Prisoners - Legal Information Access Centre - NSW Government

cHAnging prisOn envirOnmenT
Prisoners in Australia in the 21st century play a far
more peripheral role in contemporary life than did the
early convicts. Public awareness was raised during the
1960s and 1970s after a series of major riots and protests
over brutality and poor conditions. The Bathurst riot
of 1974 led to the establishment of the Nagle Royal
Commission which issued a Report in 1978 which was
highly critical of the NSW prison system and led to a
period of penal reform. 21 Since then public attention
has waned despite significant increases in imprisonment
rates from the 1980s on, and increased cultural visibility
through popular films such as Chopper and prison based
television shows.
Since the Nagle Report, NSW Parliament set up a
Legislative Council Select Committee Inquiry into the
Increase in Prisoner Population which has issued two
reports:
> Interim Report on Inquiry into the Increase in Prisoner
Population: Issues Relating to Women 2000;
> Final Report of the Select Committee on the Increase
in Prisoner Population, 2001 (Parliamentary paper no.
924).
There have been some changes for the better, but also
some areas of major concern. Here is a snapshot of how
prisons have changed recently:
> there have been major increases in the prison
population as a rate, and of Indigenous and remand
populations in particular;
> sentencing changes include ‘truth in sentencing’, loss
of remission, and restrictions on bail all resulting in
longer sentences;
> drug use has had a huge impact as a factor in increases
in property crime, and on prison culture, security and
health issues;
> prisoner-on-prisoner violence, some engendered by
racial and ethnic streaming, seems more prevalent and
deaths in custody have increased;
> there is less official physical violence, systematic
bashings have stopped and animosities between
prisoners and prison officers have diminished;
> riots, major disturbances and escapes are down;
> physical conditions have improved;
> the prison officer’s role is being restructured in a
welfare direction through case management;
> there is a proliferation of programs oriented around
education and rehabilitation, although largely
unevaluated in their effects, uneven in their reach
and often subject to risk-based assessments and
classification decisions;
> there has been little change in time out of cells;
> a new ‘supermax’ section has concentrated a slightly
different group of prisoners as a replacement for
previous ‘intractable’ regimes based on sensory
deprivation (Katingal) and bashings (Grafton);
> the prison disciplinary system was legalised in the
Nagle era and then more recently changed to internal
administrative governance;
> limited privatisation (one prison) has taken place in
NSW (more extensive privatisation has occurred in
Victoria and Queensland) and some prison services
have been privatised;
> performance indicators on a range of criteria have
been introduced as a form of monitoring at a national
level (see box opposite for more detail) while at the
same time NSW prison watchdog agencies such as the
Ombudsman have increasingly been muzzled and the
Inspector-General’s position abolished in 2003. 22
recidivism And pOsT releAse
Reliable data on how many prisoners leave Australian
prisons every year is not available, but researchers
have guessed that ‘yearly flow numbers may be around
45-50,000. 23 This high rate (double the total numbers
of prisoners in Australian prisons on any given day) is
because the majority of prisoners are serving sentences of
less than 12 months.
Recidivism rates are difficult to measure and contentious,
varying according to the criteria used, for example
police arrest, conviction or return to custody. 24 All the
measures are to some extent underestimates as they do
not include undetected offences. The usual measure
of recidivism for corrective services is return to prison
within two years of release, but this will be affected by
sentencing practices, options and severity across different
states, and does not include non-custodial sentences.
A review of Australian recidivism research found:
> about two in every three prisoners will have been
previously imprisoned;
> about one in four prisoners will be reconvicted within
three months of being released from prison;
> between 35 and 41% of prisoners will be imprisoned
within two years of being released. 25
21. See Report of the Royal Commission into NSW Prisons (1978), J Nagle, Sydney: NSW Government Printer. For commentaries on the lead up,
conduct and aftermath of the Nagle inquiry see Findlay, M. (2001) The State of the Prison, Bathurst: Mitchellsearch; Vinson, T (1982) Wilful
Obstruction Methuen, Sydney; Zdenkowski, G. and Brown, D. (1982) The Prison Struggle, Melbourne: Penguin Books.
22. D Brown, ‘Continuity, rupture, or just more of the ‘volatile and contradictory’? Glimpses of New South Wales’ penal practice behind and
through the discursive’, in J Pratt et al, The New Punitiveness (2005) Willan: Devon 27-46 at 34-5.
23. Eileen Baldry, ‘Throughcare: Making the policy a reality’ powerpoint presentation, undated, http://www.sydneyshove.orga/throughcare_
policy.pdf accessed 24 February 2009.
24. See generally Jason Payne, Recidivism in Australia findings and future research, AIC No 80 (2007); available at www.aic.gov.au/publications/
rpp/80/rpp80.pdf
25. As above at p xi.
the prison population 5