* please circulate *
WHY WE SHOULD OPPOSE HOME DETENTION
The State Labor Government is planning to create a home detention system,
operational from next year.
While the initial three-year trial will be restricted to only 80 prisoners
once fully implemented the numbers of people incarcerated in their homes
could be limitless. The frightening potential of home detention was flagged
by the Office of Corrections in 1987 when it warned "if we regard homes as
potential prisons, capacity is for all practical purposes unlimited". In
1988 Labor rejected plans for home detention and the subsequent Coalition
government also heeded this warning, unfortunately our new state government
seems unable to see the Pandora's box it is opening.
It is important that you act now to prevent people's homes being turned
into prisons and families into jailers. Here are some reasons why:
* Since the introduction of home detention, there have been no reduction in
prison numbers in other Australian jurisdictions, in fact home detention
will widen the imprisonment net with people currently receiving
non-custodial sentences receiving home detention sentences instead;
* Community corrections, where people serve their sentence in the community
and are provided support and rehabilitative services, has been run down by
previous governments and needs additional funds. Home detention, with its
expensive monitoring technology, will divert badly needed funds from
community corrections;
* It will have a negative impact on families and children with families
being forced to become jailers and intensive intervention into family life
by government agencies;
* It will undermine genuine rehabilitation as it will be a barrier proper
reintegration into the community;
* It will entrench methods of confinement and incarceration as the only
legitimate means for addressing crime.
THERE ARE ALTERNATIVES
Skyrocketing prison numbers need to be addressed, but there are real
alternatives to home detention:
* increase resources to community correction programs, giving people a
chance to successfully serve their sentence in the community;
* reinstate judicial discretion to magistrates considering breaches of
intensive correctional orders and other correctional orders;
* reform drug laws to reduce sentences and decriminalise personal drug use;
* address the causes of property crime, which are primarily poverty and
drug use, through policies that reduce inequality not increase it;
* early release schemes that provide support in the community.
(See below for more extensive information)
WHAT YOU CAN DO
EMAIL, RING OR FAX
Steve Bracks
Premier
PO Box 4912VV, Melbourne 3001
Tel: 9651 5000
Fax: 9651 5054
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Andre Haermeyer
Minister for Corrections
Level 1, 55 St Andrews Pl, Melbourne 3002
Tel: 9651 6900
Fax: 9651 6910
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Rob Hulls
Attorney General
Level 1, 55 St Andrews Pl, Melbourne 3002
Tel: 9651 0552
Fax: 9651 0556
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Denis Napthine
Leader of Opposition
Parliament House
Melbourne, 3002
Ph. 9651 8512, Fax. 9651 8426
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sue Davies
Independent
PO Box 406, Wonthaggi 3995
Tel: 5672 3799
Fax: 5672 3794
Pager: 016 370 040
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Craig Ingram
Independent
PO Box 443, Bairnsdale 3875
Tel: 5152 3491
Fax: 5152 2023
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Mark Birrell
Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council
Parliament House, Melbourne, 3002
Ph: 03 9888 6244, Fax. 9888 6529
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Peter Ryan
Leader of the National Party
Parliament House, Melbourne, 3002
Tel: 03 9651 8911 Fax: 03 5144 7086
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
CONTACT US FOR MORE INFORMATION AND OTHER ACTIONS
Kate Lawrence, North Melbourne Legal Service: 03 9328 1885
Damien Lawson, Western Suburbs Legal Service: 03 9391 2244
Amanda George, Brimbank Community Legal Centre: 03 9363 1811
Corrections Working Group
Federation of Community Legal Centres
--
WHAT IS HOME DETENTION?
'If we regard homes as potential prisons, capacity is for all practical
purposes unlimited' (Victorian 0ffice of Corrections Summary Paper August 1987)
Home detention, is where instead of going to prison, your home becomes the
designated prison. Surveillance is done with an electronic bracelet, which
is attached to you for the length of your sentence and tracked through your
phone back to central control. If you go outside the house without
permission, it registers an escape. You must stay at home 24 hours a day
unless you get permission to eg. work, do community hours, education. You
receive phone calls at home throughout the day and night to monitor you.
You receive officer visits. The officer has right of entry and search at
any time of day or night. If you have a job your employer must be told and
you must accept surveillance calls at work. The technology currently
available can link up to a global positioning satellite that can track your
movements. You must not drink alcohol or take drugs, you are tested for
this. Your family and housemates become both co prisoners and prison
officers with a responsibility to report on you, or cover up for you.
ISN'T HOME DETENTION BETTER THAN PRISON?
It's a spurious comparison, comparing apples to oranges. There is NO
evidence that the people who get HD, would otherwise get jail. In fact in
NSW, 25% of women on HD had NO prior criminal record. The people in NSW
getting HD, are the same people who in Victoria, would be entitled to
community based options. In NSW there are no community based alternatives
to prison (except weekend prison), so HD is the only community based option
available. In Victoria, there are community based alternatives to prison,
for offenders deemed safe enough to do their prison sentence in the
community - suspended sentences and intensive corrections orders(ICO's).
These are where you are 'in prison in the community', you live life as
usual, but are required to obey a variety of strict conditions, have urine
tests, report to community corrections officers and do community work.
Like home detention these sentences have the same status as a prison
sentence, but your home does not become a prison.
WON'T HOME DETENTION REDUCE PRISON OVERCROWDING?
No. Internationally there is no evidence that HD reduces prison numbers. In
fact in NSW, QLD and WA where it is in place, prison numbers continue to
spiral. HD creates prison space in homes, it doesn't empty prisons.
COSTS?
In Victoria for the last 7 years the money we spent on community based
offenders dramatically declined. We spend $7.7O a day on community based
offenders and officers have a caseload of up to 70 offenders. Over this
time the breach rates for people on community based options has increased.
(Now 34-43% Vic. Dept Justice 1999).
NSW home detention costs from $35 - 45 a day, corrections officers have a
case load of 7-10 offenders and they provide intensive support (if you are
homeless, NSW corrections officers are required to find accommodation) The
Victorian government says it's HD model will cost from $3 - 30. (Sun Herald
9.1.2000). With technology costs eating up $10 a day, surveillance is
clearly the priority, not support.
If Victorian community sentencing options were resourced to provide
intensive human and outside program support that is provided for NSW home
detainees, Victoria's community based options would work more effectively
for offenders and society. And people's homes and families would not be
brought into the surveillance and control of the home prison.
Home detention diverts money from human interaction with offenders into
technology. The daily costs of electronic bracelets, surveillance equipment
for each home and at central control will cost more than we currently spend
on people on community based options. Global private security sellers will
profit, again.
WHO GETS HOME DETENTION?
It is supposed to be used for non-violent offenders who would normally go
to prison, but in NSW 25% of women on home detention had no prior criminal
history.
The government also proposes HD for the last three months of some
prisoners' sentence. In 1987 the Australian Law Reform Commission
characterised such HD regimes as ' the final blow to the rehabilitative
ideal' (Discussion Paper 30). Community integration won't be helped by HD.
Pre release, work and education release are far more constructive.
HAVE THERE BEEN EVALUATIONS OF HOME DETENTION?
The major finding of the NSW scheme (on which Victoria's proposal is
based) was that the reason HD was successful was the time and resources
corrections officers put into offenders. But this time and resources could
equally be given to people on Victoria's existing community sentencing options.
The only innovation home detention has is as a policy of physical
containment and surveillance. Every other aspect of HD is available in
current sentencing option, if they were properly resourced. Previous
governments, both labor and coalition, rejected HD for good reason.
There have been no evaluations of the health risks associated with having a
bracelet attached to you for 24 hours a day that emits electro magnetic
radiation.
IMPACT ON FAMILIES?
"..the state has substantial influence over the behaviour of affected
family members which can lead to state intrusion on personal and family
privacy, family behaviour and movement" (p.115 NSW Corrective Services
Review of HD 1999)
Family and co residents become both prisoners and prison officers. Having
the offender at home the whole time, unable to leave for everyday tasks,
creates enormous tension in families, children can't understand why their
mum or dad must always be at home. Children and household members have
months of interrupted sleep from phone calls all night. In NSW every child
in the home must have a 'risk assessment' from Human Services. Many
families of offenders are living in poverty in very marginal circumstances.
Having Human Services checking up on them is what most such family's fear.
VIOLENCE AND STRESS IN FAMILIES?
The NSW evaluation of 366 offenders (84% men and 14% women) revealed 4
incidents of domestic violence. Two were male victims, one was a woman
perpetrator and the other unknown. This statistic is completely opposed to
all that we know about the prevalence of domestic violence. It confirms
that domestic violence is hidden by home detention. Problems in the family
are privatised and kept secret, because if families seek help they risk the
offender being sent to prison. This unfairly puts the responsibility on
families as to whether or not offenders stay at home or prison. In reality
it is women carers who will have this responsibility - partners and
mothers. This should be the responsibility of the state.
DOESN'T IT MAKE THE COMMUNITY SAFER?
If a person is deemed 'safe' enough to be in a home prison, they are safe
enough to be on a community based option. As most unreported crime happens
in homes, HD doesn't make homes or communities safer. We will end up with
poorer suburbs and high rise estates as prison communities and luxury
prisons in Toorak and Ivanhoe for inside traders.
In Victoria most offenders that go to prison are drug offenders. In NSW,
20% of men's and 50% of women's breaches of HD, are drug offences. Drugs
need a health and whole of government response, not prison. Being stuck in
prison, bored out of your brain, creates strong reasons to use drugs, being
stuck in a home prison will be no different.
CHEAPER, SAFER ALTERNATIVES.
The labor government should do a comprehensive review of community based
options to expand on those that have been successful, as promised in it's
election policy.
Fix what is broken, learn from experience and save money. Victoria used to
have a system of community based sentencing that was a leader in Australia
and adopted by others. The system has been ground down and resources
removed. Instead of spending money on an entirely new system of electronic
surveillance, this money should be spent fixing and improving the
successful system we had. Corrections officers with current caseloads of 70
can't do much individual intensive support with offenders.
Try a pilot program where we spend the money that would have been spent on
HD (less technology costs) on community based offenders, to see what
difference this makes.
RESTORE SENTENCING DISCRETION TO JUDGES AND MAGISTRATES.
In 1997, the former government reduced the ability of the judiciary to deal
with offenders as individuals. If a person on an ICO or suspended sentence,
breaches their sentence, unless there are exceptional circumstance the
person must be sent to prison. Judges and magistrates became no more than
programmed computers. We believe the judiciary should be able to tailor the
sentencing and breach orders they give, according to the individual
circumstances of each offender.
LEAVE PEOPLE'S HOMES AND FAMILIES ALONE.
A home should be a place of safety and privacy, a place to enjoy each
other. Turning people's homes into prisons, has a serious psychological
impact on every adult and child in the house. Families should not have to
live with the knowledge that they are living in a prison. Families will be
forced to cover up problems they are experiencing because if they don't
they risk their family member going to prison. Some offenders will stand
over their families to ensure this doesn't happen.
When prisoners get out of jail, they look forward to getting home (if they
have one), to a place of refuge away from the constant surveillance and
control of prison. They live with the label of former prisoner forever.
They and their families do not need their homes labelled as prisons too.
NSW research has shown that home detention creates considerable stress for
all concerned. Incarceration at home, in no way contributes to community
reintegration.
Families of prisoners need support and nourishment, not surveillance,
stress and secrets.
Victorian Federation of Community Legal Centres Corrections Working Group
(03) 9391 2244
Damien Lawson
--
Western Suburbs Legal Service Inc.
30 Hall St, Newport 3015 VIC
03 9391 2244 (Tel)
03 9399 1686 (Fax)
0418 140 387 (Mobile)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
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