Arbeit macht frei: - Fredrick Töben

There is a Prisoners Consultative Committee. The minutes of its 11 August
meeting are on the notice board outside the Cell Block Office. The staff
representatives are S. Edwards and R. Wilksch, with the following prisoner
representatives: Bottom Floor – C. Nolan; Top Floor – J. Schultz; Cottages
– H. Papaioannou; Houses – R. Mussolino; 2 Dorm – C. Toepfer; Cadell
Courier Editor – P. Wiskich; Minutes taker – J. Crescenzi.
The agenda is routine business: inmates should be allowed new Playstations
because the current models are outdated; poor television reception;
showers not working to the full and need to be fixed; the Visitor’s Area
needs heaters during winter and umbrellas need looking after; Cell Block
air conditioning set at 22°C; lock-up time is not consistently applied with
5 minutes not being enough time – M Wallace is to stay on top of this!
Then there are details on other business. There are complaints about the
blue-coloured lighting system that is supposed to reduce irritability (CTC is
the first prison in South Australia to test it); a request to extend phone calls
from 20 minutes to 30 was rejected because it would cause friction among
inmates; clothing problems for those on community work gangs who want
to change into casual attire after work (Edwards advises that moves are afoot
to introduce cargo pants and shorts because jeans are not suitable and are
hard to work in); the Gym needs equipment (Grant in Maintenance is the
man to see on that); transparency is needed involving prisoners and
incidents so that they know when they have transgressed some rule, written
or unwritten; Crescenzi asks that a telescope be purchased because ‘many
prisoners appreciate the sky and would like to learn basic astronomy’;
Edwards advised of a new agreement on budgies, which are allowed only in
houses and cottages but no longer in the Cell Block.
One item is of special interest:
Kerri Pashke: No older style TVs available, i.e. 34 cm standard as
manufactured are now only producing Flatscreen/LCDs TVs. There is a
GM meeting today and this issue will be tabled. Appears to be a political
issue of the body politic not wanting to look like ‘soft on crime’ as poor
public opinion of giving prisoners Flatscreen/LCDs TVs may mean a
delay or lag between their availability (now) and their approval (later). 51
cm appears to be the only available size for LCD TVs.
The political slant is there influencing policy towards prisoner
rehabilitation. What someone outside perceives as being ‘soft on crime’ is a
crying shame inside.
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