Custody as the challenge to corrections

The custodial environment is justified in terms of a variety of principles of punishment.

Despite their problematic nature, however, recidivism figures do not suggest that the prison component of a sentence improves prospects for deterrence or rehabilitation, by comparison with other sentencing options.

In a recent UK Home Office review of punishment outcomes, 59 per cent of prisoners discharged from prison in 1998 were re-convicted within two years of release.

As for community corrections, despite a high level of successful completions (over 80 per cent), the actual re-conviction rate remained around 55 per cent.

The crucial distinguisher, therefore, may be the economic and emotional cost of imprisonment, against negligible comparative benefit on the recidivism score.

While Weatherburn suggests that higher imprisonment rates have some impact on crime rates, the best figures he can draw are a 10 per cent increase in the prison population bringing about a 2-4 per cent reduction in crime.

Translated to current NSW punishment practice, that would mean that an investment of around $350,000 might register a minimal crime rate drop. If the same was to be spent on community corrections and probation in particular, the return on crime reduction would be significantly better.

The ultimate popular wisdom on why we need prisons is that they contain the dangerous and make communities safer, at least for the term of the imprisonment. Hence, the longer we can make that term, the safer we feel. Except for the occasional good year, escape rates in NSW continue to be around 1.5 per 100 prisoners. But at over 70 a year that may not be such a comforting figure.

The data referred to in other parts of this chapter tends to suggest that, in terms of recidivism, deterrence, and even crime prevention, the results from community prevention options are no worse than the prison, often better, and always so much cheaper. In addition, it would appear that rehabilitation and restoration have better chances of success outside the prison than in a custodial setting.

Loss of correctional motivation outside prison walls

The deteriorating relative investment in community corrections in recent years speaks volumes about how often successful, non-custodial punishment programmes are out of political favour. In addition, the predominance of the prison as the popular punishment model has meant that under-resourced and apparently undervalued alternative sentencing options do not figure in political considerations of the efficacy of the criminal sanction.

Recent evaluations of the Drug Court and Juvenile Conferencing in NSW should give the community confidence in diversionary initiatives, and the international experience of both suggests a significant potential benefit in their expansion. However, the corrections discussion seems disproportionately located in custodial settings.

A consequence of this might be to expect research and development in the area of pre-release programmes. The research is there, as well as the empirical confirmation, that well planned and well-resourced pre- and post-release initiatives will ensure important and realistic correctional outcomes.

As will be mentioned, the challenge is to reinvest in non-custodial corrections, and to recognise the corrective capacity of community collaborations and partnerships.

This will require some declaration of political interest. To ensure this in the prevailing penal climate, it may be necessary to include the development of community corrections models prominently within an integrated progressive punishment plan.

Is correction possible in prison?

Victoria, for instance, is investing substantially in a best practice strategy to reduce re-offending, as Birgden explains:

In addition to risk management to address community protection and justice principles, enhanced well-being to address autonomy and therapeutic principles is required. The psychological theory of good lives proposes an enhancement model of rehabilitation. The legal theory of therapeutic jurisprudence proposes how the roles of legal actors may be therapeutic. Both theories are concerned with the enhancement of psychological well-being.

Birgden argues for a correctional system responsive to offenders. She suggests the possibility of a 'culture shift' to reaffirm rehabilitative as well as punitive goals for sentencing.

Where cognitive treatment programmes in prison seem to work against a measure of reconviction, they have been operated in a 'what works' context. Programmes which come within this reference include the Canadian-originated 'Reasoning and Rehabilitation' and 'Enhanced Thinking Skills'.

These programmes promote self-control (thinking before acting), inter-personal problem solving skills, social perspective taking, critical reasoning skills, cognitive style, and understanding the values which govern behaviour.

Not inconsistent with the Canadian studies, while reconviction rates for the treatment population were up to 14 per cent better than the control group, this only held for medium to low risk prisoners. For high risk, the differential fell to a low 5 per cent. In any case, this study provides a potential for a cost effectiveness evaluation of offender programmes.

As suggested earlier, recidivism rates alone as a performance measure of the effectiveness of offender programmes are too narrow an evaluation of rehabilitation practice in prison. More realistic is an integrated approach focusing on the climate of programme delivery, cost effectiveness, the programme's integrity and the treatment outcomes. In this respect, life quality issues are a vital measure of the relevance of correctional programmes in prison.

If rehabilitation is to be preferred as a motivation for punishment, then its location should be in community corrections and restorative environments, if only on the basis of cost effectiveness considerations. In saying this, however, in the medium term prison will be the environment for certain offenders, and there is no reason to deprive them of rehabilitation programmes, provided performance measures and resource justifications shift from unrealistic to simple, practical, obvious and predictable concerns.

There is significant evidence that prison life and society tends to exacerbate the behavioural and social determinants of crime. Violent, inhuman, unsafe, confrontational, and exploitative prison settings will distort appropriate social and moral messages consistent with crime prevention.

A reluctance to deal with illiteracy, drug abuse, anger, indolence, and marginalisation will leave offender populations ill prepared for social reintegration. An under-resourcing of pre-release programmes will compound the problem.

These issues can be confronted in a more basic, universal, best practice model for prison life, and as such will achieve the small but consistent improvements in prisoner life quality that produces measurable performance indicators.

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 that staff and prisoners agree on 'what matters' in assessing prison quality, suggesting that there is a broad consensus about values; that these include respect, fairness, decency and order; that prison life quality resembles the expectation for civil society; and that safety is a critical concern. One prisoner respondent reflected on his aspirations for prison treatment:

To me, 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. However, it is the bigotry of public opinion about prisoners 'getting it too easy' which tends to endorse further social exclusion in prison.

Paradoxically, it is this that increases the likelihood of re-offending on release and the associated threat to community safety.

Along with this commitment to the quality of life in prison has been an appreciation that time and money needs to be invested on an inmate-by-inmate commitment to improved sentence planning, and better arrangements for post release supervision.

Progressive punishment plan: harmonising sanction and rehabilitation

If crime control and community safety are to continue as the motivations for punishment (recognising just deserts and deterrence principles), then lower re-offending targets as public service/government commitments seem reasonable for corrective services agencies. This means that, for rehabilitation programmes to play a realistic part in the achievement of these targets, there must be a two-pronged approach to corrective services:

(1) In an atmosphere of rationalised prison resources, correctional programmes should be integrated and offender-centred. In this respect, individualised sentence management strategies should be a priority. Life quality concerns will be an important programme focus and relevance indicator. The programmes must operate under straight-forward performance indicators, which rely neither on problematic risk measures nor artificial selection criteria such as the diagnosis of original offending.

(2) Non-custodial environments for correctional programmes are to be preferred and promoted, if only on the basis of cost effectiveness. Such programmes must rely on investment in pre-release and post release transition and institutional support so that re-offending targets will be secured.

This dual approach will work if it focuses on 'what works', rather than what 'might' work. It must also grow from a foundational environment of trust and mutual self--respect rather than in an atmosphere of discriminative access to behaviour management, and thereby early release, based on suspect measures of re-offending risk.

The development of community collaborations and partnerships in the development and delivery of custodial and non-custodial correctional programmes should be encouraged as the natural progression from custodial corrective climates designed to foster cultural change within and without the prison. Particularly in the areas of employment, work ethic generation and purposeful activity, locating corrective initiatives within community settings increases the potency of employment as a factor against re-offending.

Ultimately, a progressive punishment plan, which has as its central plank corrections and restoration, will need to argue its relevance in a different way to the prison. Imprisonment is accepted as a preferred sanction despite its failings because of an epidemic of community confidence in its capacity to protect. This approach can and should be challenged by an approach to punishment planning which values realistic evaluation.

For corrections programmes inside the gaol in particular, consideration must be advanced for regimes, conditions and costs in the creation of practical prison performance indicators, such as: average hours engaged in purposeful activity; time unlocked; programme completions; total education study hours; nature of prison employment; releases on temporary (pre-release) license; accommodation in cells beyond their capacity design; prisoners testing positive for drugs; escapes; assaults and self harm; cost per uncrowded place.

A renewed commitment to rehabilitation within a smart and resource effective criminal justice model will build bridges between custodial and community corrections. Issues of cost and resource accountability in public spending are eventually catching up on the lavish investment in the failing prison of previous decades. Rights based and equitable correctional opportunities are the essential precursors for a return to rehabilitation that avoids the excesses of the sixties, the denial of the seventies, the rejection of the eighties, and the disappointment of the nineties.

By Professor Mark Findlay 20 July 05

Crime and Punishment

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.

Prisons as progressive punishment?

Prisons, by their nature and the communities they house, suffer more acutely from the factors of social exclusion that characterise the underprivileged sectors of Australian society.

Related:

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.

Adler punished for being in prison
NSW: Sydney businessman Rodney Adler has been transferred to a higher-security prison as punishment for allegedly attempting to conduct business activities from jail even though people are sent to prison for punishment not to be punished?

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.

Department of Corrective Services fails to rehabilitate offenders
NSW: Unpopular people will be forced to wear tracking devices at a cost of $5,000 dollars per unit because the NSW Department of Corrective Services failed to rehabilitate those offenders at a cost of $65,000 a year while they were held in custody for many years.

Parole Board Membership
NSW: The Law Society is aware that two former long standing police officers Mr Robert Inkster, an Mr Peter Walsh, were appointed to the Parole Board as Community Members for a period of three years from 17 January 2005 until 16 January 2008.

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

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

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

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

MORE PRISONERS LOCKDOWNS HAVE OFFICERS ON EDGE
NSW POLICE Commissioner Ken Moroney has issued an ultimatum as well, to the lawless youths holding Sydney's streets to ransom?: Learn some respect or face jail?

Tough line on crime fills jails
The tough law-and-order policies of governments around the nation are behind an explosion in the prison population by almost 80 per cent in the past two decades.

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

LEGAL VISITS AT PARKLEA PRISON
I am a prisoner in NSW and I am currently held in Parklea Prison. I am concerned about what is going on in NSW prisons and this is my story.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

QLD's Sentence Management

Sentence Management Unit - Wolston Correctional Centre

Brian Rigby, Sharon Gibb, Lorraine Edwards, Alice Mascini, David Armstrong, Debbie Wills, Gary Gray, Michael Williams, Rawinia Te Kanawa, Margaret Bilic.

Tony Rawlins: Half-a-life-time in prison......

QLD: In order to enhance my 'quality of life' at this stage of my 4th incarceration, I submit an application, for inclusion into the Leave of Absence Program.

Some years ago, (in frustration) I intimated that I would be happier to spend the rest of my life in prison! But, since then "I" have realised that "I" am not the only one affected by my decision! There are my family, sisters, brothers, and nieces etc who care and worry about me in my situation.

I am in a position of being a "tragic optimist"; I am optimistic despite of the 'tragic' events in my life. The suffering I have caused to others and the 'pain and guilt I have felt, for 50 years.

I posed the question: - "how can one possibly say 'yes' to a life in prison?"

In spite of my past I can only suppose that 'life' has a potential meaningfulness, under any circumstances. Any situation or condition, no matter how miserable.....

This realisation, presupposed that 'I' have the capacity to reverse the "negatives" into something "creative" in my future. In spite of all that has transpired; into something of a positive structure, with a constructive purpose.

Examining my past has given me an 'insight' into the "human" potential, which permits the turning of suffering into an achievement, And to examine my guilt, finding opportunities to change myself into a 'better' person. (I don't, for one minute, try to say that I'm perfect.....Far from it) but to accept a more responsible outlook, a commitment to action, which 'I' believe is 'equal' to 'rehabilitation'.

For years, my world had become "my body" at the "prison" in which I served my time...That was wrong because a prison is a place that one should strive to be released from.

I was doing the opposite. My only concern, then, was myself; it was selfish, and at the realisation, I came to understand that 'I' should do something about it. Because once an inmate has found a "meaning" he develops a capacity-capability, to 'cope' with the suffering and guilt. The ability to realise "he" is not useless. And loses the feelings of 'emptiness' and meaninglessness.

A strong meaning orientation plays a decisive part in seeking to rehabilitate oneself. Because one can now seek to realise the potential meanings of situations, each and every one of them. To 'actualise' them to the best of his ability-knowledge-and beliefs. Therefore he can become aware 'that it "can" be done in a given situation.

Firstly, by the creation of a 'work plan', before committing himself to 'action'.

Secondly, by experiencing ' that meaning can be found only in work and 'love' of his fellow man. Therefore an inmate, who thinks himself in a hopeless situation, facing odds he can't change, can overcome and expand beyond himself, and by so doing 'change himself' and "turn" 'tragedy' into 'triumph'.

Imprisonment is extraordinarily stressful, nevertheless, one can benefit from the experiences, by using it as a growth experience.

Today I see my life as being abundantly filled with meaning and purpose. Now realising that 'guilt' and suffering of 'incarceration' the growth I now have would not have been. How did this happen? When did it happen?

When a person cannot change the situation that causes the suffering and guilt, can still change his 'attitude'; change his 'choices'; so priorities become (altering the situations causing the suffering) accepting and analysing the guilt, and the reason for it! Altering the personality and outlook toward the guilt situations.

Removing and safeguarding against the causes and avoiding the situation, in my approach to life - to where I can 'safely' say, "I can live in an outside community without any personal 'fear' of breaching the 'moral' codes of the laws of a higher power gives 'meaning and purpose to human life, and the earths' greatest treasures lies in 'human personality."

It was by coming to realise that the 'pain' I now felt and the 'shame' was the "quantity" and "capacity" to also 'love', to feel 'joy' and to have compassion and empathy,

NB; -' A person should be 'judged' on who he is now and not who or 'what' he was, 50 years ago...............!

Tony still seeking release after half a lifetime 'inside'

WHEN Tony Rawlins was locked away for life; trams were still running in Brisbane. City Hall was the tallest building on the skyline and Joh Bjelke-Petersen was a little known Opposition backbencher.

QLD INDEFINITE DETENTION 'IN A NUTSHELL'

In Queensland prison sentences have become step-by-step more lengthy over the last decade according to prisoner Mr David Minty who has been in jail for 20 years.

Corrected or Corrupted

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

Indefinite detention means the government owns its citizens

A convicted rapist detained indefinitely in a north Queensland jail has lost a High Court appeal against his detention. Robert John Fardon was due for release more than a year ago but remains in custody under controversial Queensland legislation.

By Tony Rawlins 7 June 05

Ed: The High Court has considered the scope of indefinite detention in another case that of, Fardon v Attorney General [2004] HCA 46 ('Fardon'). Fardon was a case where the majority (Gleeson CJ, McHugh, Gummow, Hayne, Callinan & Heydon JJ; Kirby J dissenting) upheld the constitutionality of the Dangerous Prisoners (sexual Offenders) Act 2003 (Qld) ('2003 Qld Act') The 2003 Qld Act permitted preventative detention of convicted sexual offenders who fulfilled various criteria established by the 2003 Qld Act. The majority in Fardon distinguished the 2003 Qld Act which was constitutional according to a very conservative High Court.

The majority in Fardon held that preventative detention legislation enacted by a Parliament is not inevitably or necessarily unconstitutional even though it means that the Government owns its citizens. Along side Mental health legislation, quarantine legislation, public health emergencies legislation, migration legislation are examples of preventative detention legislation which have a long history of being accepted as valid legislation. The 2003 Qld Act did not apply just to a single named person. The Qld Act applies more generally in respect of any person who is actually serving a sentence for sexual offences of which he or she has been convicted in Queensland.

Related:

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

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

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."

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.

Indefinite detention means the government owns its citizens
A convicted rapist detained indefinitely in a north Queensland jail has lost a High Court appeal against his detention. Robert John Fardon was due for release more than a year ago but remains in custody under controversial Queensland legislation.

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!

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."

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.

Computers - prisoners' petition

NSW: Justice Action has just received a petition signed by nearly 100 prisoners of Goulburn jail. (petition at the end)

They are protesting a policy change introduced statewide by the Commissioner 2 weeks ago.

The new policy states that educational staff must supervise prisoners at all times when they are using the computers in the education classrooms. The petition states that this policy, in practice, means that access to computers will be dramatically reduced because of education staff shortages.

The prisoners say that the new policy is hindering their efforts at rehabilitation and defending their legal cases because much of the material used in these activities is now delivered on CD ROM. They say the policy is disempowering, and education is becoming a lost cause and unachievable.

We have been told that this policy is a direct result of the Middleton case, which successfully challenged the Commissioner's refusal to acknowledge his discretion to give maximum security prisoners access to computers in their cells.

Supreme Court Judge Dowd decided that the Commissioner did have the discretion and must consider it for prisoners of all classifications. The prisoners have asked us to advocate on their behalf. We need your help with gathering information to assist the challenge. Specifically, we need information on the following points:

1) What are the rules in other states? In the Middleton case he was doing two degrees at Uni of Southern Queensland in Information Technology and Engineering. He had a computer in his cell all the time without a problem until he was transferred to NSW.

2) How many years have computers been permitted inside prisons in NSW? Desktop computers in the wings/pods like Lithgow? Laptops in cells in minimum security?

3) What incidents can the Department use to justify this policy? Experiences in other states? For example, in the Middleton case, the Department said that they were a security risk because, "a computer might be used to track movements of warders and of the rosters of warders from a database on that computer."

However Justice Dowd noted that this could be done just as easily with a pen and paper, and that computers can be regularly searched for material other than approved activities.

Please let us know if you are interested in helping with this effort.

Justice Action 65 Bellevue St, Glebe, NSW 2037, Australia P.O. Box 386, Broadway, NSW 2007, Australia ja@justiceaction.org.au voice: 612-9660 9111 fax: 612-9660 9100

Please log into the Justice Action Web site, designed and sponsored by Breakout Design & Print, exercising good corporate citizenship.

PETITION

Justice Action
P.O. Box, 386
HAYMARKET

Prisoners of Goulburn Gaol
P.O. Box, 264 GOULBURN, 2580

Re: NEW COMPUTER POLICY

Dear Friends,

We the undersigned would like to protest a recent policy change introduced by the Commissioner of the Corrective Services Department.

The latest obstruction to the prisoner education program is the new policy that the educational use of computers must at all times be supervised by educational staff.

The policy, at least at Goulburn is unworkable due to the structure of the routine which only allows access to education to a minimum number of full time students for about 2.5 to 4 hours per day for a maximum 4 days per week.

Most of the full time students find this situation barely workable as it is. The changes in the policy now mean that teachers will not be able to supervise the students during the periods mentioned above because they have other duties to attend. This includes the needs of various yards of protection, mainstream, and races that are segregated from one another. The role of the education staff servicing the needs of all the different sections simply means that prisoners' access to the educational classrooms and computer facilities will be dramatically reduced.

Those students studying TAFE are expressing concerns. Those students studying University courses are in greater need for access to computers because most university lectures these days are on CD ROMs likewise unrepresented prisoners' (usually those refused Legal Aid) with outstanding court cases need access to computers especially those in the Supreme and High Courts where judges and Justices often refuse to accept hand written submissions.

There is also a further policy clash in that prisoners these days are supplied briefs of evidence on CD ROMs instead of the (expensive to produce) documented ones. Prisoners need reductions in the present obstacles to access educational services. The latest policy does the complete opposite by reducing access to computers and a follow on effect in not being able to access classrooms. The new policy is disempowering to prisoners who are already feeling that education and rehabilitation are a lost cause or otherwise an unachievable goal to reach.

We the undersigned students at Goulburn Gaol would appreciate it if your office could advocate on our behalf with the view that Goulburn Gaol is not the only gaol affected by the new policy. Otherwise education for prisoners will be to difficult to access and discourage inmate participation to those already experiencing obstructions to services and extreme lack of motivation.

Society would prefer that its prisoners' be released with some kind of hope and skills instead of disempowered, unskilled persons with little option, other than to re offend or otherwise be unemployable.

The under Signed (nearly a hundred signatures)

We the undersigned prisoners need to access education for use of computers to complete assignments (for part time study) or to access computers for legal purposes.

Ed: It sounds like in spite of the Middleton case the Commissioner of Corrective Services has acted with malice towards the prisoners and in direct contravention of his honour's decision about education and rehabilitation in prison, to ensure that no matter what these prisoners will not get any help, even if they want to help themselves.

I thought God always helps those that are prepared to help themselves? How could I get it so wrong? I must ask my school teacher.

Is this really how Corrective Services works? No wonder they get it so wrong and people who have no hope re-offend! At the moment 64 per cent return to prison in NSW.

COMMISSIONER OF CORRECTIVE SERVICES AND MR MIDDLETON

Justice Dowd discussed the role of education in rehabilitation and stated that "it is hard to imagine a better rehabilitation tool than the gaining of tertiary qualifications of a sophisticated nature".

By Justice Action 22 April 05

Related:

Justice Action V NSW
The feud between these two is legendary, and is hindering an effective dialogue between the justice advocates of Justice Action and the Prison Administration who need some help from this community group in making our prisons more humane and effective in letting go of prisoners so they don't keep offending and returning to gaol.

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

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

COMMISSIONER OF CORRECTIVE SERVICES AND MR MIDDLETON
Justice Dowd discussed the role of education in rehabilitation and stated that "it is hard to imagine a better rehabilitation tool than the gaining of tertiary qualifications of a sophisticated nature".

MORE PRISONERS LOCKDOWNS HAVE OFFICERS ON EDGE
NSW: Staff shortages are continuing to cripple the day to day running of the state's prisons, with correctional officers worried about their safety from constant prisoner lockdowns.

Tough line on crime fills jails
The tough law-and-order policies of governments around the nation are behind an explosion in the prison population by almost 80 per cent in the past two decades.

LEGAL VISITS AT PARKLEA PRISON
I am a prisoner in NSW and I am currently held in Parklea Prison. I am concerned about what is going on in NSW prisons and this is my story.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

'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.

House of Commons Home Affairs Committee Rehabilitation of Prisoners

UK: We have carried out an inquiry into the rehabilitation of offenders as law-abiding and useful members of the wider community.

The best way of reducing re-offending is to ensure that prisoners on their release have the ability to get into work and a home to go to. We focus especially on ways of delivering these aims.

As a result of recent official reports and government initiatives, a basic policy framework is now largely in place which could make possible the more effective rehabilitation of offenders. However, implementation has been patchy. Progress has been made in developing more credible and effective sentencing, and in reviewing sentencing guidelines.

The merger of the Prison and Probation Services to form a National Offender Management Service (NOMS) is a step towards 'end to end' management of prisoners from sentence to resettlement, but NOMS is still in its early stages and much remains to be done.

We welcome the Government's publication of a National Action Plan on reducing reoffending,but are disappointed at the elementary nature of many of its action points. We recommend that it should be reissued in a revised and more detailed form, and that the Home Office should report annually to Parliament on progress made in implementing the Plan.

Despite a welcome recent decrease in re-offending rates, the scale of the problem is massive---it remains the case that nearly three in five prisoners are reconvicted within two years of leaving prison.

We support the use of reconviction rates as a measure of re-offending, and therefore of the success or otherwise of rehabilitation, but we criticise the current 'two-year post-release snapshot' as a blunt measuring tool, and recommend the adoption of more sophisticated measures. We regret the decision by the Home Office to reclassify its PSA Target (of reducing re-offending by 5%) as a 'standard' (committing it not to allow re-offending rates to deteriorate), and call for the reinstatement of the target.

Overcrowding is having a hugely damaging impact on the delivery of rehabilitative regimes across the prison estate, both in terms of quality and quantity of appropriate interventions.

We express scepticism about the Home Office's projection that the prison population will stabilise at about 80,000 by the end of the present decade, exactly matching estimated capacity. This projection depends on very large assumptions about the net effect of sentencing changes.

Regrettably, overcrowding is likely to remain a feature of our prison system for the foreseeable future. It should not be used as an excuse for ignoring the issue of rehabilitation and failing to follow examples of good practice.

The Prison Service has repeatedly failed to meet its target of providing an average of 24 hours' worth of purposeful activity for each prisoner per week. The situation may be even more serious than the official figures suggest. We carried out a 'Prison Diaries Project' which investigates prisoners' own experience of rehabilitative regimes.

First Report of Session 2004--05

By Just Us posted 24 January 05

Related:

England and Wales

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.

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.

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.

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.

Blunkett's Quest, but is he on drugs?
The legislation is expected to introduce a new definition of "possession" of an illegal drug, making it an offence to have a certain amount in the bloodstream. This is likely to prove controversial - not least because some drugs, such as cannabis, can remain in the bloodstream for weeks.

Mentally ill face 'Asbo' measures
UK: People with mental health problems living in the community could be banned from leaving their homes under proposals to reform mental health law, a legal expert has warned.

law and order days over, says Blair
UK: Tony Blair will today make the provocative claim that Labour's new five-year crime plan heralds "the end of the 1960s liberal consensus on law and order" by putting the values of the law-abiding majority at the centre of the criminal justice system.

Blunkett charges miscarriage of justice victims 'food and lodgings'
UK: We locked you up in jail for 25 years and you were innocent all along? That'll be £80,000 please.

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

Britain ponders new terrorism laws?
The British Government is considering introducing new legislation that it claims would make it easier to convict suspected terrorists.

Blunkett to extend long arm of the law
UK: Sweeping changes to police powers were proposed by the government yesterday, with officers in England and Wales to be permitted to arrest suspects for any offence, rather than only those which attract prison sentences.

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.

USA

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.

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.

Winning goals: Rethinking Crime and Punishment

Extracts in this feature are adapted from I Would Rethink Crime and Punishment By...published today by the thinktank 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.

I would pursue the idea of prisoners being able to earn extra remission as a result of achieving NVQ qualifications, computer skills and higher literacy standards.

Lord Adebowale: Chief executive of homelessness charity Turning Point

I would rethink social care and regeneration. This is not a moral argument but an economic one. By tackling poverty and social exclusion effectively we can prevent a great deal of crime. One-third of prisoners have a severe alcohol dependency, two-thirds have mental health problems, and one-third say they were in local authority care as a child. For many, prison merely serves as an example of how little value current welfare services add to their lives.

None of this is meant to excuse the crimes they have committed, but it should spur us to action. Providing the right interventions, earlier in life, will be far more cost-effective than prison, and will do far more for the victims of crime. A US study found that every dollar spent on tackling poverty saved $7 in other costs, such as criminal justice.

In the long term, providing effective social care that meets people's whole needs, including education and employment, will be more effective than any criminal justice programme.

Sir Charles Pollard: Former chief constable of Thames Valley Police, and a member of the Youth Justice Board

Let's integrate restorative justice fully into our criminal justice system. Ninety per cent of crime victims find restorative justice helps them get over what happened. Many offenders stop or reduce their criminal activity after being confronted directly with the impact of their crimes on others. And citizens who have participated become more engaged themselves with upholding standards in their local communities. The facts speak for themselves. Restorative justice is an idea whose time has come.

Eric Allison: Prisons correspondent

Imagine that you are ill. You see your GP, who tells you that you have, say, a stomach disorder and prescribes tablet X. A month later, your condition has worsened and you return to the surgery. The doctor tells you to give the medicine time, increases the dose and sends you on your way. A further month goes by, and now you are in agony. Another appointment. You are in the waiting room talking to another patient, who says he has gout and that the tablets the doctor gave him do not appear to be working. To your astonishment, you find that he too is on tablet X. You take a spot survey of those in the waiting room; they are all on the same medicine and not a soul feels better for it.

Surely, it's a case for the General Medical Council to consider striking this clearly dangerous doctor from the register.

An unlikely scenario? Yes, of course. Except that it's a script that is written hundreds of thousands of times a year within the penal area of our criminal justice system. Everybody who gets sent to prison - man, woman or child - receives basically the same treatment... a treatment that has proved time and time again not to work. There are 75,000 people in prison and 75,000 different reasons why they are there. Yet they are all on tablet X.

Is there a doctor in the house?

Nick Ross: Broadcaster

Let justice be done and revenge be had, but let us stop kidding ourselves that punishment axiomatically cuts crime. Given the vast investment in prisons and other punishments, it is extraordinary how little scientifically credible research has been done on its effectiveness in reducing wrongdoing.

Perhaps - from a purely crime reduction perspective - some people should be locked up longer and others should be told to go home. I want to find out, and this is too important for us to go on relying on convention, gut feeling or political inclination.

Meanwhile, our focus on punishment distracts us from the thousands of more immediate, and often cheaper, steps we can take to redesign products, policies and services to make the prospect of detection more certain and, better still, to make crime less tempting and less easy to commit.

Lord Hurd: Former home secretary

I would make a determined effort to stop the rise in prison sentences. Judges and magistrates send more people to prison for longer, not because there is more crime but because they feel that public opinion demands it. So our prisons are overcrowded as never before.

In these conditions, the chances of reforming a prisoner are slim. More than half reoffend within two years of release. Prison has not "worked" for them or for the community. The two keys to progress are: provide those who pass sentences with convincing alternatives to imprisonment, and do everything possible to help prisoners on release to find a job and a home so that they do not immediately drift back into crime.

Dame Anita Roddick: Founder of The Body Shop

Let's put an end to the myth that prison works. Politicians must stop looking to America for tough ways of dealing with crime.

I'd feel safer knowing that crime prevention measures are in place, alienated communities are socially included, and that mentally ill and drug-dependent offenders are treated, not punished. It's a crime too that so many vulnerable women are in jail. We waste so much human potential if we are unimaginative when responding to crime.

Erwin James: Writes a column, Life Outside, for the Guardian

Let's first of all take the responsibility of punishment, including the prison system, away from the main political arena. The only political involvement in my model would be from an all-party home affairs committee that would engage with and oversee what I would ensure was a fully independent body responsible both for sentencing policy and prison conditions.

This body - let's call it the Prisons and Sentencing Council (made up, perhaps, of teachers, social workers, doctors, beat police officers, probation officers and academics) - would base its policy decisions on information gathered by its dedicated teams of specialist researchers. The courts would carry out sentencing according to these policies, and the court appearance would be the time for the person in the dock to be subjected to public opprobrium and private shame.

The arrival at prison for those sentenced to a period of incarceration would mark the beginning of the rebuilding process. Prisons would be establishments that would encourage personal development and responsibility through therapeutic counselling, academic education and the pursuance of creative activities.

The prison journey, however long it might be, would be constructive and geared to lead to the eventual successful reintegration of the imprisoned person back into the community.

Ann Widdecombe: MP for Maidstone and the Weald, and a former prisons minister

If prison is to work it must be purposeful and prisoners must spend their days in education and work. Offending behaviour courses must be properly linked with post-release supervision.

At the moment, we take people who are poorly educated and come from unstructured lifestyles, lock them up in idleness, and then open up the prison gates expecting them to leadindustrious, law-abiding lives. It is cloud cuckoo land.

I would like to see a government plan for introducing full working days into every prison by 2012.

Juliet Lyon: Director of the Prison Reform Trust

Why not reduce the reach and aspirations of the criminal justice system and put prison back where it belongs - as a place of absolute last resort.

A tragic, unintended consequence of improving prison, before reserving it for serious and violent offenders only, has been to turn it into an under-resourced, capacious social service struggling to dispense drug treatment, low-level mental healthcare and basic education.

I would call on other public services to shoulder their shirked responsibilities and invest more in preventive work and support for vulnerable families. Above all, I would look to an authoritative, confident government to reduce fear of crime and create a justice system based on proportionality and fairness, not on vengeance and populism.

Tony Adams: Former Arsenal and England footballer; founder of the Sporting Chance Clinic

I would do more to help people with drink or drug problems. I spent time in prison through a drink-related incident. The long and short of it was that I was completely out of my head - a simple case of a man having problems with alcohol.

I spent three months in prison and, astonishingly, received no education in the areas of alcohol and drug abuse. Inside prison I was with people with similar problems to mine; they'd been out of their heads on mixtures of alcohol, cocaine, crack or whatever - but ultimately they had committed crimes that, in the clear light of day, they would not have done. If you give people education on the drugs they have been using and also introduce them to a high level of physical and calming exercise there is a dramatic fall in the number that reoffend.

Jonathan Myerson: Writes a Society Guardian column about his experiences as a Labour councillor in Lambeth, south London

What's the problem with youth justice? Young offenders never have to say sorry. Yes, referral panels are a step in the right direction. But after his first offence, the average teenage-on-teenage mugger sits and listens to his brief make tortuous, often legalistic excuses on his behalf, but never has to face up to it and say: "I did it. I'm sorry. It was wrong."

Meanwhile, months pass between crime and trial, and by the time sentence is announced the new offender has usually already reoffended and is lost to any hope of rehabilitation.

So my proposal is simple. Henceforth, the mugging victim will have a choice: he can make a statement and proceed through the courts, or the offender can be brought before him, in a controlled setting, and the offender has to look him in the eye and say sorry. Genuinely. And if he does, that's the end of it. No further action.

Mary Riddell: Columnist

Take children of 14 and under out of a criminal justice process designed for adults. Child courts would address welfare issues and place those found guilty of grave offences, such as killing, in local authority custody, close to home.

Older children, up to 18, would also be removed from the care of the prison service and the young offender institutions that produce a grievous toll of unhappiness and suicide.

Treating children more humanely would send a powerful message to a system inclined, across the board, to focus too much on punishment and too little on rehabilitating the vulnerable of all ages.

· Extracts in this feature are adapted from I Would Rethink Crime and Punishment By... published today by the thinktank Rethinking Crime and Punishment. Copies are available free. Details:

By Johnathan Aitken posted 20 January 2004

Rethinking Crime & Punishment

Related:

England and Wales

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.

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.

Carr policy jails oldest woman

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