Australia as a land of a fair go has had its fair share of Prisoners. Let’s face it that’s all we were to start with, a prison colony! So you’d think with that past we’d know how to treat prisoners. You’d think that if we set up detention centres for people we had to hold for one reason or another, there would be a historical preference for not being the complete bastards the English were to us. And in fact if you look at the guidelines for treating prisoners, you’d have to say, they get a fair go.
Australia’s Treatment of Prisoners
“GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF PRISONERS” from the Australian Department of Justice.
“Correctional services in Australia seek to improve and maintain the safety of and confidence in the correctional system by managing prisoners consistently and with reference to the guiding principles that prisoners are:
- Managed and contained in a safe, secure, humane manner.
- Managed equitably, with recognition of their diverse needs.
- Actively engaged to make positive behaviour change (inclusive of accessing intervention programmes, education, vocational education and work opportunities) with the aims of preparing them for their participation in and return to the community, as well as reducing re-offending behaviour.
- Provided opportunity to make reparation to the community.
- Managed consistent with the Acts and Regulations applicable to each jurisdiction, and the sentences and requirements imposed by the Courts.
- Held at a level of security which is commensurate with the level of risk posed by that prisoner.
- Where practicable, placed in correctional facilities with a regard to their community of interest and other support needs.
- Supervised fairly and consistently with the aims of encouraging positive behaviours and maintaining security.
- Provided with access to health care, to the same standard as in the community, in response to need, with an appropriate range of preventative services, and promoting continuity with external health services upon release.”
Now given that is how we are supposed to treat thieves, murderers and rapists in our community. Compare any of these requirements with what we treat people who have done nothing illegal and merely run away from people who act in the same manner as they which we deem imprisonable! We refer to these INNOCENT people as Refugees! We hold them for months if not years in multiple Gulags run by our country both inside and outside of Australia for longer than any nation who is a signatory to the Refugee convention does. During that time we abuse and mistreat them in a manner that would remind our diggers (if they were/are alive to witness our actions) of how another nation once treated them as prisoners of war. Certainly not the way we civilizedly treat our real criminals. We do this in the name of “stopping the boats” so they don’t drown. Really? We are concerned that they don’t drown? Well, how do other nations who are concerned that refugees don’t drown act?
This article (below) spoke of how Refugees are treated in other countries – not quite as evil and bigoted as us – and delivered to Gallipoli. That country ring a bell with anyone? Perhaps were we allegedly once fought for the freedom of ….. Umm … forget it; I’m sure such principles are long lost in this country … <sigh>.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/italy-saves-970-asylumseekers-abandoned-at-sea-20150101-12ga0r.html