Receiving visitors while behind bars was a raft of benefits, but people have reported many barriers. It must be made easier to help drive down recidivism rates.
This is a problem for everyone. Research shows mental health intervention and engagement helps reduce offending among people with serious mental illness who commit offences.
Victorian prisons provide limited access to adequate health care, particularly for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Coronial inquests into deaths in custody show something must be done.
Despite the disproportionate numbers of Aboriginal people in prisons, there are near to no cultural protocols in place, and chronic illness is often not addressed.
Jesse Young, The University of Melbourne and Stuart Kinner, Murdoch Children's Research Institute
By excluding prisoners from the NDIS, the federal government is discriminating against prisoners with a disability in direct contravention of our international human rights obligations.
Many young people in jail suffer fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. Diagnosing these before sentencing will establish the most appropriate path for these vulnerable offenders, which often isn’t jail.
We simply don’t know how many prisoners are released each year, nor their demographic characteristics. As a result, we cannot tailor services that would reduce ex-prisoners’ risks of re-offending.