Each edition contains news articles and investigative pieces. These are topical stories that are usually about prisons and criminal justice.
We also summarise the latest criminal justice news around the country.
With Mother’s Day this month, prison visits have never been more important. But for children with a parent in prison, or other loved ones, this process can be scary and intimidating, with a lot of rules and conditions.
Including the prison population growing in the ACT, a drug bust during a prison visit in Victoria, Hakea inmates suing state government in WA and more.
The men at Fremantle Prison learnt how to grow fresh food by planting concentrated rows of sturdy cabbage, corn, carrots, spring onions and other edible plants that could withstand the harsh WA sun. At its peak, the garden supplied the prison kitchen with more than 10,000 kilograms of fruit and vegetables each year.
The Women’s Advocacy Service is a partnership between Legal Aid NSW and the Aboriginal Legal Service (NSW/ACT), providing face-to-face appointments with both a lawyer and a social worker.
The Inspector of Detention Services Queensland is undertaking a review of Maximum Security Units (MSUs) at Arthur Gorrie, Brisbane and Woodford Correctional Centres.
There are a number of groups around the country that inspect prisons and provide feedback and recommendations to governments. These often involve visiting prisons and talking directly to people in custody.
A support service transporting First Nations people from prison to treatment facilities will shut down after it ran out of funding.
The Adelaide Remand Centre will remain a privately-run prison after the South Australian government brushed aside criticisms to renew the contract with Serco for five years.
The Victorian government will spend $229 million on new prison beds, five times what it has allocated to programs aiming to keep people out of them.
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Australia is in the midst of an epidemic of prison lockdowns. There is often little or no warning that these lockdowns are going to happen, leaving many people in virtual solitary confinement for hours or days.
Australia’s biggest prison is so “grossly understaffed” in mental health services that people with acute needs should not be held there, the NSW prison inspector has found.
South Australia is the only state or territory in Australia that does not provide 24/7 medical staff on site at its women’s prison.
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A program helping First Nations children being held in police watch houses in Queensland will stop operating after losing its state government funding.
The Victorian government in late February announced plans to remove the use of ‘good character’ references at sentencing.
Including a smoking ban no longer going ahead in WA, changes to the Home Detention Scheme in SA, a hiring spree at Lockyer Prison and more.
In my speech, I emphasised that strip searching is sexual assault disguised as prison safety. Strip searching is not about safety – and the data proves it.
There are more than 4000 places in Australia where people can access free clean needles and syringes. But there are none in any prison.
There have been 29 deaths in custody in the first three months of this year.
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The family of proud Noongar man Jeffrey Winmar have travelled to Victoria to push for answers and justice at a coronial inquest into his death in police custody in late 2023.
Cells at the courts are so full that people can’t be taken there from prison to attend their hearings.
Project: herself is an organisation I set up to advocate and support women to have self-determined lives. We do that through a couple of things – including storytelling advocacy and frontline service delivery.
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