Prison

quote "However Mr Rattenbury would not explicitly state the jail was human rights compliant right now, only that staff strived to make it so every day.

“What is a human rights compliant jail? In putting together this document, we said these are the standards we expect a human rights compliant jail to meet. I’d say we meet those standards on a daily basis, that doesn’t mean we should stand still, there’s always room for improvement,” Mr Rattenbury said.

Asked if some of the conditions would upset victims of crime, Mr Rattenbury said inmates are nearly always released back into the community at some point.

"They’re sent to custody as punishment, not for punishment. The deprivation of liberty is their punishment," Mr Rattenbury said.

“When people leave custody we want them to come out ready to re-integrate, not reoffend.”

An excerpt from an article by Katie Burgess in the Canberra Times about a Canberra prison.
The bolded part is a revelation. The world would be a much nicer place if everyone stuck to that idea.

That is a load of crap. I have never worked in one prison who have honoured their Mission Statement which is a document of delusionary statements.

Making jails too comfortable is not a good idea. People in jails are there because of their anti social behaviour or breaking the law or both. In some cases rehabilitation is almost impossible and people have to want to be rehabilitated. Jail culture is NOT the same as being outside. Anyone who thinks it is, is kidding themselves including the Department of Justice.

2 Likes

“Worked” hey?

I suggest you look at Dutch prisons. They have bugger all recidivism by global standards, and they achieve that by pretty much doing the opposite of what we do. Yes, there are some people who should be just put down, but the majority can absolutely be rehabilitated if the state seriously wants to. We don’t. Regardless of what we say, we follow the american idea where prisons are structured for revenge not rehabilitation.

10 Likes

Is thread in response to something?

EFA

2 Likes

Nobody knows he the trouble I’ve seen
Nobody knows my sorrow
(Scrapes enamel mug along bars)

Sorry I’ve got nothing sensible to add.

1 Like

RIP gaol

2 Likes

I opened the thread, ages ago, in response to reading the article. It gave me a lift at the time. You know, it made me wonder if there was more empathy out there than is apparent.

1 Like

You would think if any country understood the importance of not treating convicts as human vermin, it would be this one.

1 Like

We actually don’t in the slightest. Only in cases where it’s absolutely necessary are prisoners (at least in Victoria), in 23 hr a day lock down. Any prisoner who behaves themselves lives in great conditions.

Reckon that maybe your idea of “living in great conditions” is very, very different to mine.

2 Likes

I’ll let this go through to the keeper as this is not the place to have this conversation. Just giving a very informed opinion.

1 Like

I respect the fact that you have spent more time in prisons than me, and know much more about them, and relative to a prison in many other countries the conditions may be great, but relative to living in even the poorest parts of Australia they are not.

We actually put too many people in prison and in my view should only lock up those who commit violent crime.

That’s a completely different conversation. It’s definitely better being in prison than homeless, so I don’t agree with you there either.

I wouldn’t mind locking up a few more white collar criminals tbh, especially those wearing $10000 suits.

5 Likes

As long as you could take all their assets and have them living under a bridge, that should do it.

But that’s just a pipedream because they’d be living in their 6yo daughter’s mansion and driving the 8yo son’s Beemer.

1 Like

So what does it achieve by locking up someone who defrauds his Boss and steals a million bucks.

Most of these white collar crooks have a brain that could be put to good use. So strip their assets and regulate their life and make them work for a charity on a fair wage.

Some weird to me that we let the violent crims get a community order or a fine, and many offend again and again, yet some-one like Glenn Wheatley cheats on his tax and gets 7 years jail.

That 7 years was for repeat Farnham comeback tours

8 Likes

It would be nice if people who stole in significant volume were only made to pay it back with their labour (for the rest of their lives no doubt) but, I think we all know that any human population has a fairly large cohort that has absolutely no empathy for their fellow humans and will try to exploit them, somehow, at all costs. A bit glib, I know but the right education from the parental knee would go a long way to mitigate this. Without serious “realignment” probably using chemicals, there will always be deserving convicts.

The most important reform that could happen ASAP as far as I am concerned would be that anyone sent to prison is safe from harm from other inmates or vicious warders. If a kiddy fiddler has to go to prison then that is the punishment, not the arbitrary bashings that happen now. Why should a vicious thug be allowed to get their rocks off with violence when the violence is what put them there in the first place?