Tag: justice health
-
Mental Health Behind Bars: Why Australia’s Prisons Need Policy Reform, Not Punishment
Mahnoor Muhammad Almost half of adults in Australian prisons experience a mental illness, cognitive disability, or high psychological distress . These individuals are not only overrepresented, they are underserved. Prisons, by their very nature, are not therapeutic environments, and yet they have become de facto mental health institutions. This reality…
-
We shouldn’t lock up young offenders with neurodisability
Dr Fiona Robards and Professor Elizabeth Jane Elliott Barely a month goes by without news of children and adolescents who are imprisoned and being mistreated in youth detention. A new parliamentary inquiry is shining a light on this mistreatment. It’s investigating if youth detention facilities are complying with children’s human rights conventions, and…
-
Locking up kids has serious mental health impacts and contributes to further reoffending
Summer May Finlay, University of Wollongong; Ee Pin Chang, The University of Western Australia; Jemma Collova, The University of Western Australia, and Pat Dudgeon, The University of Western Australia This article contains information on violence experienced by First Nations young people in the Australian carceral system. There are mentions of…
-
Prisons still failing First Nations people, Justice Health conference told
Jeremy Lasek – PHAA Three decades after the landmark Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, a leading expert on the impact of incarceration on First Nations people told the PHAA Justice Health Conference, things have worsened, not improved. Professor Thalia Anthony, Professor of Law at University of Technology Sydney,…
-
Raising the Age crucial for health and wellbeing of children and our future: ACT Attorney-General
Jeremy Lasek & Malcolm Baalman – PHAA The timing was impeccable. Just as the ACT’s Attorney-General, Shane Rattenbury MLA, was preparing to address the PHAA’s Justice Health Conference last week, the ACT Government released the results of public consultation which showed overwhelming community support for a proposal to raise the…
-
Keenan Mundine on his life of incarceration, and making Justice Health more culturally safe
Jeremy Lasek – PHAA We hear plenty about the importance of sharing, and understanding the lived experiences of others. At this week’s 2021 PHAA Justice Health Conference we were privileged to hear a very raw, yet powerful story of the lived experience of Keenan Mundine. Keenan is a proud Aboriginal…
-
Government promises action and money to counter Indigenous incarceration, Minister tells Justice Health 2021 conference
Jeremy Lasek – PHAA More action at a local level. More partnerships. More targeted funding. Greater research. And real targets to reduce the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in custody in the next decade. Opening the 2021 PHAA Justice Health Conference, Federal Minister for Indigenous Australians, the Hon…
-
2021 Justice Health Conference to focus on Evidence, Accountability, Action.
Jeremy Lasek – PHAA ‘Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.’ – Dr Martin Luther King Jr As our nation emerges from COVID lockdowns, it’s timely to reflect on the impact of some of the most severe restrictions imposed on our…
-
It’s time to stop locking up 10 year olds
Many Australians would no doubt be shocked to learn that our current laws in every State and Territory allow children as young as 10 years old to be arrested by Police and sentenced to prison by Courts. That’s a primary school child, removed from their family, school and everything familiar…