Vacro

Tasmania's Custodial Inspector - a position created to fulfil the requirement under the UN's Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT) to nominate a National Preventive Mechanism - has found that excessive lockdowns at Risdon Prison are significantly impeding access to medical care for people incarcerated there.

In VIC, we're also seeing more and lengthier lockdowns - but, in contravention of our obligations under OPCAT, we have no NPM nominated to report on them.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-19/tasmanian-custodial-inspector-report-prison-health/104114410

Doctor who defied Tasmanian prison over inmate's health banned from prison the next day, report finds A doctor who recommended a Tasmanian inmate spend more time in hospital for their own safety was banned from entering the prison the following day for "security" reasons, a report has found.

"I felt like a leftover from a different era, squinting in the bright lights of the twenty-first century...I had to learn how to navigate the Internet to buy a bus ticket."

A beautiful essay in Inquest on reintegration from prison as an older man:

Squinting in the Sunlight | William Kissinger | INQUEST Most reentry programs assume a person who is able to work and live on their own. Those of us who are older don’t have that kind of freedom.

Learn how our Family Visits program supports strong family bonds through virtual video visits in men’s and women’s correctional centres in Victoria.

https://www.vacro.org.au/family-visits-program

People in some US prisons are training service dogs in the Puppies Behind Bars program which has been running since 1997.

A Bright Spot in a New York Prison: Raising Puppies to Be Service Dogs Adam Roberts reflects on the highs and occasional lows of training Labrador retrievers for the Puppies Behind Bars program.

Nobody should be subject to this brutal and inhumane treatment, least of all children. Today we echo the calls growing around the country to remove all children from police watch houses and other places of detention where their rights are not respected. A warning for highly distressing footage:

Screaming, freezing, struggling to breathe: confronting Queensland watch house footage exposes anguish of children locked in isolation cells Exclusive: Cache of videos obtained by Guardian Australia and SBS’s The Feed lays bare distressing treatment of teenagers – many of them disabled – in police custody

Specialised Circle Sentencing Courts in the ACT Magistrates Courts are where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people can have their sentencing matters heard by a Magistrate, alongside a panel of respected Elders.

Listen here - https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/storystream/circle-sentencing-indigenous-offenders/104018516

The 57th edition of the AP Stylebook includes a new criminal justice chapter which emphasises the need for journalistic accountability. For example, the Stylebook now recommends using first-person language such as 'incarcerated person' or 'person in custody' rather than 'prisoner' or 'inmate'. We hope to see this new guidance reflected in reporting by Australian media outlets.
https://www.ap.org/media-center/press-releases/2024/new-ap-stylebook-includes-new-criminal-justice-chapter/

Michigan will become the first US state to order its Department of Corrections to automatically register all people leaving prison to vote. Is there any reason we couldn't do this here in VIC?

Michigan Law Is First to Automatically Register People to Vote As They Leave Prison The legislature passed a bill that will also expand automatic voter registration in other ways, including applying it at Medicaid offices, and likely add many new Michiganders to voter rolls.

We’re looking forward to learning more at this conference in September.

Registrations for the 2024 National Conference are now open, learn more here: https://conlog.eventsair.com/no-to-violence-2024

What's happening in the UK prison system? The brand new Labour government has announced that more than 20,000 people could be released to tackle the overcrowding crisis, which PM Keir Starmer has described as "shocking...worse than I thought it was”. People serving fixed end sentences will be released after serving 40% of their sentence, instead of 50%.

Prisoners will be released early. Can that really fix overcrowded jails? The government hopes the plan will stop jails becoming full. But it could create fresh problems, too.

Our family programs provide a way for people in prison to play a meaningful role in their family's lives. If you, or someone you know, is curious about joining our team as a Family Support Worker, follow the link below for more info. Applications accepted until 31/07.

https://www.vacro.org.au/family-support-worker

Participants of our Second Chance Cycles build practical skills, recycle discarded bikes and provide affordable reconditioned ones to members of the local Collingwood community.

https://ow.ly/A90u50Suiwy

The Dogs of Vacro: Hendrix staying warm and looking cool in his Vacro hoodie.

“If we are going to tackle youth crime, we have to tackle the drivers of offending, and policing is a part of that response for young people generally. We cannot arrest and imprison our way out of this as a problem. That cannot work.” - Liana Buchanan, Commissioner for Children and Young People

More teens are committing more violent crimes. How did we get here? Trainee doctor William Taylor’s death has thrust the issue of youth crime back into the headlines, but statistics show it is a problem years in the making.

The Australian NPM released its first Annual Report today, identifying common themes of collective concern for the implementation of OPCAT:

🟢 youth detention, including use of isolation
🟢 access to the NDIS while in detention
🟢 healthcare – access to Medicare and the PBS in detention
🟢 staffing shortages
🟢 the numbers of people held on remand

Read the report in full here:https://www.ombudsman.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/304534/Australian-NPM-Annual-Report-2022-23-304534.pdf

Applications are open for the Foundation for Young Australians (FYA) Media for Advocacy: Youth Media Training Program! If you (or someone you know) are aged 15-28, based in VIC, and have lived experience of injustice, apply here for a program that will help you build skills to use the media safely, effectively, and confidently as a tool for advocacy: https://www.fya.org.au/program/media-for-advocacy/

What might look like a boring flatpack to some, to the first participant in our Arc program, it is an exciting sign of their new beginning!

Learn more about Arc, our most ambitious program in our 150+ year history https://www.vacro.org.au/arc

Social Ventures Australia

The first issue of About Time is here! About Time is Australia's national prison newspaper, and by now the print edition has reached people in prison across Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania and the ACT. Outside, you can read it here:

About Time Australia's National Prison Newspaper

Listen to Beyond the Bars broadcasting from across six Victorian prisons this week.

https://www.3cr.org.au/beyondthebars2024

It’s time to celebrate Week and recognise the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Having a dedicated, specially trained justice facility dog interacting with children before and after they give evidence is an Australian first.

Kids, courts, canines: can justice facility dogs like Winston help children and the broader court system? In an Australian first, a children’s court has introduced a ‘justice facility dog’ to help reduce anxiety for young people in court. But has it helped?

An evaluation of the Cultural, Social and Emotional Wellbeing Program in the Boronia Pre‐Release Centre for Women in WA, which was co-developed with a cultural framework by Aboriginal psychologists and community co‐researchers, has found that it improved the social and emotional wellbeing of Aboriginal women preparing to leave prison and reduced their psychological distress. Read more: https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2024/221/1/evaluation-cultural-social-and-emotional-wellbeing-program-aboriginal-women

"This scenario, where prisoners are released alone, at night, with little more than an Opal card and a vague idea of where to go – let alone where they’ll sleep that night – is more common than you might think, say advocates."

Switch Opal for myki and this, from Primer_au, applies equally to VIC:

Cell, Street, Repeat: Why Are We Releasing Female Prisoners Into Homelessness? Cell, street, repeat.

Named to signify the arc of new beginnings, our Arc program supports people leaving prison to reduce reoffending and homelessness. Learn more about this exciting, transformational program.

https://www.vacro.org.au/arc

This piece, part of the International Network of Civil Liberties Organizations' 'In Our Hands: Communities rooting out discriminatory policing' project, profiles the Anindilyakwa Land Council's Peacemaker Program on Groote Eylandt in the NT, making the case for resources to be diverted from policing to community-led alternatives:

Standing in the middle - INCLO Justice for Kumanjayi Walker: time for change Over 500 Aboriginal people have died in police and prison custody since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody handed down its final report in 1991. The Royal Commission examined the cases of 88 men and 11 women who died in custody betwee...

A coroner has found that a "disproportionate focus on security concerns" meant that Aboriginal man Josh Kerr, who died in Port Phillip Prison last year, did not get the medical help he needed: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-01/josh-kerr-coronial-inquest-findings-aboriginal-death-custody-vic/104042378

As we told the Cultural Review of the Adult Custodial Corrections System in 2021, the hyper-securitised culture of the prison system forces a focus on risk, surveillance, and punishment at the expense of caring and therapeutic responsibilities.

Grieving mother takes aim at Victorian prisons after coroner finds her son's death behind bars was preventable In findings delivered on Monday, Coroner David Ryan identifies numerous failures in the lead-up to the death of 32-year-old Josh Kerr at Port Phillip Prison on August 10, 2022.

A shout-out to everyone who supported our EOFY campaign. Together, we are helping create new beginnings and stronger communities.

We, the Victorian justice sector and our allies, urge the Allan Labor Government to hear our calls for a Youth Justice Bill that supports children to thrive. It's time to get youth justice right.

With today marking the end of the Time to Work Employment Service (TWES) program), we reflect on the participants we have supported. We look forward to working with DEWR on the next phase of their employment services program for First Nations people returning to the community.

Our CEO Marius Smith will be on ABC Melbourne's The Conversation Hour today discussing the reintegration support available to people leaving prison. Tune in from 11am:

ABC Melbourne Live Audio - ABC listen Listen live, whenever you want, wherever you are with ABC Melbourne.