Australia
Seen in the press
Read our selection of press reports about this country.
Australia: secret transfer of aboriginal children to adult prison condemned as grave human rights breach
The secret decision by the Tasmanian Government to transfer Aboriginal children from Ashley Youth Detention Centre to an adult prison facility is a profound breach of human rights and must be stopped immediately.
Australia: LGBTQ groups call on Tasmanian Government to recommit to trans incarceration policies
LGBTQIA+ advocates are calling on the Tasmanian Government to recommit to its existing policy allowing trans women to be housed in the state’s women’s prisons on a case-by-case basis following confused reporting in The Australian.Australia: inside a Victorian prison where an incarcerated person recorded seven suicide attempts in four weeks
A former incarcerated person says she documented seven suicide attempts in just four weeks inside Victoria’s maximum security women’s prison, amid a wave of lockdowns triggered by staff shortages.Australia: incarcerated people and staff evacuated from Barwon prison following gas leak, fourth in week
Twenty-five incarcerated people at Barwon Prison’s high security Olearia unit have been evacuated after a suspected carbon monoxide leak. The Community and Public Sector Union says it is the fourth leak in a week.Australia: Health Department confirms three new measles cases as outbreak grows
Western Australia’s measles outbreak has grown to eight confirmed cases, with authorities warning the number will likely continue to grow. Hakea Prison in Perth and Bunbury Regional Prison were both on the list of exposure sites.Australia: two incarcerated Aboriginal die in custody over four days at Alexander Maconochie Centre
Police are investigating the death of a 38-year-old Aboriginal man who suffered a “medical episode” and died at the Alexander Maconochie Centre. The death came just four days after a 73-year-old Aboriginal man died at the same jail while on remand.Australia: prisons don't create safer communities, so why is the country spending billions on building them?
Incarceration is a “common sense” policy, despite fuelling cycles of intergenerational poverty, trauma, social exclusion and criminalisation. Instead of governments racing to incarcerate, they could be investing in the social support systems that are needed to curb the prison crisis.Australia: NT prison crisis sees mentally disabled imprisoned people held with general population, sparking human rights concerns
The Northern Territory’s Anti-Discrimination Commissioner has warned the government could be at risk of breaching an international human rights agreement on torture after closing a specialised facility for mentally ill and disabled imprisoned people.Australia: prison guards switched off water to cell of mentally ill, dying incarcerated person held at Silverwater jail
Prison guards switched off the water to the cell of a mentally ill and dying man as punishment for his strange behaviour, joked that his repeated pleas for help were “entertaining”, and then left him unobserved to die at Silverwater jail from a treatable illness that was inexplicably missed.Australia: what will it take to stop disabled people in prison falling between the cracks of services and systems?
Instead of receiving the essential services and support they need, disabled people in prison are often neglected and harmed due to a lack of political will to provide whatever is needed to support them while inside and on their release from prison.Australia: no air conditioning in cells for youths
Youth people in detention have no air conditioning in their cells at Casuarina Prison’s Unit 18. There are fresh calls for Unit 18 to be closed immediately, with authorities yet to answer questions about what else is being done to help detained people stay cool.Australia: growing human rights concerns for NT prisoners as detainee numbers continue to soar
The Northern Territory corrections system is “in a serious crisis” and there are growing human rights concerns for prisoners, advocates say, as detainee numbers soar to unprecedented levels with no long-term solution in sight.