Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Imprisonment is a growth industry in Australia. Over the past 30–40 years all state and territory jurisdictions have registered massive rises in both the absolute numbers of those imprisoned and the per capita use of imprisonment as a tool of punishment and control. Yet over this period there has been surprisingly little criminological attention to the national picture of imprisonment in Australia and to understanding jurisdictional variation, change and continuity in broader theoretical terms. This article reports initial findings from the Australian Prisons Project, a multi-investigator Australian Research Council funded project intended to trace penal developments in Australia since about 1970. The article begins by outlining the notion of penal culture that provides the analytic lens for the project. It outlines various intersecting areas of study being undertaken before focusing on just three features of the contemporary penal field – restrictions upon presumptions of bail, the rise of post-sentence indefinite detention and the role of supermax confinement. Each in their own way exemplifies an aspect of and contributes to what we conclude to be the revalorization of the prison in Australian culture and society.

Keywords

Australian prisons imprisonment rates penal culture risk sentencing

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner (2010) Social Justice Report 2009 Sydney: Australian Human Rights Commission.

Aderibigbe

(1996) Deinstitutionalisation and criminalization: Tinkering in the interstices. Forensic Science International 85: 127–134.

Australian Bureau of Statistics (2006) Prisoners in Australia 2005 Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Australian Bureau of Statistics (2008) Prisoners in Australia 2007 Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Australian Bureau of Statistics (2010) Prisoners in Australia 2009 Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Australian Federal Police (2006) National Media Release: Seminar to Address Radicalisation in Prisons Canberra: Australian Federal Police Media.

Australian Greens (2010) Justice reinvestment for Australia policy initiative: Access to justice a right for all Australians. 5 August. Available at: http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/library/partypol/ygqx60.pdf.

Australian Prisons Project (2009) Available at: http://www.app.unsw.edu.au.

Baldry E, Dowse L, Snoyman P, Clarence M and Webster I (2008) A critical perspective on mental health disorders and cognitive disability in the criminal justice system. In: Cunneen C and Salter M (eds) Proceedings of the 2008 Critical Criminology Conference. Sydney: UNSW, 30–45.

10.

Bamford D, King S and Sarre R (1999) Factors affecting remand in custody. Research and Public Policy Series 23. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology.

11.

Biles D (1984) An Australian perspective − women in corrections. In: Hatty S (ed.) Women in the Prison System, Seminar Proceedings No. 3 Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology.

12.

Biles D (1990) Remand Imprisonment in Australia. Australian Institute of Criminology Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice No. 27.

13.

Brown D (2008) The effect of terrorism and terrorist trials on Australian prison regimes. Proceedings of the 2nd Australian and New Zealand Critical Criminology Conference. Available at: http://www.cjrn.unsw.edu.au/critcrimproceedings2008.

14.

Brown

Wilkie

(2002) Prisoners and Citizens: Human Rights in Australian Prisons Annandale: Federation Press.

15.

Brown

(2009) The Culture of Punishment New York: New York University Press.

16.

Butler

(2004) Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence London: Verso.

17.

Butler

Andrews

Allnutt

(2006) Mental disorders in Australian prisoners: A comparison with a community sample. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 40: 272–276.

18.

Carcach

Grant

(1999) Imprisonment in Australia: Trends in prison populations and imprisonment rates 1982–1998. Australian Institute of Criminology, Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice 130: 3–3.

19.

Carcach

Grant

Conroy

(1999) Australian corrections: The imprisonment of Indigenous people. Australian Institute of Criminology, Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice 137: 2–2.

20.

Carlton

(2008) Entombing resistance: Institutional power and polarisation in the Jika Jika High-Security Unit. In: Scraton

McCulloch

(eds) The Violence of Incarceration New York and Oxford: Routledge, 37–59.

21.

Cunneen C (1993) Judicial racism. In: McKillop S (ed.) Aboriginal Justice Issues, Australian Institute of Criminology, Conference Proceedings No 21, Canberra, 117–134.

22.

Cunneen

Criminology, criminal justice and Indigenous people: A dysfunctional relationship?

Current Issues in Criminal Justice (2009) 20(3): 323–336.

23.

Daunton-Fear

(1969) Habitual criminals and the indefinite sentence. The Adelaide Law Review 3: 335–359.

24.

Davis

(1996) Freedom or unfreedom at Moreton Bay: The structures and relations of secondary punishment. In: Dyster

(eds) Beyond Convict Workers Sydney: Department of Economic History UNSW, 64–82.

25.

Derkley

Leg-irons: Return to the 19th century?

Law Institute Journal (1995) 69(8): 751–751.

26.

Doessel

(2009) A historical perspective on mental health services in Australia: 1883–84 to 2003–04. Australian Economic History Review 49(2): 173–197.

27.

Dowse

Baldry

Snoyman

(2009) Disabling criminology: Conceptualizing the intersections of critical disability studies and critical criminology for people with mental health and cognitive disabilities in the criminal justice system. Australian Journal of Human Rights 15(1): 29–46.

28.

Doyle

Ogloff

(2009) Calling the tune without the music: A psycho-legal analysis of Australia’s post-sentence legislation. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology 42(2): 179–203.

29.

Edney

(2006) Contested narratives of penal knowledge: H Division Pentridge Prison and the histories of imprisonment. Current Issues in Criminal Justice 17(3): 362–279.

30.

Elias

(1984) The Civilizing Process Oxford: Blackwell.

31.

Feeley

Simon

(1992) The new penology. Criminology 39: 449–474.

32.

Fitzgerald J (2009) Why are Indigenous imprisonment rates rising? Issue Paper 41. Sydney: NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.

33.

Floud

Young

(1981) Dangerousness and Criminal Justice London: Heinemann.

34.

Freiberg

(2000) Guerrillas in our midst? Judicial responses to governing the dangerous. In: Brown

Pratt

(eds) Dangerous Offenders: Punishment and Social Control London: Routledge, 51–69.

35.

Funnell

(2006) Where the norm is not the norm: The Department of Corrective Services and the Harm-U. Alternative Law Journal 31(2): 70–74.

36.

Garland D (1991) Punishment and Modern Society – a Study in Social Theory. Oxford: Clarendon.

37.

Garland

(2001) The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society Oxford: Oxford University Press.

38.

Garland

(2006) Concepts of culture in the sociology of punishment. Theoretical Criminology 10(4): 419–448.

39.

Gerull

Lucas

(eds) (1993) Serious Violent Offenders: Sentencing, Psychiatry and Law Reform Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology.

40.

Gottschalk

(2008) Hiding in plain sight: American politics and the carceral state. Annual Review of Political Science 11: 235–260.

41.

Gunn

Farrington

(eds) (1982) Abnormal Offenders, Delinquency and the Criminal Justice System Chichester: John Wiley.

42.

Haney

Lynch

(1997) Regulating Prisons of the Future: A Psychological Analysis of Supermax and Solitary Confinement. New York University Review of Law and Social Change 23(4): 477–570.

43.

Harcourt

(2006) From the asylum to the prison: Rethinking the incarceration revolution. Texas Law Review 84(7): 1752–1786.

44.

House of Commons Justice Committee (2010) Cutting Crime: The Case for Justice Reinvestment. House of Commons Justice Committee Paper No 1, Session 2009–10 (2010) 5.

45.

Jenkinson K (1973–1974) Report of the Board of Inquiry into Allegations of Brutality and Ill Treatment at H.M. Prison Pentridge. Melbourne: Government Printer.

46.

Lacey

(2008) The Prisoner’s Dilemma Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

47.

Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, Parliament of Australia (2009) Access to Justice. Canberra: Department of the Senate, Parliament House.

48.

Lulham R and Fitzgerald J (2008) Trends in Bail and Sentencing Outcomes in New South Wales Criminal Courts: 1993–2007. NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research Contemporary Issues in Crime and Justice Number 124.

49.

McCulloch

George

(2008) Naked power: Strip searching in women’s prisons. In: Scraton

McCulloch

(eds) The Violence of Incarceration New York and Oxford: Routledge, 107–123.

50.

McSherry

Keyzer

(2009) Sex Offenders and Preventive Detention: Politics, Policy and Practice Annandale, NSW: The Federation Press.

51.

Marchetti

Daly

(2007) Indigenous sentencing courts: Towards a theoretical and jurisprudential model. Sydney Law Review 29: 416–443.

52.

Nagle

(1978) Report of the Royal Commission into NSW Prisons Sydney: NSW Government Printer.

53.

NSW Legislative Council Inquiry into the Increase in Prisoner Population (2001) Inquiry into the Increase in NSW Prisoner Population Final Report Sydney: NSW Parliament.

54.

Pew Centre (2007) Public Safety, Public Spending: Forecasting America’s Prison Population 2007–2011 Washington, DC: Pew Centre on the States.

55.

Pratt

(2002) Punishment and Civilization London: Sage.

56.

Pratt

Brown

Hallsworth

Morrison

(2005) The New Punitiveness: Trends, Theories, Perspectives Cullompton, Devon: Willan.

57.

Rose

Burdekin

Jenkin

(1993) Human Rights and Mental Illness: Report of the National Inquiry into the Human Rights of People with Mental Illness Sydney: Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission.

58.

Sarre R, King S and Bamford D (2006) Remand in Custody: Critical Factors and Key Issues. Australian Institute of Criminology Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice No. 310.

59.

Social Research (2007) Punishment: The U.S. record. Social Research: An International Quarterly of the Social Sciences 74(2)(whole issue).

60.

Wacquant

(2009) Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity Durham and London: Duke University Press.

61.

Walker

(1982–1990) Australian Prisoners Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology.

62.

White

Whiteford

Prisons: Mental health institutions of the 21st century?

Medical Journal of Australia (2006) 185(6): 302–303.

63.

Wundersitz

(2010) Indigenous Perpetrators of Violence: Prevalence and Risk Factors for Offending Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology.

64.

Zdenkowski

Brown

(1982) The Prison Struggle: Changing Australia’s Penal System Ringwood, Vic: Penguin.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

23.83 MB

0.00 MB