To About Time,

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I’ve been locked up several times in the last couple and including this one I have found that the best way of getting through it is to enrol in programs/courses to gain qualifications that’ll potentially help me with employment one day or work in industries where I get hands-on experience with a variety of hand/power tools and equipment. But the main reason is to fill my days up, in terms of making my days, weeks and months seem to fly by.

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The issue I want to address is our ‘pay rates’. I am a great worker. I work full-time and I’m on the highest pay grade in industries. I get $48 pay per week ($38 available to spend, $10 goes into my set aside). I’ve worked in many different factories over my last few sentences, made wood panels for standalone spas, high quality playgrounds and currently fabricate hay feeders (for livestock) which sell for $5K-$8K and farm gates/fencing at different lengths and strengths in quantities of 400+, each one would range from the $800-$2,000 mark; my point is that the prisons get paid large amounts for quality items.

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Prices at our canteen have just increased up to 5% for a lot of items, as they tend to on a yearly basis, but our pays do not increase, in fact I get paid less than I did eight years ago in the same location. If I did not have a partner or mother to drop me money out of their own pockets monthly, I would not be able to live half comfortably. We have to buy everything in here: toiletries, milk, coffee, sugar, noodles etc. Even after $150, $70 (phone) per month and my $38/week, I still find myself going without basics at the end of each month.

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Prisoners who do choose to work hard should be looked after/paid better for what I can only describe as legal ‘slave labour’. How can’t the system (DOJ) see that encouraging prisoners to work, maintaining a work/life routine would benefit the community enormously! It would 100% lower the reoffending rate, I can say that from my lived experience. Rimes that I have maintained employment in my life were times I didn’t reoffend. Times of my own offending and drug use in the community were times I was unemployed. The current situation in jail is that I get about $10 a week more than I would if I were unemployed. Where is the common sense in that? It’s as if the system would rather prisoners spend their time getting involved in drugs and the politics that come from such.

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With even the prison staff in industries agreeing that our pay rates are ridiculous, how do things stay the same? Marngoneet Correctional Centre, what are they correcting?

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I see the benefits of a work/life routine structure, so I try to train myself the best I can so I give myself the best chance of rehabilitation, but a lot of people in here do not. I can’t believe these issues are still continuing in the year 2024.

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We (prisoners) have never had a way to shine light on these issues, until now. Let’s hope it doesn’t fall on deaf ears.

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Regards,

Kerrin.

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P.S. In reply to Ruby (November edition):

We have access to a library here, it’s not a huge one but I think there’s a large enough selection of books. A lot of prisoners tend to use it as a place to read the daily newspapers available there. The Herald Sun, Geelong Addy and The Age are available to read. There’s a couple of desktop computers there also, no internet obviously but I think we can use Word, Excel etc. To attend, the library does not require the library billet to be there and staff (guards) at move control. Hope this insight gives you a better understanding.