I have been involved at Dhurringile Prison for fourteen years now as a Chaplain. We have built up a team of seven – two priests and five lay people.
We have another group of eight, who are our drivers who transport our prisoners to Mass each Sunday to Tatura and Kyabram.
Over these years of involvement, I have become aware of certain things and also read things that help me form some thoughts and opinions on the way we treat our prisoners and on the Justice system.
The Jesuits are doing wonderful work with the rehabilitation of prisoner on release. They have proven that it is possible to rehabilitate so a prisoner does not re-offend. They would argue that many could be helped more to assimilate back into society if given rehabilitation and not prison. Many offences do not require time in prison, but rehabilitation – not punishment, but help.
I was delighted to read an article by Deborah Glass, Victorian Ombudsman, recently. Her studies are not just on the prisoners themselves but what we do to prevent people going down a path of crime. I have taken some excerpts from her article. I will let her tell her story.
Prison recommendations will have lasting benefits
Four years ago I started looking at rehabilitation in prisons, and I have investigated many aspects of social disadvantage that all too often contribute to our increasing prison population.
We investigated the unfairness of a system that discriminates against kinship carers, many of them grandparents on low incomes struggling to look after children when the child’s parents cannot cope. Many of these kids would otherwise end up in state care. We investigated expulsions in schools – another of the factors that can start a child on a life of crime. We looked at youth justice centres – where some 60% of children have previously been expelled or suspended from school. We inspected Victoria’s main women’s prison. Many recommendations arose from those reports – almost all of them accepted and many implemented.
It is good to see the investment in mental health and drug and alcohol rehabilitation – although not enough for many – as well as the expansion of some therapeutic forms of justice such as drug courts…..
But prison numbers continue to grow, and we are spending more than ever on prisons. Since my 2015 report the prison population has grown a further 20%.
A recent Auditor-General report tells us a prisoner costs the state an average of $127,000 a year. When I reported in 2015, 24% of prisoners were on remand – that is, had not been convicted. Now it is more than a third…..
I often hear the argument that prisons keep us safe. But let’s look at the recidivism rate – the rate at which prisoners reoffend and go back to prison within two years. From a low of 33.7% in 2010 it had shot up to 44% in 2015…..
I said in 2015 that building more prisons was not making us safer – more than 99% of prisoners will be released one day. We do not lock people up and throw away the key. If we did, the state would be able to support nothing but prisons, with no money for other public services. We need to do more to ensure people do not come out only to reoffend and return.
Until we start focussing more on the causes of crime – many of which have their origins in early childhood, education, health, housing and employment – we will not solve this problem.
If the hard-line US state of Texas can reduce both crime and spending on prisons by diverting resources to rehabilitation, surely, so can Victoria.
Deborah Glass
