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.
Prisons need to improve services for chronic conditions, mental health, and palliative care.
Andrew Mercer/ Wikimedia
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.
Prisons are already a hotbed of disease, and without action COVID-19 could have catastrophic consequences behind bars.
Incarcerated people are often denied access to treatment for opioid use disorder. This October 2016 file photo shows corrections officer opening the door to a cell in the segregation unit at the Fraser Valley Institution for Women in Abbotsford, B.C. during a media tour.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
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.
Early intervention and diversion away from the criminal justice system can enable Aboriginal people with mental and cognitive disabilities to live with dignity.
AAP/Richard Ashen
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.
Prisoners are released every day, but we don’t know how many. The lack of basic data is an obstacle to effective services that would minimise their risk of re-offending.
AAP/Dean Lewins/Image digitally altered
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.