Justice Action

Photos on links.   Stop the Cell off,  Power to the People,  Stop the Sell Off

Black ban called on the multinationals! media release  

The NSW Government’s attempt to privatise Cessnock, Parklea prisons and court transport offers a window on the disaster that prison privatisation has proven around the world. The Legislative Council has been holding an Inquiry and received 453 submissions all except eleven opposing it.

The community says NO!  There was a one hundred day picket line on Premier Rees' electoral office, leafletting of shopping centres in fourteen electorates on Super Saturday May 30, rallies, a Statewide Day of Action and it is just warming up. Prisoners have stated their support.  Prisoners notice. The government started to empty Cessnock Jail in preparation, is currently shuffling Parklea and Long Bay. Strikes and lockdowns are happening in response.

Unions and community rallied outside the ALP HQ 377 Sussex St, on May Day Friday May 1, while a key committee was meeting. leaflet  The government reversed its decision on Cessnock and court transport that afternoon. We held the line! The Government misjudged our determination, threw us a bone and left Parklea awaiting the multinational tenderers.  But we have the taste of blood and we'll chase them right out.

Last year the Government attempted to privatise electricity but was confronted by its own party at the ALP Conference, and both the Premier and Treasurer were dismissed. Despite that history and global corporate collapses, significant government figures are committed to the market rather than managing core government functions as stated in its own policies.

Stateline ABCTV exposures on YouTube here. Mr Privatisation. Woodham's lament. 

New Zealand attempt at prison privatisation has hit too , with an Inquiry before their Parliament. But the Maori Party shares power with the conservative Nationals and Maori groups have been offered a partnership with the private company GEO previously known as Wackenhut, which also runs Junee in NSW. NZ prisoners have asked for help. JA response

The NSW Legislative Council is holding an Inquiry. It received 453 submissions. All say no except 11 including the Department and the multinationals.

Here is the:

* Hearing notice

* JA evidence on behalf of NSW prisoners p.40-51

* JA submission - attached paper - Community not Corporation 

* Government evidence - Commissioner Woodham p.2-24

* Prison officers' Union evidence p.25-39

* Stateline ABCTV transcripts 20/2/09 and 27/2/09

* Greens Sylvia Hale Urgency Motion

* Cessnock shanghais 15/3/09 media release

* New Zealand privatisation - new government attempt to privatise prisons too 

Some of the reasons we oppose privatisation are:

It is Morally Wrong

It is a fundamental attack on the democratic social compact between citizen and state. It is a move from the Penal Colony to the Corporate Colony with loss of accountability and transfer of judicial power to corporations. For a history and analysis of Australian prison privatisation: Jane Andrew in the Journal "Critical Perspectives on Accounting" Dec 2007. download Andrew (328k)

There is an inherent obscenity in the concept of corporations making money from the misery of others.  Prisoners are human beings, not chattels to generate profits for shareholders.

The Corporate Model is Not Appropriate for Prisons
Low standards of care

Privatisation of prisons has been shown to provide unacceptable outcomes in the management of offenders.  Stephen Nathan a leading prison privatisation expert, in the March 2008 edition of the Independent Monitor, disclosed that a recently leaked report placed 10 of the 11 private prisons in the UK in the bottom quarter of the performance register of all UK prisons ‘and showed they are consistently worse than their publicly run equivalents’ (page 24). download Monitor (1.1mb)

Privatised prisons stand for minimum standards. 

The profit motive ensures that corporations will only spend as much as they have to when running prisons.  That means they will not have the necessary regard to moral considerations of human decency, which are so important in a prison system. A study conducted by Biles and Dalton found that Port Phillip prison, Deer Park and Arthur Gorrie all have higher rates for all deaths and suicides than the Australian average. (Andrew p.886)

ACM was caught taking clothes from charities to avoid purchasing them for prisoners, until St Vincent de Paul discovered the scam. Then they tried the Uniting Church who refused when they realised what was happening. (Andrew p.891)

Growing the business of prison management is not in the public interest

In the corporate world, businesses need to grow to survive.  Stephen Nathan in the same article referred to above says that means privatising prisons ‘requires more people in the criminal justice system for longer and is squarely at odds with the public good’ (page 26).

In the United States it has led to prison corporations being accused of joining with and funding right wing media ‘shock jocks’ to ramp up the law and order debate so that they can have more people jailed to grow their profits. The more frightened the public is, the more they will pay.

Financially, privatisation doesn’t work

The decision by the NSW government to privatise Parklea and Cessnock prisons was based on a 2005 report of the Legislative Assembly ‘Value For Money From NSW Correctional Centres’. download Report(668k)

Jane Andrew of the School of Accounting and Finance, University of Wollongong and Damien Cahill from the University of Sydney, attacked the report’s conclusion that the privatised model of prison management delivered superior ‘value for money’.  In their paper, ‘Value for Money? Neoliberalism in NSW Prisons, Australian Accounting Review 2008, they concluded that ‘the report is fundamentally flawed on its own terms’ (at page 3) and is driven by concepts of ideology rather than any cost data evidence of financial savings (at page 24). download article
(300k)

The interesting thing is that the paper attacks the report from an economic perspective (since they are both accountants), rather than a moral perspective which we believe has just as much authority.   

Justice Action joins the prison officers' stand

Justice Action has consulted in the prisons and now joins the PSA and Unions NSW to utterly oppose the privatisations. Media Release October 28, 2008    Media Release November 21

Unions NSW passed a resolution at their meeting November 20: "Unions NSW congratulate Justice Action for supporting the Prison Officer’s strike against the NSW Government’s proposals to privatise Parklea and Cessnock Prisons."