Went to see a film, Business Behind Bars, about overcrowding in Australian prisons, and governments turning to the private sector to manage and own correctional facilities. It looked at private prison entrepreneurs and the different approaches in providing correctional systems in Australia and the US. Then there was a discussion led by Professor David Brown, who teaches criminal law, criminal justice and crime prevention courses at UNSW.
Brown said:
*“If you build more prisons, this doesn’t stop overcrowding – new prisons always fill up.”
*There has been a huge rise in remand prisoners. “We’re tolerating a system of pre-trial detention.” It started under Greiner and the Right to Bail has been whittled back under the Labor Government in two major ways:
1. For those facing property theft, car thefts – bail is now usually denied.
2. Only get one shot at a bail application. Applicants need to make sure their bail application is brilliant and the system isn’t overly busy or they don’t catch someone in a bad mood –- they have to wait in remand for the right timing and need to gain lots of information so they don’t stuff up their only chance.
Also, the power of the Ombudsman has been decreased and top notch prison visitors are no longer invited to visit and have a look around.
There should be on-the-spot inspections without notice, like they have in Western Australia.
“Beef up the inspections in prisons, detention centres and military detention.”
“Two years ago, juvenile detention began slowly rising because so many juveniles are rotting away on remand.
“Twenty per cent of Aboriginal children have a parent or carer in prison. This means being in and out of prison seems like a normal thing for them.”
“Countries who smashed welfare rights have higher imprisonment rates.
There’s a clear link between proper social welfare provisions and after-care services and low prison rates.
“Money should be redirected to stop recidivism.
“We should defend social democracy more rigorously and wind back the excesses of neo liberalism.”
He said the social democratic countries, such as Scandinavia, have better welfare and less prisoners. Welfare slashing countries, such as the US (“neo liberals”) and have higher prisoner rates.
The privatisation of prisons was done mainly to smash the unions.
When jails are privatised, the companies have to sign contracts that contain clauses that have penalties for riots and suicides and assaults. But the contracts are not fully made public, so there’s no way of holding the companies accountable.
Whenever someone escapes from a private prison, the company’s share price plummets, so they try to keep this information secret.
Private companies also advocate harsher laws, such as “three strikes and you’re out” because more prisoners = more profit.
Comments from the audience: “There were more than 100 escapes from Villawood in the first year. The company got fined for that. An escape is a public relations disaster – police and barking dogs searching through people’s backyards. It was like scenes from the Keystone Cops.”
Brett Collins was there – coordinator for Justice Action, spokesperson for the Prisoners Action Group and he was the bloke in the photo on the beach with paedophile Dennis Ferguson (supporting Ferguson’s re-entry to society). Collins spoke against the privatisation of jails, saying there were 400 submissions against the privatisation of Parklea and only 11 supporting it – so why was it privatised? Collins said the one good thing about privatisation is that the jails get to have their own kitchens run by inmates cooking good food. Why? Because the private jails save money by not employing cooks.
Peter (didn’t catch his surname), who worked at Villawood Detention Centre for 13 years (1990-2003), said he used to write reports on the problems there but the Howard government just used the information to justify privatisation instead of employing more well-trained public servants. “I tried to agitate for more public servants who would do the job humanely.”
The private company, ACM, employed security people who were used to guarding buildings, such as federal Parliament; they weren’t welfare-oriented.
*There used to be 750 immigrants at Villawood detention centre. Now there are only 150 – the rest are stuck on Christmas Island.
“At Villawood, the cooks were let go and the detainees were allowed to cook, but management claimed they could only pay them in phonecards because they didn’t have visas!”
UPDATE: 89 single men just arrived at Villawood because the Christmas Island detention centre is full. If you GoogleMap the island and look at the centre, there’s plenty of room for expansion, though the Christmas Islanders probably wouldn’t appreciate it, unless offered lots of extra money.
