Oceania
Australia: juvenile prison guards strip searches cause mental health problems, former inmates claim
News
Oceania
Health
Mental health
Australia
Children as young as 10 years old are being routinely strip searched in juvenile detention in NSW with minimal or no contraband found, according to new data.
Source — ABC
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Oceania
Australia
The Queensland government has agreed to support 33 recommendations from a scathing report that found the state’s prison system was rife with overcrowding and corruption.
Source — The Sydney Morning Herald
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Oceania
Social ties
Australia
The ACT Human Rights Commission is seeking clarification about the dress standards imposed on visitors at Canberra’s jail which included a ban on swimsuits, tight-fitting clothing and skirts shorter than mid-thigh.
Source — The Canberra Times
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Oceania
Australia
Women are going to prison at a higher rate than ever in Australia. Our tough sentencing policies sent women to prison at twice the rate of England and Wales in 2018.
Source — The Conversation
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Asia
Oceania
New Zealand
More than $1 million of taxpayer money has been spent on 193 slushy machines in a bid to keep prison guards cool over summer.
Source — NewstalkZB
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Oceania
New Zealand
The prison muster has tipped over 10,000 again, but the declining trend has Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis looking to phase out double bunking and retiring “cramped horrible cells”.
The current prison population, considered to be at crisis level a year ago, was at 10,039 last week - 300 higher than…
Source — NZ Herald
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Oceania
Drugs
New Zealand
The latest figures for prison contraband and drug testing have revealed a mixed picture in the South.
Source — Otago Daily Times
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Oceania
New Zealand
A sports programme which is being piloted in New Zealand prisons aims for a reduction in reoffending.
Not only does physical activity help prisoners with their wellbeing and mental health, but it could help them into employment, according to UK Professor of Criminological Psychology Rosie Meek.
“Sport…
Source — Stuff
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Oceania
New Zealand
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) last week handed over its decade-long prison support programme aimed at improving prison management, infrastructure rehabilitation, food supply chain management and treatment of detained mental health patients, to the Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional…
Source — News Day
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Australia: call for air-conditioners in 'inhumane' cells after outback heatwave triggers prison riot
News
Oceania
Material conditions
Australia
Prisoners forced to live in cells during a scorching Red Centre heatwave should be allowed access to air-conditioning as a human right, a Territory union leader says.
Source — ABC
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Oceania
Australia
This article is not available in English. If you wish, you can consult the French version.
Source — L'oeil de la photographie
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Oceania
Drugs
Australia
Watchdog says systems meant to detect and deal with corruption are not working.
A damning new report shows corruption is alive and well in Queensland’s prison system, with guards hooking up with inmates and supplying them with booze, drugs and even weapons.
Source — The Guardian
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Oceania
United States
Sometime around 6:30 p.m. on March 11, a pregnant woman locked in an Australian maximum security prison cell began crying out for help.
For more than an hour she wailed in pain, pleading for someone to intervene. She was 36 weeks pregnant and the child was about four weeks too early.
Source — NPR
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Oceania
New Zealand
The government wants to reduce the number of people in New Zealand prisons. But why?
Source — RNZ
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