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News :: Law & Justice |
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Crisis Brewing in State Jails |
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by PRGWA
Email: gkable (nospam) hotmail.com (unverified!) |
02 Dec 2004
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Questions must be raised about the ability of the government to manage the imprisonment rate as well as the adequacy of the justice department to cope with overcrowded prisons. |
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WA: Figures released today reveal one of the states worst kept secrets 'the prisons are filling fast and will soon be overflowing.
The ABS figures released today showed that Western Australia's imprisonment rate continued to outstrip every other state in Australia.
Western Australia recorded the highest increase of any state in the country with a massive 7% increase over the past 12 months compared to the moderate growth rate of 3% for the nation as a whole.
Questions must be raised about the ability of the government to manage the imprisonment rate as well as the adequacy of the justice department to cope with overcrowded prisons.
The Department of Justice has yet again been found unprepared for a massive increase in the state's prison population. The lessons of history are being ignored as prisons start creaking at the seams to cope with an influx of prisoners.
The riot at Casuarina prison on Christmas day six years ago was largely attributed to an overcrowded prison system and a department that could not cope with a rapid influx of prisoners in the latter part of the year.
We need to ask what happened to the much-heralded plans of the Attorney General to significantly reduce the rate of imprisonment in Western Australia. That initiative, announced with much enthusiasm by a new government just two years ago, seems to count for nothing now as Western Australia has resumed its title as the state with the highest rate of imprisonment in the country.
In fact the increase in the states prison population has occurred despite a number of legislative reforms designed to decrease the rate of imprisonment such as eliminating sentences of six months or less.
The Attorney General claimed in the Legislative Assembly on May 22nd 2003 only 18 months ago that people should not be sent to jail for minor offences because they were exposed in prison to the worst elements of the community and invariably came out worse for the experience.
There is no indication that anyone comes out of prison better for the experience. He went on to claim, "When the Labor party came to government at the beginning of 2001 there were almost 3,200 people in prison in Western Australia. As a result of the deliberate strategies that have been employed, we have been successful in reducing by almost 400 the number of people in prison."
"To be able to reduce the number of Aboriginal people going to prison from the chronically high rates that were an international scandal has given me great pleasure."
"Reducing the number of women in prison also serves a very good social purpose. All the strategies are coming together and I am hopeful that there will be a further reduction."
But these plans have not worked. Our prison population today is at its highest ever and the growth in the rate of women being locked away is much greater in Western Australia than in any other state.
The female imprisonment rate in Western Australia increased 16% over the past 12 months compared to a 5% increase in the national average.
That means that the increase in female imprisonment is three times greater in Western Australia than the nation as a whole.
Aboriginal people still fill our jails disproportionately. Many of these are for minor offences or because people can't pay fines.
The report released today shows that the rate of those sentenced for being in default of a fine only was six times higher in Western Australia than the nation as a whole.
The Attorney General needs to come clean about what has gone wrong and what has to be done to fix this.
Dot Goulding
Prison Reform Group WA
Phone: 08 94978061 |
See also:
http://www.geocities.com/nswac14/news3
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This work is in the public domain |
