Inspector’s Corner – October 2026
Including a report released into youth education in Tasmania, a review into transfer of children to adult prisons in VIC and more.
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.

Including a report released into youth education in Tasmania, a review into transfer of children to adult prisons in VIC and more.
The condition, placed on Susan Neill Fraser, prevented her from speaking publicly or to the media about her claims of innocence.
An arrest warrant gives police authority to arrest a person. But what happens when that person is believed to be inside somebody else’s home?
Including a new strategy to reduce recidivism in SA, a proposed mandatory sentencing for certain breaches of bail in QLD, body-worn cameras coming to max-security prisons in WA and more.
In several Australian jurisdictions, police watch houses have become quasi-prison cells, as punitive crackdowns on bail and other “tough on crime” measures have filled jails across the country.
Queensland prison authorities will no longer be required to consider and act in a way that is compatible with human rights when making decisions that affect people in prison, under legislation the state government has introduced to Parliament.
While corrections departments around the country report that more than 80 per cent of people in prison are working, in reality only about half actually have employment while in custody. This is because of how these departments are reporting the rate of employment and who is counted as being “eligible”.
Children are being held in an “overwhelmingly institutional” watch-house centre with little if any access to fresh air, few opportunities to call home and no privacy, according to a new report.
The High Court of Australia on Wednesday ruled that a woman incarcerated in a Queensland prison should be allowed to freeze her eggs.
“It is our assessment that Victoria Police did not comply with the Surveillance Devices Act when installing and maintaining integrated listening devices,” the report said.

Under a state-wide policy, Victoria Police officers wake up those being held in watch houses overnight every hour to check on their welfare, either by having a torch light shone on them, speaking to them or asking them to move or stand up.

We put a call out for messages from loved ones of people in prison across the country, and more than 100 people responded. We hope these brighten your day.

Including smoking being banned in WA prisons, a death in custody at Mary Hutchinson in TAS, a painkiller trial hailed as a success in QLD and more.

Nothing warms my heart more than the selflessness of good people doing good deeds for our sisters and brothers in prison.

Every year in early December, a group of volunteers come together to pack a hamper for every woman in prison in Victoria.

The NSW Government has moved to make it easier to find incarcerated people guilty of a “prison offence”, against the advice of independent experts.

First Nations people and those of African descent are far more likely to be searched by Victoria Police and have force used against them, a new report by a community volunteer group has found.

A man on remand at a privately-run prison in Victoria was “punched in the face” by a supervisor and then blocked from accessing a medical appointment, the state Ombudsman has found.
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The Sentencing Advisory Council report tracks the prison population in Victoria from 2004 to 2024, finding that it grew by 62 per cent in this time, far more than the less than 40 per cent increase in the general population of the state.


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