Who Cares For or About Those in Gaol?

It is a pretty simple proposition - people in custody are owed a duty of care by the Government.

That has not stopped the AdelaideNow website from whipping up a story about compensation paid to prisoners injured in custody.

AdelaideNow... $230,000 paid to injured criminals

In fairness to Michael Owen, his article is quite balanced, but a different flavour is placed on it by the headline using the word "criminals" when the article is about "prisoners." Given the very high remand rates in South Australia, many of our "prisoners" have not been convicted of any charges they may face!

As can be seen in the readers' comments, this has planted the idea that somehow criminal offenders receive compensation for their crimes.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky said: "The degree of civilisation in a society is revealed by entering its prisons." Winston Churchill said that a society's attitude to its prisoners, its "criminals", is the measure of "the stored up strength of a nation".

I wonder what those men would have thought of these comments?

DNA Evidence

We are all familiar with the use of DNA evidence in Criminal cases, and it is becoming quite common.

In Dallas County, Texas, however, there have now been 17 prisoners cleared by the use of DNA evidence to look at historical convictions. They include James Woodard, who has spent 27 years in gaol after prosecutors in his case withheld evidence from the defence.

You can read more about it here at CNN.

The part of the story that really disturbed me was the suggestion that it seems to have been a regular thing for evidence to be withheld by prosecutors, and that they would resist moves to prosecute them for it! There is a whole world of difference between an honest mistake, and a deliberate withholding of evidence.

It is interesting that this also comes at a time when the UK is looking at using prosecutors who are employed, rather than members of the independant Bar, and is one of the reasons given in favour of retaining the current system. Read more in this article at The Times online

Here in South Australia, trials are usually prosecuted by employees of the Director of Public Prosecutions, with some being briefed to Barristers, depending on workload. Perhaps because the profession here is fairly small, it does not seem to be a problem - any prosecutor who withheld evidence would soon lose all credibility in the profession.

What do you think we need to safeguard this?

An Anniversary To Be Ashamed Of

February 2008 marked the first anniversary of the use of the City Watch House to hold remand prisoners.

The fact that there has been so little outcry about this is a sad reflection on our society.

No matter how much people might want the guilty to be punished, this is about the way we treat the innocent.

To our eternal shame. And the minister admits this may continue for several years.

When a person is first remanded in custody is precisely the time they need contact with loved ones the most, and yet there are no family visits allowed. No proper access to exercise or to education. Correctional services has even had to resort to handing out nicotine patches.

The details are covered in the 2007 Correctional Services Annual Report (2.3Mb pdf).

With the new gaols not due until 2011, and a Government that seems intent on imprisoning more people and for longer periods, something will need to be done soon.

Ben Cousins is Innocent

At least for the moment.

Whilst no-one can deny that there is a problem with drugs in the AFL, it seems that Ben Cousins seems to be getting a pretty raw deal. Pulled over by the Police, and then arrested while the TV cameras film it all! Normally when someone is arrested, the TV stations pixellate their faces so as not to prejudice a fair trial. (In Cousins' case, they might have needed to pixellate the stomach too!)

Not only that, but he then faces sanctions from his club, before the case has been through the Court process.

Perhaps there have been some amendments to the law so that the right to a fair trial and the presumption of innocence no longer apply to AFL players.

Meanwhile, all the attention gets focussed on Ben Cousins, rather than the wider problem - just a bit too convenient for the AFL!