The Sydney Morning Herald
January 22, 2007 - 9:07PM
Source: Sydney Morning Herald

The ACT's planned jail will cost twice as much to build but is only half the size of a new NSW jail, a NSW Labor politician says. The ACT's first full-scale prison will be open plan, environmentally friendly and promote healthy living, with a campus-style design incorporating a range of accommodation types.

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Mr Bob Debus
31st May 1998

Dear Minister,

Reducing Violence in NSW Jails
We write to you about the alarming levels of violence and death in the states prisons in recent times. We have discussed this matter intensively with members and groups within the Criminal Justice Coalition, but we wish to make this contribution as ex-prisoners. Together we have nearly 50 years combined experience in and study of prisoners, and this underlies our comments and emphases here.

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Prison Violence - A Community Response
Prepared by Josh Forrest

We propose an idea to counter violence within the prison setting. The aim is to create safer prison environments for the prisoners that will, in turn, make it safer for the prison staff.

Based upon the principles of civil society, establishing interpersonal relations with prisoners and with the human right of freedom of association, we will prepare for the release of prisoners and then evaluate their skills that will be beneficial to society. This will help establish themselves and work their way back into society.

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The Persecution of the Diagnosed

This is Aboriginal Land. This is Aboriginal Land. Indigenous Cultural Respect, Land Rights & Peace.
*Warning: Medical terms may cause offence! We’re not dissing you. Just talking about the situation.

“Whenever I go to jail, I get put in a strip cell in underwear and injected with Largactil” Ex-prisoner with historical diagnosis of schizophrenia. (Largactil is an old-style heavy-duty anti-psychotic with drastic physical and mental effects, also known as “chemical straitjacket”)

On the “outside” is a social justice emergency damning people with psychiatric, intellectual, neurological and developmental diagnoses and difficulties (PIND D&D) to poverty, homelessness, the removal of rights, institutional abuse and being capsicum sprayed by the police.

Like other oppressed groups, our life is criminalised by the injustice of law.

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Review of the Royal Commission Inquiry

An End of Decade View of the Royal Commission Recommendations into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. April 1991/April 2001.   

In late 1987 the Hawke Government finally relented and called for the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. 124 deaths were presented to the Commissioners but they only investigated 99 which occurred between 1980 - 1989. Not one police, custodial or jail officer was found guilty of any substantial wrongdoing.

During April 1991, the Commissioners handed down their collective wisdom in the form of 339 Recommendations. Roughly half of these dealt with the so-called justice system for Indigenous people. These Recommendations were mainly intended to keep Aboriginal people out of jail and stressed the need for prisons as a last resort. They were aimed at bringing about change relating to the involvement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders with the police, courts and jails. With what success?

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