Prisons

Analysis and Comment (7)

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Do we really need to track offenders from space? satellite image via www.shutterstock.com

GPS monitoring may intrude on prisoners' privacy

By Claudio Bozzi, Deakin University

GPS monitoring has been introduced as a potentially revolutionary technology to solve the problems that beset modern prisons – chronic overcrowding, uncontrolled costs, and the failure to correct behaviour…
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The High Court decision against Palm Island rioter, Lex Wotton highlights concerns about how little our constitution does to protect us. AAP Image/Ian Hitchcock

Silencing Lex Wotton: Palm Island riot decision a blow for freedom of speech

By Peter Black, Queensland University of Technology

When a prisoner has served their time, it’s difficult to understand why they would be stopped from engaging in public debate or communicating with the media. But a new precedent has been set by the High…
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Victoria has the among the highest level of inmates imprisoned in privately run jails in the world, alongside the US. flickr/rlevans

Private prisons and the Productivity Commission: where is the value for money?

By Peter Norden, RMIT University

The Productivity Commission has just released a report on Government Services 2012 containing a 177 page chapter on corrective services. It found one third of Victorian prisoners were held in private…
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It costs $207 a day to keep one prisoner in jail. Flickr/winterofdiscontent

Prison rates down, but not enough

By Hilde Tubex, University of Western Australia and David Indermaur, University of Western Australia

Australia’s prison population is decreasing. But it’s a little too early to break out the champagne. The huge regional differences reveal that imprisonment is not based on the crime you commit, but the…
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People who commit serious crime are sent to prison as punishment, not for punishment. f o/Flickr

When freedom is fatal: the preventable deaths of recently released prisoners

By Alex Wodak, St Vincent's Hospital, Darlinghurst

A study published today in the Medical Journal of Australia concludes that more prison inmates in Australia die in the year after they’ve been released than the annual number of deaths in custody. A disproportionate…
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Convicted killer Arthur Freeman is led away from the Supreme Court in Melbourne. AAP

The fraught issue of how we deal with mentally ill offenders

By Jamie Walvisch, Monash University

Arthur Freeman’s involvement in an altercation in Victoria’s Barwon prison this week has again highlighted the fraught issue of how we deal with offenders who commit crimes that many of us assume could…

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