Towards Human Rights Compliance In Australian Prisons

Imprisoned people have always been vulnerable and in need of human rights protections. The slow but steady growth in the protection of imprisoned people’s rights over recent decades in Australia has mostly come from incremental change to prison legislation and common law principles. A radical influence is about to disrupt this slow change. Australian prisons and other closed environments will soon be subject to international inspections by the United Nations Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture (SPT). This is because the Australian Government ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT) in December 2017. Australia’s international human rights law obligations as they apply to prisons are complex and stem from multiple Treaties. This book distils these obligations into five prerequisites for compliance, consistent with the preventive focus of the OPCAT. They are: reduce reliance on imprisonment align domestic legislation with Australia’s international human rights law obligations shift the focus of imprisonment to the goal of rehabilitation and restoration support prison staff to treat imprisoned people in a human rights–consistent manner ensure decent physical conditions in all prisons. Attention to each of these five areas will help all levels of Australian government and prison managers take the steps required to move towards compliance. Human-rights led prison reform is necessary both to improve the lives of imprisoned people and for Australia to achieve compliance with the international human rights legal obligations to which it has voluntarily committed itself.

Gives voice to a diverse range of viewpoints on the debate on prisoners' rights, with contributions from prisoners, human rights activists, academics, criminal justice policy makers and practitioners.

Includes chapter on prisoners rights in Australia.

The Minimum Standard Guidelines for Australian Prisons was based on the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners and related recommendations and the Council of Europe Standard Minimum Rules, and modified to accommodate trends in correctional thinking in Australia in the 1970s. Their purpose was to set standards for the conduct of prisons in Australia.

Corrections criminology / Sean O'Toole and Simon Eyland --World correctional population trends and issues / Mike Bartlett --Prison populations in Australia / Kyleigh Heggie --Australian coomunity corrections population trends and issues / David Daley --Prisonography : Sources of knowledge and perspectives about prisons / Lucien Lombard --Commissions of inquiry and penal reform / David Brown --Security in correctional systems / Ron Woodham --Privatisation in the corrections industry / Sean O'Toole --Human rights in corrections practice / Brian Tkachuk and Eileen Skinnider --"Good corrections" : implications for leadership and organisational performance / Ole Ingstrup --Inspecting prisons / Richard Harding --Causes and prevention of violence in prisons / Ross Homel and Carleen Thompson --The over-representation of indigenous persons in custody / Bill Anscomb --Risk and responsibilities in women's prisons / Pat Carlen --Managing an ageing prison population / John Dawes --Prisoner health / Michael Levy, Tony Butler, Tony Falconer --Managing mentally ill offenders released from jail - the US experience / Dale Sechrest and Don Josi --Offenders with drug and alcohol dependencies / Maria Kevin --A framework for minimising the incidence of self-harm in prison / Greg Dear --Beyond what works : a retrospective of Robert Martinson's famous article / Rick Sarre --Bridging the gap between prison and the community : post-release support and supervision / Stuart Ross --Prison industries in a time of science-based prison programming / Judy McHutchison --The effect of post-release housing on prisoner re-integration into the community / Eileen Baldry --Ethics and the role of the correctional officer / Anna Grant --Measuring prisons and their moral performance / Alison Liebling --Professionalising the correctional officer : the US perspective / Don A josi and Dale K Sechrest --Human resources analysis of the Australian corrections industry / Sean O'Toole --Towards crime prevention / David Biles --What future for the prison? / Paul Wilson.

Solitary confinement was the norm in Australian prisons during the 19th century. In recent decades its use is expanding, justified by prison administrators as in the best interests of prison management. This publication assesses the use of solitary confinement in the Victorian prisons system today. The widespread use of isolation is examined in the light of relevant Victorian case law and recent international human rights treaties.

Canvassing the socio-legal context for youth detention in Australia with a focus on international human rights law and legal frameworks within Australian states and territories, this book examines the recurring children's rights-violations of recent years, and puts forward strategies for reform. Providing a comprehensive national picture of juvenile detention legislation, policy and practices using a children's rights framework, this book is a detailed synthesis of investigatory reports, judicial decisions and inquiries by Royal Commissions, as well as parliamentary committee inquiries that establish an evidence base for assessing the compliance of youth detention with Australia's international and domestic human rights obligations. It also proposes nine pillars for reform to help Australia move towards children's rights compliance. A Children's Rights Assessment of Juvenile Detention in Australia provides an invaluable resource for policy-makers, lawyers and criminologists, as well as for students of law and criminology.

This book examines how the prison environment, architecture and culture can affect mental health as well as determine both the type and delivery of mental health services. It also discusses how non-medical practices, such as peer support and prison education programs, offer the possibility of transformative practice and support. By drawing on international contributions, it furthermore demonstrates how mental health in prisons is affected by wider socio-economic and cultural factors, and how in recent years neo-liberalism has abandoned, criminalised and contained large numbers of the world’s most marginalised and vulnerable populations. Overall, this collection challenges the dominant narrative of individualism by focusing instead on the relationship between structural inequalities, suffering, survival and punishment. Chapter 2 of this book is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license via link.springer.com.