Anders Breivik ensured his place in history the day he shot dead 69 people on a small Norwegian Island, having earlier killed eight others with a bomb planted in government offices in Oslo. Breivik’s horrendous…
As expected, the justice secretary, Chris Grayling, has announced the closure of four prisons: Northallerton, Dorchester, Reading and Blundeston. He has also confirmed that the “Titan” prison in Wrexham…
As long ago as 1780, John Howard noted that prisons were housing more “idiots and lunatics” and emphasised the detrimental effects that this had on the prison regime for both sets of prisoners. But while…
It appears that Britain is following the United States in its addiction to the use of prison terms. The USA has led the way in the penal arms race with the introduction of such measures as “three strikes…
The idea of prisoners having sex upsets people; it offends our sense that prison is a place of punishment not pleasure. But sex still happens, maybe more than we like to think. And if it is happening…
Prisons in Sweden, Norway and Finland have a smaller average inmate population, bigger cells and broader access to social services than jails in English-speaking countries, a 10-year study has found. The…
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…
Aboriginal people in custody are in urgent need of improved mental health services, according to the authors of a study that found many Indigenous adults in Queensland jails have at least one mental disorder…
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…
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 prison…
It’s no secret that prisoners inject drugs. And because they don’t have access to sterile needles, inmates not only share needles – they share infectious diseases as well. The ACT government is currently…
Hilde Tubex, The University of Western Australia and David Indermaur, The 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…
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…
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…