Calls to Release ‘Low Risk’ Inmates, as COVID Spreads in NSW Prisons
The New South Wales Government has locked down prisons across the state, as the COVID-19 outbreak at the Parklea Correctional Centre hits more than 70 cases. Parklea is a large prison facility in North-West Sydney where inmates often spend their...
NSW Prisons Lockdown as Avoidable COVID Crisis Unfolds
The warnings about the threat COVID-19 poses to prison settings have been sustained over the last 18 months. And despite the current Delta variant having a heightened ability to spread and harm, NSW authorities have all but ignored correctional facilities...
Black Lives Matter at Long Bay Prison: Justice Action’s Brett Collins on the Prison Crackdown
Just days after Black Lives Matter protests swept the nation, reigniting the Aboriginal Deaths in Custody movement in this country, reports started emerging that a similar demonstration was taking place inside Sydney’s Long Bay Gaol. Indeed, aerial footage shows inmates...
COVID-19 Prison Lockdowns Lead to Riots
Tensions are running high in prison systems across not just Australia but other parts of the world during COVID-19. Without access visits from family and friends, and even lawyers, inmates are becoming frustrated and angry which is leading to a...
Prisoners Lives Are Still at Risk: An Interview With Ex-Inmate Damien Linnane
Victorian Supreme Court Justice Timothy Ginnane ordered on 1 May that the state’s justice department conduct a risk assessment of Port Phillip Prison in relation to COVID-19. The inquiry will include whether adequate cleaning and virus screening measures are taking...
“An Act of Negligence”: An Interview With COVID Prison Watch’s Miranda Gibson
The NSW government passed a suite of emergency laws on 24 March, just as it was about to close parliament for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic. And amongst the extraordinary measures that were set in play, were provisions that...
From One Prison to Another: Medevac Detainees Face Uncertain Future
More than 40 men are being detained in a hotel in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, in what might as well be called ‘no man’s land’. Evacuated from Papua New Guinea under the previous medevac transfer system, they are now stuck in...
UN to Inspect Australian Prisons
United Nations Inspectors will have ‘unfettered access’ to Australian-run detention centres when they visit Australia in the coming months. It will be the first time inspectors have visited Australia. Such routine visits are one of the obligations of the Optional...
Parklea Correctional Centre: A Privately-Run Prison in Crisis
An inmate at Parklea Correctional Centre uploaded a video filmed using a contraband smartphone onto YouTube in July 2017. During the clip, the inmate flaunts a knife and another weapon, and he also holds up a small bag of white...
‘The Saddest Case’: Innocent Mentally Impaired Woman Spends 18 Months in Prison
A report tabled in the Victorian parliament last week outlined that a woman with a significant development disorder spent 18 months in prison after being found not guilty on the grounds of her impairment. In the forward to the Investigation into...
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