Home / Inside the System / Prison Profiles

Prison profiles

Official information and first-hand feedback on prisons in Australia and New Zealand.

iExpress has expanded to include prison profiles. They bring the secret spaces holding our citizens into the light, so the walls no longer hide them from public view, exposing the realities and allowing open discussion of policy and administration from the viewpoints of prisoners, families, friends, prison officers and authorities.

This initiative follows the NSW Inspector’s report(opens in a new tab) to Parliament in April 2015, which said the treatment of prisoners “denied them a modicum of dignity and humanity.” It showed that no accountability or enforceable standards existed. iExpress intends to be part of the answer.

The profiles offer official information on Australian and New Zealand prisons and locked hospitals, along with feedback from the people living and working in them.

Where we started

Our first profiles focus on the Inspector’s findings for three NSW prisons:

Parklea

MRRC Silverwater

MSPC Long Bay

Find a prison

Browse prison profiles by state, territory or region.

Australia

Australian Capital Territory

New Zealand

Central Region

Northern Region

Southern Region

What is a “healthy” prison?

The Healthy Prison project makes the hidden world of prisons accountable through feedback from every source: official data, prisoners, ex-prisoners, family members, visitors and prison staff. According to Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons,1 a healthy prison rests on four principles:

Safety

Every person is held safely.

Respect

Every person is treated with respect for their human dignity, with basic necessities and health care to the same standard as the general community.

Purposeful activity

Every person is encouraged to improve themselves and to take part in activity likely to benefit them.

Resettlement

Every person is prepared for release back to the community and helped to reduce the chance of reoffending.

A prison cannot be called healthy by itself; it is about the people inside it and how they experience it. That means whether they are treated with dignity, humanity and respect,² whether they believe the prison is safe,³ whether they have enough time out of their cells,⁴ and whether overcrowding causes them problems.⁵

Rate your prison. The Healthy Prison questionnaire asks about these four areas, plus overcrowding, health, education and work.

References

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons (2012). Criteria for Assessing the Treatment of Prisoners and Conditions in Prisons. insidetime.org ↩
Australian Human Rights Commission (2012). Prisoners and Human Rights. humanrights.gov.au ↩
Government of Western Australia (2012). Standard Guidelines for Corrections in Australia. correctionalservices.nt.gov.au ↩
National Audit Office, Great Britain (2010). Managing Offenders on Short Custodial Sentences. nao.org.uk ↩
International Centre for Prison Studies (2010). Current Situation of Prison Overcrowding. prisonstudies.org ↩

Welcome to iExpress, the world’s first full online avenue of expression for people in prisons and forensic hospitals, bringing them into the digital world since 2013.

Acknowledgement of Country

iExpress acknowledges the traditional owners of Country throughout Australia, and their enduring and continuing connection to land, waters and community. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.