Mr Julian Knight

CRN 49821

Port Phillip Prison

Sentences – 2010 Annual Literary Competition

Section 5:

Essay on ideas about how to improve the prison system

(2,500 word limit)

“Ideas about How to Improve the Prison System:

A 10 Point Plan”

Ideas about how to improve the prison system, to stand any chance of ever being implemented, need to be thought out, considered, practical and achievable. Such ideas can range from simple, practical measures to detailed, system-wide policy changes. What follows are ten ideas that cover that spectrum.

First, my initial idea about how to improve the prison system in Victoria is a simple administrative one. An administrative procedure repeated at every prison during a prisoner’s reception is the issue of prison clothing. Every prisoner, therefore, must obtain clothing that fits every time he arrives at a new prison. If he is fortunate enough to obtain perfectly fitting clothing during his stay at one prison, he inevitably has to give it up when he departs that prison for another. Given that all men’s prison clothing in Victoria is dark green, and all women’s prison clothing is sky blue, each prisoner could be issued with his prison clothing on his initial reception into the prison system, and then retain them throughout his sentence. The replacement of damaged or worn clothing could be done at the prison that the prisoner happens to be in at the time. This is the system that operates with the issue of uniforms in the armed services, police and emergency services. The adoption of such a system of clothing issue by the prison system would alleviate the need to repeatedly issue clothing to the same prisoner, and would lessen the burden on prisoners to repeatedly seek out clothing that fits.

Second, the prison system can be improved by using the Corrections Victoria Tobacco Levy funds to achieve the aim that they were collected for – to reduce prisoners’ dependency on cigarettes and tobacco. The Corrections Victoria Tobacco Levy was instituted in August 1993 with the stated aim of funding smoking cessation programs for prisoners. The prison system purchases cigarettes and tobacco at wholesale prices (i.e. 80% of the Recommended Retail Price). Prior to the institution of the levy, cigarettes and tobacco were on-sold to prisoners without a mark-up. The levy imposed in 1993 was originally 10% of the RRP. On 14 June 2004 the levy was increased to 20% of RRP. Of the more than 4,800 prisoners in Victoria on 30 June 2010, approximately 70-75% of them smoke, and collectively they spend millions of dollars on cigarettes and tobacco each year. For instance, during the 2003-2004 financial year the 350 prisoners then at Barwon Prison spent $244,366.57 on cigarettes and tobacco at the prison canteen. 10% of that amount is $24,436.66(although Corrections Victoria claims that it only raised $796.87). During 2004-2005, after the levy was increased from 10% to 20% of RRP, they spent $212,922.80 on cigarettes and tobacco; 20% of that amount is $42,584.56. The funds raised over the past 17 years from every Victorian prison are, therefore, considerable and the levy account has never been subjected to an audit by Audit Victoria. Only a fraction of these funds have been

- 2 -

expended on smoking cessation programs for prisoners. The prison system would be improved by prisoners being able to regularly access smoking cessation products (e.g. nicotine replacement patches, gum, lozenges) subsidized by the Tobacco Levy funds. Prisoners should be able to purchase such products on their weekly canteen, as they do their cigarettes and tobacco.

Third, the prison system can be improved by undertaking a review of the entire opioid substitution therapy program operating in Victoria’s prisons. Such a review needs to include an empirical study of whether the program actually works in reducing drug using prisoners’ drug dependency, or if it simply maintains their habit. Additionally, the question needs to be asked whether the prison system has become the biggest drug dealer of all. The situation now exists whereby prisoners with no drug taking history are added to the Methadone program when they require pain relief for pre-existing injuries, such as injuries sustained in motor vehicle accidents prior to being imprisoned. How can the opioid substitution program be viewed as a success if it is actually creating addicts? Similarly, how can it be considered a success if random and targeted drug testing reveals that Methadone and Buprenorphine are being diverted from prisoners on the program to those that aren’t? Creating a drug trade in Victoria’s prisons is hardly improving the prison system.

Fourth, the prison system can be improved by permitting and supporting more hobbies in prison. Aside from basic sketching and painting, and limited woodwork (i.e. matchsticks and hobby glue), practically no hobbies exist in Victoria’s prisons. Hobbies of the past – leatherwork, copper art, pottery, screen printing and other textile hobbies, stuffed toy making, woodwork, and others – have been banned or otherwise discontinued, or exist in a truncated form in only select prisons. The constructive use of a prisoner’s spare time on a widespread basis can only have positive results for the individual prisoner and the prison system as a whole.

Fifth, the prison system can be improved by returning to the level of community involvement in prisons that existed in the past. Theatre groups, choirs, music bands, sports days (i.e. Pentridge Prison’s annual “Bluestone Challenge”), were common the 1970s and 1980s. Today they are virtually non-existent. Instead of attempting to foster a continuing connection with the community the modern prison system has effected, by accident or design, an almost total exclusion of prisoners from the community they came from. The creation of a choir at Tarrengower Prison and the Tex Perkins “Man in Black” concert at Port Phillip Prison on 31 August 2009 was exceptions to the general rule of Victoria’s prisons being institutions closed to the outside world. The only regular event in Victoriais the annual “Beyond the Bars” broadcasts by radio station 3CR from inside Victoria’s prisons during NAIDOC week. Select prisoners at medium and minimum security prisons may leave their prisons to work in the community on “community work gangs”, but community groups rarely if ever venture inside those prisons.

Sixth, the prison system can also be improved by establishing Country Fire Authority sub-stations at each of Victoria’s four minimum security prisons. This would not only allow prisoners to re-connect with the community and be a tangible form of reparation to the community, but would also benefit the community in having four permanently manned fire-fighting stations spread throughout country Victoria. As an alternative or as an addition to the building of new walled prisons (Victoria having the highest percentage of its prisoners in walled prisons), the prison system would be improved by constructing a

- 3 -

minimum security “fire camp” in country Victoria dedicated solely to training and providing prisoners as rural fire-fighters. Such prison camps have existed for decades in California – such as the Fairfield Fire Camp in northern California – and in many other states in the United States. In Australia, prisoners at the Cadell Training Centre in South Australia are able to join the local Country Fire Service (see There is no reason why such a program could not be instituted in Victoria.

Seventh, the prison system can be improved by instituting a restorative justice program in Victoria. Such a program already exists in the New South Wales prison system and it is a process there that can be initiated either by the victim or the offender. The Court of Appeal of Victoria has said that “it is rare to find convincing evidence of genuine remorse,” and that, “remorse is an elusive concept which is not to be confused with such emotions as self-pity” (R v Whyte [2004] VSCA 5, at paragraph 21). The only true remorse is that which is displayed when an offender is brought face-to-face with his victim. Any other display of remorse in the absence of the victim, even if genuine, is not wholehearted, is forced and is disconnected from the reality of the cause of the remorse. Only by being confronted by the physical embodiment of his actions does an offender truly appreciate what he is, or should be, sorry for.

Eighth, the prison system can be improved by constructing more transition centres. Victoria only has one transition centre – the 25-bed Judy Lazarus Transition Centre in West Melbourne. Designed to assist with the reintegration of prisoners in the last six months of their sentence back into the community, the Judy Lazarus Transition Centre effectively acts a metropolitan minimum security prison (as opposed to the rural “open camp” prisons). One 25-bed transition centre simply cannot cater for a prison population in Victoria that is nearing 5,000 and whose prisoners come predominantlyfrom the Melbourne metropolitan area.

Ninth, the prison system can be improved by moving away from cognitive based programs designed to address offending behaviour towards holistic “what works” approaches towards lessening the chance of recidivism while improving the chances of successfully leading a law-abiding life. It can be argued that programs designed to address offending behaviour are used as “bookends” in the criminal justice system in Victoria: as a reason to impose a custodial sentence at the front end of a prisoner’s sentence (“You can do that program in prison”), and as an excuse to deny parole at the back end of his sentence (“Parole is denied because you haven’t done that program.”) An associated observation is that those that undergo programs designed to address offending behaviour and who don’t return to prison are those that would not have re-offended anyway. A lack of a substantial decline in recidivism rates since the introduction of programs designed to address offending behaviour also lends support to this accusation. It needs to be remembered that the prison and system in Victoria operated for over 150 years without such programs. In 1987 the rate of prior known adult imprisonment for all prisoners in Victoria was 72.7% (Office of the Correctional Services Commissioner, “Statistical Profile: The Victorian Prison System 1995-96 to 2000-2001”, 4th Edition, Department of Justice of Victoria, Melbourne, March 2003, Table 9, page 19). In 2003 it was 52.9% (Office of the Correctional Services Commissioner, “Statistical Profile: The Victorian Prison System 2001-02 to 2005-2006”, 7th Edition, Department of Justice of Victoria, Melbourne, January 2007, Table 8, page 17), and it has remained at around that figure ever since. The rate for female prisoners has actually increased over that period! The first Drug

- 4 -

Treatment Unit commenced treatment programs in G Division at Pentridge Prison on 1 January 1987, and the first Psychosexual Therapy Unit was established in D Division in the Metropolitan Reception Prison in October 1991. There are no published records of how many prisoners in total, and as a percentage, underwent these and other programs and still re-offended and were returned to prison. Perhaps the time has come to explore the possibility that more holistic and supportive programs, such as Prison Fellowship’s “Lives In Transition” program, need to be instituted.

Tenth, the prison system can be improved by formulating a detailed sentence plan for each prisoner soon after their conviction and sentencing. Sentence Plans, such as they are, rarely contain anything more than recognition of where the prisoner happens to be, where his next placement may be, and a general notation as to what programs he may have to undergo. What they lack is a whole of sentence plan as to sentence progression (maximum-medium-minimum security placements), what programs the prisoner should undertake (education and vocational training as well as programs designed to address offending behaviour), what personal goals he wishes or needs to achieve, and how these goals relate to his post-release plans.

Any ideas about how to improve the prison system require consideration free from bias or preconceptions and need to be predicated on being practical and able to be implemented. Any idea to be transformed from thought through planning to implementation needs to abide by the fundamental principle of “what works”.