In the High Court decision made on the 30th of August 2007 prisoners serving a sentence of less than 3 years won back their right to vote.
In light of this decision JA has taken continued action to ensure that eligible prisoners have the opportunity to enrol and vote in the upcoming 2007 Federal election.
With the removal of traditional all day visits by children to their mothers at the Emu Plains Prison DCS has systematically begun the breakdown of families and an increase in re-offending. Even Assistant Director of DCS, Mr. L. Grant acknowledged this:
We believe that people who maintain contact with their families are less likely to re-offend...
September 8, 2007.
JUSTICE ACTION representing convicts in the host Penal Colony of Australia, having regained their right to political expression returning the prisoner vote in the High Court of Australia, now exercise that right of political expression.
Torture is the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) nations' norm said Justice Action spokesperson Brett Collins today. We prisoners of the APEC nations condemn those governments for...
Victory for Australian Prisoners
The line was drawn in the sand on this issue when the government said it would remove the prisoners vote. On 30 Aug 2007, we won in the High Court of Australia. This is a win for every person who wants to talk and listen rather than to dominate and exclude others.
At the General Purpose Standing Committee No. 3 (Justice, Juvenile Justice) meeting held on 17 November 2006, Greens MP Ms. Rhiannon raised the concern that the Minister of Justices representative Mr. McLean misled the 28 August 2006 inquiry.
A number of detailed inquiries have been held into the NSW prison system. These inquiries have taken evidence from a wide range of people, and have updated our knowledge and understandings of prison systems generally and the NSW system in particular. Combined with studies elsewhere, they say the same thing with almost monotonous regularity prison does not work in terms of its stated objectives, and the use of prison should be scaled down.
Strategies and policies intended to reduce crime and re-offending must incorporate the causes of crime and re-offending. In addition to behavioural or psychological causal explanations, the high levels of disadvantage experienced by those who commit crime- and are caught, must be taken into account. This disadvantage -characterised by unemployment, poverty, low levels of educational achievement, homelessness or residing in areas of locational disadvantage, problematic drug and alcohol use, and the experience of intergenerational violence and abuse- is the norm for many people inside prison and is particularly acute in some communities.
DNA technology has great potential to assist in the investigation of a wide range of offences, identifying the guilty, exonerating the innocent and solving what would once have been insoluble cases. However it is still just a technology and subject to all of the limitations in the skill and integrity of those who use it.
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