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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
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Results for prisons (australia)
6 results foundAuthor: Day, Andrew Title: Assessing the Social Climate of Australian Prisons Summary: Although in some ways communities appear to be increasingly more risk aversive and punitive in their attitudes toward offenders, the development and proliferation of a range of rehabilitation programs that aim to address the problems that lead to offending represents an important component of contemporary criminal justice policy in Australia. This research is based on the premise that the social climate of a prison will exert a profound influence on rehabilitative outcomes. In this paper, the authors present their validation of the Essen Climate Evaluation Schema (EssenCES) measure of prison social climates and the findings offer further support for measuring and identifying the means by which a prison’s social climate can be assessed. It is proposed that the measure be routinely used to audit the social climate of a prison or prison unit on an annual basis. This would enable changes over time to be assessed, standards and targets set, and the need for additional resources or interventions identified and responded to. Further research is required to establish how a social climate might be modified or changed in a way that would enhance rehabilitative outcomes. Details: Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2011. 6p. Source: Internet Resource: Trends & Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice no. 427: Accessed September 3, 2011 at: http://www.aic.gov.au/documents/2/2/D/%7B22D2E61A-6308-4F18-AF3D-285723ED618E%7Dtandi427.pdf Year: 2011 Country: Australia URL: http://www.aic.gov.au/documents/2/2/D/%7B22D2E61A-6308-4F18-AF3D-285723ED618E%7Dtandi427.pdf Shelf Number: 122613 Keywords: Correctional ProgramsPrisoner RehabilitationPrisonersPrisons (Australia) |
Author: Rodas, Ana Title: Supply, Demand and harm Reduction Strategies in Australian Prisons: An Update Summary: This report provides an update of the 2004 study of supply, demand and harm reduction strategies in Australian prisons (Black, Dolan and Wodak, 2004). Since the 2004 report, the Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy (MCDS) launched the first National Corrections Drug Strategy in 2008, designed to guide the provision of supply, demand and harm reduction strategies in prisons throughout Australia (Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy, 2008). The 2004 study examined supply, demand and harm reduction strategies within Australian prisons, their associated costs and evidence of their effectiveness. The current 2009 study examined supply, demand and harm reduction strategies within Australian prisons but did not include their associated costs. Instead the 2009 study included a section on Indigenous prisoners, programs for released prisoners such as re-entry programs, mortality among recently released prisoners, transitional and pre-release services, and services to which prisoners are referred upon release. The year 2009 was chosen as the comparison year for this report because it was the most recent year for which most jurisdictions were able to provide complete data. Since data were provided for the activities of prison departments and health departments in 2009, this report uses the relevant policy document at the time, which was the National Drug Strategy 2004–2009, as the basis for analysis of supply, demand and harm reduction strategies in Australian prisons. It is important, as always, to acknowledge the limitations of the data and results obtained. Comparison of strategies employed by different jurisdictions is difficult for several reasons. Firstly, much of the data collected were incomplete or from different time periods. Secondly, there are substantial differences in the characteristics of prison systems in different jurisdictions in Australia. Thirdly, the states and territories where the prisons systems are based also vary markedly. Some prison systems have large numbers of injecting drug users, while others have large numbers of Indigenous inmates. Details: Sydney: National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre University of New South Wales, 2011. 141p. Source: Internet Resource: ANCD Research paper 23: Accessed September 10, 2012 at: http://www.ancd.org.au/images/PDF/Researchpapers/rp23_australian_prisons.pdf Year: 2011 Country: Australia URL: http://www.ancd.org.au/images/PDF/Researchpapers/rp23_australian_prisons.pdf Shelf Number: 126288 Keywords: Drug Abuse Treatment ProgramsDrug OffendersIndigenous PeoplesPrisonersPrisons (Australia) |
Author: Victoria. Auditor General Title: Prison Capacity Planning Summary: Corrections Victoria (CV) is a service agency within the Department of Justice (DOJ) that is responsible for directing, managing and operating Victoria’s corrections system. As in other correctional jurisdictions, DOJ has set operating parameters for CV to manage the prisoner population to within 90 to 95 per cent utilisation of the prison system’s operational capacity. This is currently equivalent to 5 318 prison beds. These parameters are necessary to maximise the efficiency of the system while allowing CV flexibility to adequately manage the rehabilitation, human rights and welfare of prisoners. CV is required to plan for and forecast the impact of any future growth, and take appropriate steps so that the system is capable of accommodating and providing services to future prisoner populations. In doing so, CV must factor in the long lead time required to construct new prisons and expand existing facilities. Planning for future prison capacity has been made more complex by the large growth in prisoner numbers, which increased by 38 per cent or 1 344 prisoners between 30 June 2002 and 30 June 2012. There were 5 024 prisoners in the prison system as at 30 September 2012. While long-term planning is important, this large growth in prisoner numbers and the periodic spikes in these numbers require the implementation of short-term measures—such as use of temporary beds—to quickly respond to capacity constraints. This audit focused on the prison infrastructure and support services—it has not examined the human resource implications arising from additional prisoner numbers. Details: Melbourne: Victorian Government Printer, 2012. 66p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed December 10, 2012 at: http://www.audit.vic.gov.au/publications/20121128-Prisons/20121128-Prisons.pdf Year: 2012 Country: Australia URL: http://www.audit.vic.gov.au/publications/20121128-Prisons/20121128-Prisons.pdf Shelf Number: 127202 Keywords: Correctional AdministrationPrison CapacityPrison OvercrowdingPrisons (Australia) |
Author: Day, Andrew Title: Assessing the Social Climate of Prisons Summary: Although the rehabilitation of prisoners is one of the primary goals of correctional agencies in Australia, it is commonly believed that prisons do not offer environments that are particularly conducive to successful behaviour change. Indeed, qualitative and ethnographic research has consistently identified aspects of the institutional social climate that potentially act in ways that are counter-therapeutic. There have, however, been few quantitative studies that have demonstrated the effects of prison climate on rehabilitation outcomes. Research in this area has been hampered by the lack of any reliable method to measure the construct of the prison climate I a way that allows meaningful comparisons to be made either between institutions or in the same institution over time. This study reports the validation of a brief measure of social climate in two Australian prisons. The measure, a 15−item instrument (the Essen Climate Evaluation Schema; EssenCES), comprises three subscales: the Therapeutic Hold scale assesses perceptions of the extent to which the climate is supportive of therapy and therapeutic change; the Patient Cohesion scale assesses whether mutual support of a kind typically seen as characteristic of therapeutic communities is present in an institution or unit; and the Safety scale assesses tension and the perceived threat of aggression and violence. A total of 253 participants (144 prisoners and 109 staff members) completed the EssenCES measure of social climate, together with a number other measures designed to establish convergent validity of the assessment tool. Factor analysis of EssenCES ratings provided support for the three subscales identified by the measure developers. A small, but significant, positive association between prisoner scores on the EssenCES and a measure of readiness to engage with offender rehabilitation programs was suggestive of convergent validity, as was the moderate significant association observed between prison staff scores on the EssenCES and ratings of staff stress. These results suggest that the EssenCES measure is suitable for use in future investigations of prison social climate. Further analyses sought to establish whether significant differences existed in social climate between the two institutions that participated in this research: a specialist rehabilitation prison and a mainstream prison, both located in the same jurisdiction. Both of these prisons were shown to provide a social climate that might be considered to be at least as therapeutic as those that exist in forensic psychiatry settings in other parts of the world. Between-prison differences were observed for the prisoner ratings on the measure of social climate, and there were significant differences with large effect sizes for the staff ratings. Staff at the rehabilitation prison rated the overall social climate as significantly more positive than their mainstream prison counterparts. Both the level of staff interest and support for prisoners and level of support and caring between prisoners were rated as significantly higher by staff from the rehabilitation prison. It is concluded that specialist rehabilitation prisons can succeed in providing an environment that is more conducive to offender rehabilitation than mainstream prisons, and that the data reported here provides some evidence to support the further development of such institutions (or specialist therapeutic units within mainstream prisons). However, further research is required to establish whether other factors such as type of prison unit (e.g., protection unit) or accommodation style (e.g., wings or small housing units) exert a systematic Assessing the social climate of prisons Page 5 of 42 effect on the social climate of a prison and whether a prison social climate can be modified in ways that enhance rehabilitative outcomes. What emerges from this research, however, is further support for the idea that the social climate of a prison can influence rehabilitative outcomes and that this can be easily and reliably measured. It is recommended that the social climate of Australian prisons are routinely audited such that changes over time are assessed, standards and targets for improvement set, and that the need for additional resources or interventions is identified and responded to. Details: Report to the Criminology Research Council (Australia), 2011. 42p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 15, 2013 at: http://www.criminologyresearchcouncil.gov.au/reports/02-0910.pdf Year: 2011 Country: Australia URL: http://www.criminologyresearchcouncil.gov.au/reports/02-0910.pdf Shelf Number: 127637 Keywords: Correctional ProgramsPrisonersPrisons (Australia)Rehabilitation Programs |
Author: Victoria. Sentencing Advisory Council Title: Victoria's Prison Population 2002 to 2012 Summary: This report from the Sentencing Advisory Council has found that Victoria’s prison population has increased by nearly 40% over the last 10 years, a rate faster than increases in the general population. Victoria’s Prison Population 2002-2012 concludes that growth in Victoria’s prison population is due to a combination of factors, including: increased lengths of prison sentences increased use of custodial sentences in the higher courts increases in offences against the person, drug offences and offences against good order. The prison population rose from 3,540 in 2002 to 4,884 in 2012. This resulted in the imprisonment rate increasing to 111.7 people in prison per 100,000 adults; however, in 2012 Victoria still had the second lowest imprisonment rate in Australia. Alongside an increase in the imprisonment rate, there has been a significant increase in the number of prisoners held on remand, representing over 20% of the prison population in 2012. The average length of prison sentences has increased, with the average expected time to serve for prisoners rising 22.2% over the ten-year period, from 40.1 to 49 months. Details: Melbourne: Victorian Sentencing Advisory Council, 2013. 39p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 23, 2013 at: http://www.sentencingcouncil.vic.gov.au/content/publications/victorias-prison-population-2002-2012 Year: 2013 Country: Australia URL: http://www.sentencingcouncil.vic.gov.au/content/publications/victorias-prison-population-2002-2012 Shelf Number: 128786 Keywords: Incarceration RatesPrisonersPrisons (Australia)Sentencing |
Author: Victoria. Ombudsman Title: Investigation into the rehabilitation and reintegration of prisoners in Victoria Summary: As this paper notes, Victoria's prison population has grown exponentially in the past few years, and with the impact of recent parole and sentencing reforms further growth is inevitable. In short, the prison population of 4,350 in June 2009 is projected to reach 7,169 in June 2015. The short and medium term consequences of that growth are equally inevitable. Although a massive building program has begun to increase bed capacity across the prison system, the expansion in prisoner numbers has resulted in backlogs in assessment, and affected the availability of programs and support both before and after release. It is also apparent that the reforms to the parole system are having unintended consequences - with the increasing difficulty in obtaining parole, an increasing number of prisoners are leaving without it, at the end of their full sentences, and therefore without the monitoring and reporting requirements that parole would impose. Nor will they necessarily have attended programs designed to reduce offending behaviour, one of the requirements for parole. It is not surprising, when a prison system is required to expand to the degree we are seeing in Victoria today, that the aspirations of the system as reflected in guidelines and procedures are not always met. This is in no way a reflection on the leadership of Corrections Victoria or the many dedicated people who work within the system. Details: Melbourne: Victorian Ombudsman, 2014. 31p. Source: Internet Resource: Discussion Paper: Accessed November 12, 2014 at: https://www.ombudsman.vic.gov.au/getattachment/280f4a06-5927-4221-bf64-d884ba6abaf9//publications/discussion-papers/discussion-paper-investigation-into-the-rehabilita.aspx Year: 2014 Country: Australia URL: https://www.ombudsman.vic.gov.au/getattachment/280f4a06-5927-4221-bf64-d884ba6abaf9//publications/discussion-papers/discussion-paper-investigation-into-the-rehabilita.aspx Shelf Number: 134064 Keywords: Correctional ProgramsPrison AdministrationPrison ConditionsPrisoner ReentryPrisonersPrisons (Australia)Rehabilitation |