Just recently the NSW minister for juvenile justice, Ms Barbara Perry, proposed to transfer anyone over the age of 18 to adult prison to free up space in overcrowded juvenile facilities in NSW. Prisoners could remain in juvenile prisons until the age of 21 but under new state government proposals they will be housed in places like Silverwater, my current residence, where sharks feed off little fish, increasing the adult prison population a little more and creating a fertile breeding ground for the perpetuation of the NSW adult prison population.

Minister Perry’s Department of Juvenile Justice argues that there are more juvenile offenders being jailed in NSW and there are not enough cells to contain them. More than 5,600 young offenders were incarcerated in juvie jails during 2007. There were 4,403 in 2006 and 3,755 in 2005.

The high rise in juvenile incarceration is a spin-off of the NSW state government’s answer to its vote-catching law and order policies. Despite no statistical evidence of an increase in crime in NSW, there has been a marked increase in jailing of adults and juvie offenders.

Why? It is an expedient solution to the social problems that bedevil contemporary society: homelessness, lack of employment skills and opportunities for people to rise above the traditional society benchmarks of the time of the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’.

Nothing has changed in more than 200 years. Following a defeat in the American war of independence British government had to find the new dumping ground for its burgeoning prison population. The discovery and settlement of Australia provided that dumping ground.

Two-hundred-plus years later and Australian politicians in all states are still using prisons as the receptacle to hide the social ills of society. Don’t get me wrong, there are some nasty people, and society needs an ultimate sanction to deter offenders from breaking the law, there had to be a place where rapists, murders and violent offenders can be detained so they no longer prey on society. But the other use of incarceration has diminished that deterrent value.

At present, the heavy hand of the NSW justice system jails more people for lesser crimes then it did a decade ago and at the other end of the spectrum there are no incentives to reduce prison sentences by good behavior. Truth in sentencing – the political panacea to social problems – has created a bottle-neck of incarceration in both adult and juvenile jails that has created endemic overcrowding both adult and juvenile jails. The political solution is to build bigger and better jails – and then fill them.

Unfortunately, that band-aid solution has a counter-productive affect on society. Prisons may be a necessary evil to house hardcore offenders, but their overuse has created a apprenticeship to crime for some people who simply should not be here: The mentally ill, young offenders and minor victimless crime.

At present, in the yard at the prison alone, a greater proportion of prisoners are contained as a result of apprehended violence orders (AVO’s) where the state has allowed law enforcements to solve domestic dispute by jailing the husband.

I am not suggesting that if an abusive husband is threatening his wife that nothing should be done to prevent that abuse, but is jailing the answer? In some, if not the majority, of cases, arrest and jailing is becoming the first option for overworked law enforcement, rather then the last option.

My first cellmate at this place was John the Greek. He had been jailed after his wife took out an AVO and had had him kicked out of the family home. John had two strikes against him: he spoke very little English and screws (prison guards, or in the new age 21^st century patois of prison jargon, correction officers) found it hard to understand John and created a frustrated angry prisoner who had never been in prison before, unable to explain the predicament he found himself in.

And that predicament was simply this: The judge would not release John unless he had an address to go to. John could not get an address to go to until he was out of jail to rent a flat. The catch-22 was compounded by John’s lack of English and his angry frustration at not being able to explain himself. I don’t know what happened to John before I got transferred into a working pod but I pointed him in the direction of the welfare officer after I raised his case. Hopefully he is still not rotting in the reception pod and they have found him an address to reside outside.

The case of John the Greek and the indiscriminate use of AVOs to jail men is not an isolated occurrence. They are people who fall off the calendar, or don’t exist, because the league system is not caring, the prison system is not caring and the law enforcement that put them in jail is an expedient means to an end for domestic disputes. Is it any wonder that young impressionable offenders (with a further influx if minister Barbara Perry has her way) witness this non-caring attitude at grassroots level from law enforcement, the legal and the prison system and then leave this place with similar hardened, non-caring attitudes?

Although our patch of OurPatch sees the world from a microscopic view, it isn’t hard for an old crim to portend future consequences for the world outside the walls based on observations inside the walls.

Until next time, ciao for now.

Cheers, Bernie