Lithgow Correctional Centre in NSW.

Prison boom will prove a social bust
Hardened criminals are not filling NSW's prisons - the mentally ill and socially disadvantaged are, writes Eileen Baldry.

The prison system requires assiduous oversight
As NSW Attorney General Bob Debus noted in 1996: "The kinds of complaints which occur in the system may seem trivial to outsiders but in the superheated world of the prison, such issues can produce explosive results."

Goulburn Jail breaches UN standards
NSW: Greens MP Lee Rhiannon has called on Justice Minister John Hatzistergos to bring Goulburn Jail's Maximum Security Wing into line with United Nations standards, after a prison inmate's covert survey of his fellow inmates revealed problems with rehabilitation programs and basic amenities.

Where the Norm is Not the Norm: HARM-U
In the absence of public policy, this paper is an attempt to shine a light through the rhetoric and test for coherency in the policy and function of NSW’s only supermax prison, the High Risk Management Unit. Its present use will be compared with the ‘vision’ flogged by the Premier and the Department of Corrective Services (the Department) at its inception in 2001.

Isolation, psychiatric treatment and prisoner' control
The 2003 NSW Corrections Health Service (now Justice Health) Report on Mental Illness Among NSW Prisoners states that the 12 month prevalence of any psychiatric disorder in prison is 74%, compared to 22% in the general community, and while this includes substance disorder the high rate cannot be attributed to that alone.

NSW Greens lose bid to stop jail boss getting more power
She said the regulation represents "shades of Guantanamo Bay", with the Carr government using draconian measures which fed the resentment and unfairness that caused terrorism.

NSW Prisoners' linked to Osama Bin Laden: Ten News
Allegedly Osama Bin Laden issued a "Fatwa" that was posted on an Islamic Website this morning. Osama Bin Laden's demands included visiting NSW prisoners' at the HRMU for Xmas!

Justice Denied In NSW Corrective Services
There used to be a (VJ) or Visiting Justice who would go into the prison and judge any claim or accusation that was made by any prisoner or prison guard. If it were found that a prisoner had offended then punishment was metered out.

Prison guards test positive for drugs
NSW prison visitors banned from using the toilet The visit is only for about one hour and any thing less than that is an insult. If it's proved that a visitor has broken the rules the punishment should apply to them. But collective punishment on all visitors should not be made general when others haven't broken the rules especially if it restricts all visitors from normal human needs like using a toilet.

NSW prison visitors banned from using the toilet
The New South Wales Government has introduced several initiatives to stop contraband getting into prisons they said last Friday. But under the guise of "stricter rules" the department had also introduced banning all visitors including children from using the toilet unless they terminate their visit at any NSW prison after using the toilet.

Carr Govt dramatic increases in the NSW prisoner pop...
Following the opening of the 500 bed Kempsey prison, and a new 200-bed prison for women at Windsor the Council of Social Service of NSW (NCOSS) and community organisations specialising in the rehabilitation of prisoners, have expressed concern....

The ALP's fascist police states
Welcome back Sid-in-knee. Old Falangist Samaranch would surely feel right at home in any number of fascist police states around this wide brown land today. Who needs Franco when you have Beattie, Rann, Carr, Bracks and co. Flamin' fascist fucks the lot of them.

Death in custody: In memory of Scott Simpson
Scott Simpson 34 died in custody on 7 June 2004 leaving behind a child. It is alleged that he hanged himself in a segregation yard at Long Bay Prison Complex. Justice Action has reasons to believe that Scott had been mistreated from the time he was taken into custody and the subsequent events that ensued that led to his sad death. We think that his treatment may well have caused his death.

Doctor Ron Woodham I presume?
"Corrections Health staff provide medical care. However, its staff's authority is essentially limited to making recommendations to corrective services on treatment. Corrective services staff can then decide what treatment can be given."

You have choses Bob The Barbarian!
New laws to make it difficult for people charged with terrorism offences to get bail have been whisked through the New South Wales Parliament after only being introduced earlier today.

Conditions in the HRMU
Justice Action is trying to obtain documents on behalf of prisoners held in the Goulburn High Risk Management Unit (HRMU) from the Federal Attorney General's Department, Corrective Services Minister's Conference regarding the process described below, in which the Standard Guidelines for Corrections in Australia were adopted. This documentation will help explain the justification for the conditions in the HRMU.

Call for royal commission into NSW prison health system
Mr Tony Ross a social justice activist said yesterday that a royal commission into the health system in NSW should be wide reaching to ensure that the Corrections Health Service is also exposed because of reported widespread cover ups in the prisons health system.

A TOTAL ABUSE OF POWER
We the prisoners at the High Risk Management Unit at Goulburn Correctional Centre would like to ask you for help in receiving equal treatment and opportunities as other prisoners throughout the system. As we are told that we are not in a segregation unit but we are treated as though we are in one.

On the treatment of prisoners at the NSW HRMU
Prisoners sister's letter from her brother: Following our phone conversation some weeks ago I would like to set out a few points on the treatment of prisoners in the High Risk Management Unit at Goulburn (Super Max) (Guantanamo Bay).

Review of Justice Ministers claims about conditions at HRMU
There is no fresh air in our cells only Air conditioning pumped out of an 8 x 8-centimetre vent over our beds. Conditions change with filthy moods of the prison guards. Induction clothing "one set" mostly shorts and a prisoner remains there for two weeks depending whatever suits the staff. If a prisoner shuts up about the abuse, and freezing conditions (Goulburn cold in winter hot in summer taking into account you're housed in concrete) then you may go to units 8 or 9.

Watchdogs slaughtered in NSW
On Tuesday the Carr Government reduced transparency and accountability yet again and New South Wales is in danger of becoming entrenched with cronyism and intimidations with the Carr Labor Government that continues to slaughter the watchdogs.

Escape proof but not so the prisoners mind
Fewer prisoners escape from prison these days because they're "cemented in" by materials that do not break and by legislation that can keep prisoners in jail until they die.

Carr's Castle the real story H.R.M.U.The High Risk Management Unit Goulburn Correctional Centre. A prisoner writes, " I was unsuccessful in my letters to Dr Matthews CEO of the Corrections Health Service on my problem regarding air - claustrophobic effect the cells have on me. Just recently the management decided my injuries are not seriously affecting me so no further discussions are necessary.

New Strategies for Curbing Recidivism

US: State and federal lawmakers are finally realizing that controlling prison costs means controlling recidivism - by helping newly released people establish viable lives once they get out of jail.

A report just out from a group of 100 policy makers, including elected officials, established by the Council of State Governments argues that the country needs to reinvent its corrections system.

In the place of a system that locks people up and shoves them out the door when their sentences are finished, the report, by the Re-Entry Policy Council, envisions "re-entry" services that reintegrate ex-offenders into their communities.

This line of thinking is long overdue. The United States has 2.1 million people behind bars on any given day - nearly seven times the number three decades ago. Corrections costs have risen accordingly - from about $9 billion a year two decades ago to more than $60 billion a year today - making corrections the second-fastest-growing expense in state budgets, after Medicaid.

The portrait of the inmate population offered in the report leaves no doubt as to why two-thirds of the people who leave prison are rearrested within a few years. These people were marginally employable before they went to jail - nearly half earned less than $600 a month. They are even less employable afterward, thanks to criminal records. In addition, many of them suffer from mental illnesses that often go untreated after release.

The social services necessary for successful re-entry are virtually nonexistent in most communities. The new report offers an exhaustive prescription for changing the status quo: states will need to coax disparate parts of their systems to work together.

State officials will also have to re-educate voters, who have grown accustomed to a corrections philosophy that begins and ends with merely locking people up for the longest possible period of time.

These policies will need to change, and quickly, if the states are to solve the recidivism problem and develop programs that help former inmates find homes, training, jobs and places in their communities. Until that happens, corrections costs will continue to soar, siphoning off billions of dollars that could be used for more constructive purposes.

THE CRIME ZONE

Our authors share the pain and violence of their pasts, their present existence in the sterility and brutality of prison, and their hopes for a future of freedom. They also share their remorse and the changes they have undergone in their resolve to find self-worth and value in their lives. Their goal in this very difficult task is to help us understand the roots of crime and recidivism and the factors that encourage crime prevention and habilitation.

"It is the height of arrogance and folly to ignore any person, regardless of prior bad acts, who is attempting to articulate a message of hope and redemption."

(Steve J. Martin)

Illustration: The Crime Zone

By Just Us posted 24 January 05

Related:

USA

Prison System Fails Women, Study Says
State policies designed for violent men make female offenders' rehabilitation difficult, an oversight panel finds. "If we fail to intervene effectively in the lives of these women and their children now, California will pay the cost for generations to come," said Commissioner Teddie Ray, chairwoman of the subcommittee that produced the report.

Child Offenders on Death Row
Recent Australian studies of alcohol and cannabis use show that girls are increasingly inclined to behave boldly. But boys out number the girls, two to one; and three to one in the juvenile justice system, mortality figures, speeding infringements and car crash statistics.

Restorative Justice and the Law
To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe."-- Marilyn vos Savant.

Restorative Justice Practices
Restorative Justice Practices of Native American, First Nation and Other Indigenous People of North America. This is part one in a series of articles about restorative justice practices of Native American, First Nation and other indigenous people of North America. The series is not intended to be all-inclusive, but rather a broad thematic overview. A related eForum article, "The Wet'suwet'en Unlocking Aboriginal Justice Program: Restorative Practices in British Columbia, Canada," can be read at:

The Long Trail to Apology
Native America: All manner of unusual things can happen in Washington in an election year, but few seem so refreshing as a proposed official apology from the federal government to American Indians - the first ever - for the "violence, maltreatment and neglect" inflicted upon the tribes for centuries.

England and Wales

Winning goals: Rethinking Crime and Punishment
I would reallocate resources within the prison service budget to give a higher priority to rehabilitation, retraining for future employment, and an improvement in literacy standards. During my own prison journey I was struck by the astoundingly high levels of illiteracy among prisoners. Tests show that about a third of all prisoners read and write at skill levels below those of 11-year-old schoolchildren.

London police may moor prison ship on Thames
UK: The London police are holding discussions about possibly mooring a prison ship on the River Thames in a bid to ease pressure on the spiralling prisoner population.

Prisons accused of ignoring age trend
UK: A 70-year-old prisoner who uses a wheelchair has to pay "unofficial helpers" six chocolate bars a week to help him get around and to collect his meals, according to an investigation by the chief inspector of prisons into the growing number of elderly inmates.

Scandal of society's misfits dumped in jail
Up to 70% of inmates in Britain's jails have mental health disorders. In the first of a three-part series, Nick Davies hears their shocking stories.

Australia

Prison boom will prove a social bust
Hardened criminals are not filling NSW's prisons - the mentally ill and socially disadvantaged are, writes Eileen Baldry.

Isolation, psychiatric treatment and prisoner' control
The 2003 NSW Corrections Health Service (now Justice Health) Report on Mental Illness Among NSW Prisoners states that the 12 month prevalence of any psychiatric disorder in prison is 74%, compared to 22% in the general community, and while this includes substance disorder the high rate cannot be attributed to that alone.

Where the Norm is Not the Norm: HARM-U
In the absence of public policy, this paper is an attempt to shine a light through the rhetoric and test for coherency in the policy and function of NSW’s only supermax prison, the High Risk Management Unit. Its present use will be compared with the ‘vision’ flogged by the Premier and the Department of Corrective Services (the Department) at its inception in 2001.

Crime and Punishment
Mark Findlay argues that the present psychological approach to prison programs is increasing the likelihood of re-offending and the threat to community safety.

Government justice not personal justice
Mr Brett Collins of Justice Action said, "Victims should be looked after properly by implementing restorative justice measures and victims should be compensated for their pain and suffering. " However prisoners are entitled to serve their sentences in peace and privacy as well."

Sentencing: Violent crime and practical outcomes
In addition introducing restorative justice programs giving the offender a chance to interact with the offended person if they wish and visa-versa. People are not "dogmatic" therefore should be given a second chance opposed to Life means Life!

Carr Govt dramatic increases in the NSW prisoner pop...
Following the opening of the 500 bed Kempsey prison, and a new 200-bed prison for women at Windsor the Council of Social Service of NSW (NCOSS) and community organisations specialising in the rehabilitation of prisoners, have expressed concern....

New Zealand

More jails will create more crime says expert
NZ: Once a world leader in restorative justice, New Zealand is regressing by locking more people up for longer, visiting expert Sir Charles Pollard says.

Crime and Punishment

Prison education/psych programs - effectiveness

Mark Findlay argues that the present psychological approach to prison programs is increasing the likelihood of re-offending and the threat to community safety.

In the early days of his third term as Premier of NSW, Bob Carr challenged his government to move away from current law and order politics and come up with a more progressive approach to punishment. Central to this would be a reconsideration of the place of the prison in criminal justice.

Prisons, by their nature and the communities they house, suffer more acutely from the social exclusion that characterises the underprivileged parts of Australian society. Without the exacerbation of a custodial experience, these characteristics alone militate against the successful reintegration of prisoners back into the community.

A revised punishment policy therefore requires more than retarding spiralling imprisonment rates. For those who do end up in gaol, and for those employed to manage them, the prison environment requires significant redevelopment, if inmates are not to leave prison more maladjusted than when they went in.

Violent, inhuman, unsafe, confrontational and exploitative prison settings will distort social and moral messages that are consistent with crime prevention.

Prison staff have either worked to ameliorate the negative influences of social exclusion amongst inmates, or in a regrettable minority of instances have contributed to the brutality of prison experience.

In NSW, prison education officers have had a significant influence in improving prisoner literacy rates over the years.

In so doing, they have addressed one of the simplest and yet most significant factors at work against prisoner reintegration.

Prisoner education is recognised as one of the few correctional initiatives which seem to correlate with improved recidivism prospects.

Unfortunately, however, many cost-effective prison programs, like remedial reading, have recently suffered from a deprivation of resources and policy commitment, while expensive and selective cognitive behavioral initiatives have been favored by Australian prison administrations.

Psychological determinism has taken hold in contemporary prison rehabilitation thinking.

A reason for this may be that it holds out a causal connection between prison programs and the reduction of recidivism. More cynically, it also allows prison administrators to rationalise program resources and restrict program entry on the basis of inmate risk.

This psychological - or criminogenic needs model - of offender programming in prison argues for psychological intervention, which addresses criminogenic thinking, needs and risk on the basis of cognitive behaviour research.

Advocates of the model argue that a greater adherence to psychological justifications for rehabilitation will exclude other modes of explanation, such as social exclusion. They hold that, even the belief that rehabilitation in prison has failed can be overcome by psychological models such as this, which explain criminal behaviour and go on to address offender risks such as eventual re-offending.

Like the treatments and therapies of the 1960s that left rehabilitation in prison in taters, this new wave of behaviourist prisoner programming may be equally problematic.

The empirical research tends to suggest that the justification, that criminogenic needs approaches will reduce the re-offending of the most risky and the most dangerous, cannot be substantiated.

The ability to diagnose the cause of the inmates underlying criminal behaviour through psychological determinism is not sufficient to overturn more universal rights to program access for prisoners. And if this diagnostic capacity was routinely available, and it is not, then such predictive wisdom would be more economically applied to crime prevention than correctional remedies..

There are more successful and less discriminating approaches to corrections in prison. Victoria, for instance, is investing substantially in a best practice strategy to reduce re-offending.

Recidivism rates alone, as a performance measure of the effectiveness of offender programs, are too narrow an evaluation of rehabilitation practice in prison.

More realistic is an integrated approach, focusing on the climate of program delivery, program cost effectiveness, program integrity and treatment outcomes. Life quality issues are needed as a vital measure of the relevance of correctional programs in prison.

The Home Office as the administrator of English prisons is now required to meet modest targets in the improvement of prison life and the reduction of re-offending following release.

This has necessitated the development of a new context for corrections; one directed to the improvement in the quality of prison life and an investment in 'what works' with offenders.

A recent study to evaluate the quality of life in five English prisons from the perspective of staff and offenders found staff and prisoners agree on 'what matters' in assessing prison quality.

The study suggested there is a broad consensus about values - which include respect, fairness, decency and order; that prison life quality resembles the expectation for civil society; and that safety is a critical concern.

"To me", said one prisoner respondent, reflecting on his aspirations for prison treatment, "being treated with humanity means being provided adequate, reasonably comfortable and clean accommodation and being acknowledged as a person with individual needs, desires, concerns, strengths and weaknesses."

Prison staff would find it hard to argue against this. It is, however, the bigotry of public opinion about prisoners 'getting it too easy' which tends to endorse further social exclusion in prison. Paradoxically, this is what increases the likelihood of re-offending and the associated threat to community safety.

Mark Findlay is Professor of Criminal Justice at Sydney University. This article has been drawn from his chapter in the Evatt Foundation's new book, The State of the States 2004, launched at Sydney's Vibe Hotel.

By Workers Online posted December 6 04

Related:

Isolation, psychiatric treatment and prisoner' control
The 2003 NSW Corrections Health Service (now Justice Health) Report on Mental Illness Among NSW Prisoners states that the 12 month prevalence of any psychiatric disorder in prison is 74%, compared to 22% in the general community, and while this includes substance disorder the high rate cannot be attributed to that alone.

More jails will create more crime says expert
NZ: Once a world leader in restorative justice, New Zealand is regressing by locking more people up for longer, visiting expert Sir Charles Pollard says.

Crisis Brewing in State Jails
WA: Figures released today reveal one of the states worst kept secrets 'the prisons are filling fast and will soon be overflowing. The ABS figures released today showed that Western Australia's imprisonment rate continued to outstrip every other state in Australia.

RESTORING TRUE JUSTICE:
Australian prisons are fast becoming the new asylums of the third millennium. The prison industry is booming, while Australia spends far less on mental health services than similar countries.

NSW Prisoners' linked to Osama Bin Laden: Ten News
Allegedly Osama Bin Laden issued a "Fatwa" that was posted on an Islamic Website this morning. Osama Bin Laden's demands included visiting NSW prisoners' at the HRMU for Xmas!

Community Challenges in Justice
Professor of criminology at Victoria University, Philip Stenning, recently visited the Napier Public Library to view the Robson Collection, which is a special collection on criminal, restorative and social justice based on the philosophy of "developing communities not prisons".

NSW Greens lose bid to stop jail boss getting more power
Australia/Cuba?: The greens failed today in a bid to quash the NSW Corrective Services Commissioner's power to classify prison inmates as a "special risk" to national security?

Justice Denied In NSW Corrective Services
There used to be a (VJ) or Visiting Justice who would go into the prison and judge any claim or accusation that was made by any prisoner or prison guard. If it were found that a prisoner had offended then punishment was metered out.

Carr Govt dramatic increases in the NSW prisoner pop...
Following the opening of the 500 bed Kempsey prison, and a new 200-bed prison for women at Windsor the Council of Social Service of NSW (NCOSS) and community organisations specialising in the rehabilitation of prisoners, have expressed concern....

PRISONERS' STRIKE
That the forms of restorative justice and mentoring that are so successful in reducing social unrest be adopted immediately, running parallel to imprisonment until the public feels safe without prisons.

Restorative Justice and the Law
To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe."-- Marilyn vos Savant.

Restorative Justice Practices
Restorative Justice Practices of Native American, First Nation and Other Indigenous People of North America. This is part one in a series of articles about restorative justice practices of Native American, First Nation and other indigenous people of North America. The series is not intended to be all-inclusive, but rather a broad thematic overview. A related eForum article, "The Wet'suwet'en Unlocking Aboriginal Justice Program: Restorative Practices in British Columbia, Canada," can be read at:

Government justice not personal justice
Mr Brett Collins of Justice Action said, "Victims should be looked after properly by implementing restorative justice measures and victims should be compensated for their pain and suffering. " However prisoners are entitled to serve their sentences in peace and privacy as well."

Sentencing: Violent crime and practical outcomes
In addition introducing restorative justice programs giving the offender a chance to interact with the offended person if they wish and visa-versa. People are not "dogmatic" therefore should be given a second chance opposed to Life means Life!

The Long Trail to Apology
Native America: All manner of unusual things can happen in Washington in an election year, but few seem so refreshing as a proposed official apology from the federal government to American Indians - the first ever - for the "violence, maltreatment and neglect" inflicted upon the tribes for centuries.

A TOTAL ABUSE OF POWER
We the prisoners at the High Risk Management Unit at Goulburn Correctional Centre would like to ask you for help in receiving equal treatment and opportunities as other prisoners throughout the system. As we are told that we are not in a segregation unit but we are treated as though we are in one.

Sentencing reform
Beyond Bars is making a submission (with a focus on alternatives to custody) to the sentencing council. "We should consider the alternatives which take into account victims' interests and involvement. Restorative justice. Also mentoring as a positive form of social support, coupled up to restorative justice (as the punishment) to satisfy those who demand it."

How Denying the Vote to Ex-Offenders Undermines Democracy

US: pundits blame apathy for the decline in voter turnout that has become a fact of life in the United States in the last several decades.

But not everyone who skips the polls on Election Day does so by choice. This November, for example, an estimated five million people - roughly 2.3 percent of the number of people eligible to vote - will be barred from voting by state laws that strip convicted felons of the franchise, often temporarily but sometimes for life.

These laws cast a permanent shadow over the poor minority communities where disenfranchised people typically live. Children grow up with the unfortunate example of neighbors, parents and grandparents who never vote and never engage in the political process, even superficially.

As a consequence, the struggling communities that need political leadership most of all are trapped within a posture of disengagement that deepens from one generation to the next.

While many things will need to change before the country can reinvigorate the electorate, doing away with postprison sanctions - the most punitive in the democratic world - has to be near the top of the list.

The case for doing so has recently been laid out in a deluge of lawsuits, reports and studies that document the corrosive effects of disenfranchisement on the civic life of this country.

The most startling of these studies, published by Christopher Uggen of the University of Minnesota and Jeff Manza at Northwestern University, shows that the number of people touched by these laws far exceeds the five or so million who have officially and directly lost the right to vote.

For starters, hundreds of thousands of people who are still eligible to vote will not do so this year because they will be locked up in local jails, awaiting processing or trials for minor offenses.

An even larger group of eligible voters, numbering perhaps in the millions, may stay away from the polls because they are confused by the law and mistakenly believe that they have lost the right to vote.

Republican operatives have deliberated used scare tactics with this group of voters - most of them Democrats - in the hope of keeping them home on Election Day. Taken together, the truly disenfranchised, who are actually barred from voting under the law, and the de facto disenfranchised, who don't vote because they are confused about the law, could account for 5 percent of the voting-age population.

A vast majority of the disenfranchised in this country would meet the qualifications for voting if they were citizens of Britain, France, Germany or Australia. Indeed, many nations value the franchise so much that they arrange for people to vote even from prison.

Why does America treat convicted felons so much worse than other democracies? Legal scholars attribute the problem to this country's difficulties with race.

In particular, they cite the racist backlash in the South during Reconstruction, when former slaveowners were forced to endure the sight of former slaves' lining up to vote at polling places and actually holding seats in state legislatures.

Led by Mississippi, the Southern states eventually adopted a series of measures that wrote black citizens right out of the state constitutions. New statutes barred black Americans from the ballot box with poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses and laws that took the vote away from people who committed certain crimes.

The crimes were carefully selected so they would affect the maximum number of black Americans while exempting as many whites as possible. For example, new state laws sometimes disenfranchised people for petty theft, minor swindling and wife-beating - crimes that were more likely to be prosecuted among blacks - while omitting murder and robbery. The legislative intent relied heavily on the unequal enforcement of the law.

The disenfranchisement campaign swept black Americans from elected office and knocked them off the voting rolls. There were suddenly counties in the South where black people outnumbered their white neighbors by four to one but where not a single black name could be found on the voting rolls.

Black people who fled the South found that the states in the North had also begun to adopt disenfranchisement laws as their black populations grew.

This shameful legacy is plainly visible today in statistics showing that black people represent 40 percent of the disenfranchisement cases but only about 12 percent of the national population. The broader community, which was once indifferent to this problem, has begun to take notice since the states have embraced new sentencing policies that transform drug misdemeanors into felonies, driving up the prison population sevenfold, to an eye-popping 1.4 million today from a mere 200,000 in the 1970's.

With the population of convicted felons at more than 13 million and growing, the country has no choice but to revisit laws that strip people of the right to vote while permanently consigning them to the margins of society.

Neither Republicans nor Democrats are rushing to associate themselves with a campaign to restore the vote to former felons. The general public, however, understands clearly that the right to vote is a basic human right.

Restoring voting rights to former felons would move the United States closer to its peers in the democratic world - and closer to its founding ideals. It would also drive a stake through one of the last relics of an ugly racist past.

By BRENT STAPLES posted 20 September 04

Related Prisoner Voting Links:

The Ex Factor: US prisoners and ex-prisoners voting rights

Prison-reform groups work to educate former felons on their voting rights. The red-faced man slows his shopping cart of empty beer cans and stares in disbelief at the white form just thrust into his hand.

Fighting for Florida: Disenfranchised Florida Felons Struggle to Regain Their Rights 

US: TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Gov. Jeb Bush looked out over a roomful of felons appealing to him for something they had lost, and tried to reassure them.

Felons and the Right to Vote 

One of the greatest achievements of the civil rights struggle was the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which removed most of the obstacles that kept African Americans away from the ballot box and enabled Americans who did not speak English to vote. But the voting rights movement never reached the last excluded segment of our democracy: our prisoners.

Related World Prisoner Voting Links:

RE: URGENT - Prisoner enrolment to vote!

Justice Action has been talking to the Australian Electoral Commission over the past three weeks about what steps were being taken to ensure that prisoners were given the opportunity to enrol to vote in the Australian Election on October 9.

Prisoner's right to vote attacked again!

On the eve of the election the Howard government has rushed a new law into the Parliament which will further remove the rights of prisoners to vote.

Howard wants prisoner vote ban

Politicians opposed to a federal government plan to ban all prisoners from voting were soft on crime, Special Minister for State Eric Abetz said.

Govt moves to strip prisoners' voting rights

The Australian Council for Civil Liberties has condemned a Federal Government move to stop prisoners voting. Under current laws, prisoners serving less than five years can vote.

Message of Solidarity: Greens

The Australian corrections system is appalling and rife with abuse of prisoner's rights. The spiralling numbers of those locked up, now over 23,000, is an indictment on a society which purports to be fair and democratic.

Prisoners must get right to vote, says court

UK: The government will be forced to lift a ban on prisoners voting dating back to 1870 after the European court of human rights ruled yesterday it breached a lifer's human rights.

Related US Prison Links:

The Ex Factor: US prisoners and ex-prisoners voting rights
Prison-reform groups work to educate former felons on their voting rights. The red-faced man slows his shopping cart of empty beer cans and stares in disbelief at the white form just thrust into his hand.

Prison Mail Censorship
We all know what prison mail censorship is about and it's certainly not about security: Those In Charge want Those Who Are Not to think that prisoners are illiterate, less than salvagable beasts. If the system had its way, prisoners would scrawl their appeals in crayon on toilet paper. It's all about the illusion.

The U.S. system of 'justice' is a tragic joke
US: Police abuse, and sometimes kill, innocent persons at will. Cops plant evidence, they lie, they coerce confessions and they commit perjury. Many are, simply, criminals.

The Long Trail to Apology
Native America: All manner of unusual things can happen in Washington in an election year, but few seem so refreshing as a proposed official apology from the federal government to American Indians - the first ever - for the "violence, maltreatment and neglect" inflicted upon the tribes for centuries.

Free-speech lockdown
As state prisoners, we have long been portrayed by advocates of the tough-on-crime movement as a faceless and heartless amalgam deserving extreme punishment and permanent incapacitation.

Abu Ghraib, USA
When I first saw the photo, taken at the Abu Ghraib prison, of a hooded and robed figure strung with electrical wiring, I thought of the Sacramento, California, city jail.

SACRAMENTO: Prisons to reform solitary confinement rules
US: Sacramento -- California corrections officials will revamp procedures used to keep thousands of prisoners isolated in tiny cells in some of the most remote lockups in the state, according to the settlement of a 10-year-old lawsuit brought by a jailhouse lawyer doing time at Pelican Bay State Prison.

Silencing the Cells: Mass Incarceration and Legal Repression in U.S. Prisons People without a voice are not people in any meaningful sense of the word. Silenced people cannot express their ideas; they can neither consent nor protest. They are reduced to being pawns in the schemes of the powerful, mendicants who must accept whatever is imposed upon them. In order to keep people in a state of subjugation, silencing their voices is essential. Nowhere is this clearer than in U.S. prisons.

USA: An ugly prison record
US: For a nation founded on slavery and genocide, Americans retain an astonishingly enduring faith in their continuing righteousness. They are sounding this note again as the prison torture scandal continues in Iraq.

From Terrell Unit in Texas to Abu Ghraib Doesn't It Ring a (Prison) Bell If the president wasn't so forthright about his disinterest in the world, it would have been hard to believe him Wednesday when he said the abuse in Abu Ghraib prison "doesn't represent the America I know." But being stripped, hooded and urinated on while your friend is forced to masturbate next to you? The only member of the Bush clan who knows about that kind of thing is Jenna.

Restorative Justice Practices
This is part one in a series of articles about restorative justice practices of Native American, First Nation and other indigenous people of North America. Part one of this series includes inter- views with three justice practitioners of the southwestern United States:

USA: Problems, blame abound in prison system
A correctional officer, [guard], watches over the central exercise yard at Folsom State Prison. California built 21 prisons and tripled prison staff as the statewide inmate, [prisoner], population grew in the '80s and '90s.

Mistreatment of Prisoners Is Called Routine in U.S.
Physical and sexual abuse of prisoners, similar to what has been uncovered in Iraq, takes place in American prisons with little public knowledge or concern, according to corrections officials, inmates, [prisoners], and human rights advocates.

A Catch-22 for Ex-Offenders
Tuesday, April 6, 2004 -- As the Bush administration focuses attention on ex-offenders with its modest program to help them return to the community, an eye-opening new study shows that the effort will require a lot more than re-entry programs.

A Quite Deliberate Failure: Reflections on the Politics of Crime
Though it is always difficult to predict the outcome of an election in the United States, it is quite a bit easier to make accurate pronouncements about the way in which an election campaign will unfold.

Personal Voices: America From Inside Federal Prison
I offer these thoughts to readers who may have an interest in knowing how the growing American prison population perceives the electoral process. Elections are the essence of democracy; they give each eligible voter an opportunity to be heard.

Fighting for Florida: Disenfranchised Florida Felons Struggle to Regain Their Rights US: TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Gov. Jeb Bush looked out over a roomful of felons appealing to him for something they had lost, and tried to reassure them.

Abolish the Security Housing Units: MIM
March 6 -- Protesters took to the streets in cities across the state of California to demand California prisons shut down the Security Housing Units (SHU). Like other control unit prisons across the country, the SHU are prisons within a prison. They are solitary confinement cells where prisoners are locked up 23 hours a day for years at a time. The one hour a day these prisoner sometimes get outside of their cell is spent alone in an exercise pen not much larger than their cell, with no direct sunlight.

USA: Sobering Prison Statistics
US: If recent incarceration rates remain unchanged, an estimated 1 out of every 20 persons (5.1%) will serve time in a prison during their lifetime.

Helping Prisoners Find Their Way Home?
Antonio Pinder used to be scared of returning home from prison, stricken by fear that he would fall back into the life that landed him behind bars. He hadn't had a steady job before he was sent away 13 years ago, and he worried that he never would. A year out of prison, he is still searching for work.

US Prison system ending love affair with incarceration?
After 25 years of explosive growth in the U.S. prison system, is this country finally ending its love affair with incarceration? Perhaps, but as in any abusive relationship, breaking up will be hard to do.

CONS COMMIT CRIMES IN HASTE, NOW CAN REPENT AT LAWTEY - -- Gov. Jeb Bush, in a Christmas Eve address to prisoners at the nation's first ''faith-based'' prison, in North Florida.

CURE --- Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants
CURE --- is a nation-wide grass roots organization dedicated to reducing crime through reform of the criminal justice system.[Criminal Law System.]

The Truth About Private Prisons
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation's largest operator of prisons for profit, is celebrating its 20th anniversary throughout this year "at both the company's corporate Nashville office and at all of the more than 60 prisons, jails and detention centers under CCA ownership and/or management."

CCA PRIVATE PRISONS: REPORT GRASSROOTS LEADERSHIP
New National Study of Corrections Corporation of America Warns Investors and Legislators of Risky Investment. Report explores continuing operational and financial problems; questions CCA's long-term viability as states reassess prison policies.

Finally, States Release The Pressure on Prisons?
US: After decades of massive prison growth, America may be ending its love affair with incarceration. Policymakers around the country, some of whom previously supported ratcheting up punishments, have begun to rethink the wisdom of unbridled prison expansion, and are advocating alternatives to simply "locking them up and throwing away the key."

California Parole System Deemed 'Broken'
SACRAMENTO, Calif: California spends $1.5 billion annually on parolees who mostly fail and are sent back behind bars because they are no better prepared for life on the outside than the day they entered prison, according to a report.

People with Mental Retardation in the Criminal Justice System
Based on the 1990 census, an estimated 6.2 to 7.5 million people in the United States have mental retardation. Various studies have suggested between 2 percent to 10 percent of the prison population has mental retardation.

USA: With Cash Tight, States Reassess Long Jail Terms
OLYMPIA, Wash., Nov. 6 - After two decades of passing ever tougher sentencing laws and prompting a prison building boom, state legislatures facing budget crises are beginning to rethink their costly approaches to crime.

A STRUGGLE ON TWO FRONTS: PRISONS & IMPERIALIST WAR
After a war waged by the U.S. military against Vietnam which took the lives of more than 3 million Vietnamese people and more than 58,000 GIs, the U.S. finally withdrew in 1975. It had suffered its first official major military defeat by a united people struggle led by the Vietnamese, along with a mass U.S. anti-war movement.

Report on State Prisons Cites Mental Illness
NEW YORK: Nearly one of every four New York State prisoners who are kept in punitive segregation [solitary confinement], confined to a small cell at least 23 hours a day are mentally ill, according to a new report by a nonprofit group that has been critical of state prison policies.

High court keeps alive case of prisoners held in solitary
NEW ORLEANS: The nation's highest court refused Monday to kill a lawsuit brought by two prisoners and an ex-prisoner at the Louisiana State Penitentiary who spent decades in solitary confinement.

US: Mentally Ill Mistreated in Prison More Mentally Ill in Prison Than in Hospitals (New York, October 22, 2003) Mentally ill offenders face mistreatment and neglect in many U.S. prisons, Human Rights Watch. "Prisons have become the nation's primary mental health facilities. But for those with serious illnesses, prison can be the worst place to be."

Shut down the Security Torture Units
San Francisco: October 18 In solidarity with other prison activist organizations, MIM, RAIL, the Barrio Defense Committee (BDC) and the Prison Reform Unity Project held a four hour rally in San Francisco demanding the Security Housing Units (SHUs) in California prisons be shut down.

Solitary Confinement: Mental illness in prisons
As noted earlier, inmates [prisoners] with mental illness are over represented in our toughest prison settings. Symptoms of mental illness (i.e., delays in response time, paranoia, difficulty interpreting the actions of others, command hallucinations, and so on) can make complying with prison rules difficult.

Post-Incarceration Sentences
Pat: "The 1990s brought a new front in the war on drugs, featuring a new layer of the Prison Industrial Complex, which has the effect of ensuring that people coming in contact with the criminal punishment system remain within the grasp of the Prison Industrial Complex even beyond prison walls."

Inside Prison, Outside the Law
Every year, tens of thousands of prisoners in state and federal custody are attacked. The exact number who die is difficult to determine: According to the nonprofit Criminal Justice Institute, in 2000, the most recent year for which figures have been compiled, 55 prisoners were murdered, 39 died "accidentally," and 118 died for unknown reasons.

Day Seven of the Fast for Freedom in Mental Health:
PASADENA, CALIF: On the seventh day of a hunger strike by six psychiatric survivors to oppose human rights violations in the mental health system, the American Psychiatric Association faces a direct and unprecedented challenge from a Scientific Panel of 14 academics and clinicians.

Supreme Court Justice Criticises Sentencing Guidelines
San Francisco, August 9, 2003, Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said today that prison terms are too long and that he favours scrapping the practice of setting mandatory minimum sentences for some federal crimes.

US prison population 2.1 million
The US prison population grew more than twice as fast last year as in 2001, bringing the total number of people held behind bars in the United States to more than 2.1 million, a record, according to a government report.

McKean Federal Prison: An Alleged Model
McKean, a federal correctional institution [? prison], does everything that "make 'em bust rocks" politicians decry--imagine, educating inmates [prisoners]! And it works. [Allegedly works.]

Prisoners Justice Day Press Release (Montreal)
On August 10th, 1974, Eddie Nalon bled to death in a solitary confinement unit at Millhaven Maximum Security Prison near Kingston,Ontario when the emergency call button in his cell failed to work. An inquest later found that the call buttons in that unit had been deactivated by the guards.

Notebook of a Prison Abolitionist
In his autobiography, Frederick Douglass recalls how as a slave he would occasionally hear of the "abolitionists." He did not know the full meaning of the word at first, but he heard it used in ways that he found appealing.

Study Warns of Rising Tide of Released Prisoners
Washington: More than 625,000 former prisoners will be coming back into U.S. society this year, part of a record flow of prisoners who will face crushing obstacles in finding work and housing and repairing long-fractured family ties, according to a newly released study.

Incite Statement Gender Violence and the Prison Industrial Complex
We call social justice movements to develop strategies and analysis that address both state AND interpersonal violence, particularly violence against women.

Second International Conference on Human Rights & Prison Reform
**This second gathering will be much smaller and more in depth in participation. A report on the human rights violation of discrimination in regard to prisoners will be produced. This report will be given to the Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights which will be having its annual meeting near our conference and is the"think tank" for the human rights agenda of the United Nations.

Judged Forever- The Orange County Register
US: California's largest job-placement program for parolees will be shut down May 31 after an Orange County Register investigation found that ex-convicts were sent to questionable jobs [?] and that the state was charged for placements that did not occur. [? According to the ruling-class]

California Family Visiting Case
US: CALIFORNIA: Today (5/03/08) in Superior Court around twenty friends and family members of inmates from CSP Solano showed up to show their support in the Gordon vs. CA Department of Corrections (Case #322862) which deals with the subject of bringing back Family Visits to all inmates.

Prison Rates Among Blacks Reach a Peak, Report Finds
An estimated 12 percent of African-American men ages 20 to 34 are in jail or prison, according to a report released yesterday by the Justice Department.

Justices question prison visitation policies
WASHINGTON: In a case that could affect the visitation rights of millions of prisoners, Supreme Court justices on Wednesday struggled with the question of whether inmates have a constitutional right to visits with friends and family.