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https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-04/australia-broken-prison-system-norway-face-facts/103926876>
'Until recently, I hadn't met many people who had been incarcerated, and I
hadn't given much thought to prisons. I certainly hadn't asked myself what
happens when they complete their sentence, and walk back outside.
So perhaps it was reasonable that chief among my assumptions was this: that our
jails are principally concerned with rehabilitating offenders and reducing
crime in society. How wrong I was.
This year, I have spent several months with about a dozen former prisoners,
filming this week's
Four Corners about a halfway house in Sydney called
Rainbow Lodge. It was a sobering experience, and I'm now thoroughly disabused
of my naivety.
Corrective Services NSW claims in its mission statement that in addition to
running "correctional centres" across the state, it also "delivers programs to
reduce reoffending [and] support reintegration". It does this, it says, to
"build safer communities".
If so, it's been doing a poor job. The programs it runs inside jails — to
address violence and drug dependency, for example — and those it runs in the
community, providing accommodation and pathways to employment, are clearly
insufficient to the task.
The statistics bear this out. Critically, huge numbers of people leaving prison
are committing more, not fewer crimes. The reoffending rate in NSW has climbed
steadily since 2011 (with a slight reduction in 2020-2021), and the proportion
of people in prison with a prior conviction — 56 per cent — climbed by 52 per
cent between 2012 and 2022.
Then there's the testimony I've heard this year from men who have only recently
left custody. They describe a hostile, dangerous environment, largely bereft of
access to the kinds of diversionary programs they say are needed to make a
serious difference.
I've heard too from former prison officers and social workers who despair at
the punitive nature of the jails they've visited or worked in; rather than the
deprivation of liberty being the punishment meted out to those convicted of
crimes, in practice it is just the first of many privations offenders endure.'
This is a societal issue that goes beyond just the prisons: do we want to
foster and perpetuate an underclass?
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
