Dear pelican,

You will not get an argument for private prisons from me. I also think blame for many of the issues in our detention centres can be laid directly at the feet of cost cutting, particularly around staff numbers and training.

There is ample evidence that mismanaged economies do add to incarceration rates, however policy decisions can also have quite dramatic effects on numbers. Take my state of Victoria. While it is easy to point the finger at the Kennett cuts to public spending, for instance one of the schools he closed saw only 2/3rds of the students enrolling elsewhere and one can not help but think some of the other 1/3rd may be contributing disproportionally to our prison population, it is the whole story.

Unless it can be illustrated otherwise I will continue to believe the introduction of casinos and poker machines into this state, initiated by Kirner, accelerated by Kennett, and cemented in place by Bracks, should shoulder a large part of the blame for incarceration rates jumping by 60%.

Some of the measures of the Brumby government may well have seen the figures plateauing, but I contend they are abnormally high and only strong action on the issue of problems gamblers will see a decline (thank you Andrew Wilke).

Dear Custard and Ammonite,

It was interesting to hear a story about the former premier of Victoria, one Jeff Kennet, having had a really decent crack at decriminalizing marijuana in this state. His views on the issue had been changed through a conversation with his teenage sons as he drove them to school one day. In the eyes of the law their friend's recreational use would have viewed them as engaging in criminal behaviour. Kennett recognised the absurdity a law that could have seen promising lives and careers ruined through possible arrest and conviction.

I accept that it will take a courageous conservative government to manage change in this area. The Labour Party or the Greens just couldn't get away with it. Unfortunately courage seems to be a little lacking in our incumbents at the moment.

Dear Otokondo and Squeers,

While Australia is certainly more focussed on rehabilitation than the USA, countries like Denmark leave us for dead. Their view is that criminal behaviour is an illness and as such generally treatable. The result is their stunningly low recidivism rates.

From what I can gather recidivism rate is Denmark is around 27%. Here it is 38.2% and the national rate in the US is 68.5% which is insane. Our highest state or territory unsurprisingly is the NT at 44.8% but the standout state for reducing rates was Victoria who dropped theirs by 12% over the five years to 2009 to 35.6.

Your post Otokondo does raise another point. Victims of crime are naturally and understandably less sympathetic to criminals and rehabilitative spending. It is obvious some jurisdictions like Texas get themselves into cycles where as crime increases so do the calls for harsher sentences in environments less favourable to rehabilitation, resulting in hardened criminal classes and thus more crime.

To have the people of that state approve several billion dollars to TRIPLE the size of their prison system in the early 90's was to me barely conceivable, but it happened. The mentality of the police and courts became 'You build 'em and we'll fill 'em', and they did, so much so that the State now has to pay local county jails to hold the overflow.

We need to guard against the danger of instigating just such a cycle here although the figures from the NT would indicate that in one jurisdiction at least we may be too late.

csteele,

it seems the mania for locking up its citizens in the US is defensible after all. In fact it's virtuous in the most sublime way it can be virtuous: it's profitable! http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8289
What a great way to stay profitable; move manufacturing to prison at 25 cents an hour, even China can't compete with that! The ultimate in segregation; keep the undesirables off the nice middle-class streets and make money at the same time.
Why should we follow rehabilitation regimes like Denmark's when there's money to be made? The US is leading the way.
The ancient Greeks ethically-agonised over their dependency on slavery, but the US has solved the problem: reassign them "criminals", then they can be ethically exploited in order to pay off their debt to society.

Well Squeers, there is still some hope for the US after all.

They are still having good ideas after all, unlike so much of the old world.

Still I think they may have copied that one from China.

Wow, Squeers, What a revealing article!....and what a diabolical system it exposes.

It is slavery! - and all those corporations invest in the slavery - not to mention that economically stunted communities have in the past vied competitively to lure prison complexes to their towns in the U.S. because of the economic boost that comes with it.

Blacks and Hispanics make up the majority of slaves.

"The Land of the Free' - I don't think so....more like the land or corporatised slave farms

Dear Squeers,

Every now and then I need a reminder to keep my posts a little more succinct and you have just done that. The link you quoted is I think one I quoted from and posted "by csteele, Tuesday, 7 June 2011 2:22:51 PM". I need to tighten things up.

And I entirely agree. The fact that the vast majority are black must lend weight to the term legalized slavery. Perhaps a boycott of Target in Australia with the slogan "Keep the products of American slave labour off our shelves" might be interesting.