I saw a link today to a blog titled "Questions regarding rehabilitation and prison safety at Silverwater Jail." written by photographer Catherine White. Catherine sub titles her blog ""connects and creates worth through powerful story telling". Bloggers are a funny crowd, I am one of them. This is not the only one I write. I write blogs for pleasure and 'stories' or 'novels' for profit.
Millions of people worldwide blog and essentially can write anything they like as unless someone happens across your little piece of writing you may never be held accountable for your words.
In the case of Ms White's blog she decided to look at rehabilitation and prison safety at Silverwater jail and based her observations on the tragic deaths of two inmates (that is still under investigation by the NSW Police, and has been reported as a possible murder suicide) with the axing of the Silverwater Arts Program.
Don't look at me like that, I didn't write it. But Ms White did. She denies that in her comments afterward but here is the line "The deaths of two men at Sydney’s Silverwater Jail, aged 41 and 47, highlights the role prison education programs play in the rehabilitation of inmates." She then rambles on about rehabilitation, education, and all those fantastic buzz words that used to float around in the days when she was the Press Secretary for the NSW Upper House during the reign of Premier Greiner. In those days education in prisons consisted of maybe an Aboriginal Arts Class, Literacy and Numeracy and little else. Ms White didn't really care then. Nowhere can it be found where she wanted to make a difference, nowhere can we see her writing about 'The Killing Fields' of Goulburn Training Centre, that dark years when 7 inmates became deceased at the hands of other un-rehabilitated inmates. Did she take to her blog or other medium lamenting the deaths of some fine correctional officers including Goulburn Prison Officer Geoffery Pierce who was attacked by an inmate and contracted HIV in 1990. No. Ms White didn't notice possibly because at the time she didn't have a vested interest in the system.
You see Ms White spends time observing the NSW correctional system from the visiting areas of gaols (Ms White please note the Australian spelling for gaol). I wouldn't normally describe her private situation but as she has chosen to share her personal situation on a public blogging site I shall too. She reports her son has been a guest of the system and her "experience, as a mother with a son who has been in and out of prison for over ten years on drug related charges." That is a sad situation for any parent.
Working as a Press Secretary is a difficult and a role that requires long hours and hard work, maybe if you had been there for your son more he wouldn't be in his current situation, or apparently if he didn't have access to all those designer drugs that photographer types always have lying around - or am I just believing something I read on some other blog somewhere else. I guess that's the problem with blogs, you don't have to be an expert in any subject to have an opinion about a person or a group of people, in fact any subject. You can just type away. I'm sure you walk into a correctional centre with that special air of entitlement that you have, with those special words you use to shut down those dissenters, especially those correctional officers. You know the ones, the ones that "are unfit, and unable to make it as a real cop or in the armed services". You know the ones that from your observations from your frequent visits to visit your convicted family member "in NSW Prisons end up as prison guards because it is not hard to overpower someone who has been stripped of everything."
What Ms White doesn't understand because she listens to her son and reads white papers that have little to do with anything in a real world is that the system has changed from the dark old days of the Silent System. Official Visitors walk the halls and every event is documented and every procedure scrutinised daily. As well, International research (I wont bother referencing - Google it) has determined offenders receive better benefits from increasing their numeracy, literacy and employment opportunities for post release as well as actually participating in programs that address their criminogenic needs as well as implementing a multi disciplinary approach to a through care model designed to assist the offender re-integrate into the community with the ability to function in a pro social manner. Unfortunately, that becomes their choice in the end. You can employ hundreds of educators, but at the end of the day offenders need to choose to change. Many choose not to.
I know may Prison Officers/ Correctional Officers, or as you call them quite ignorantly 'Guards'. Whether they work in Darcy at the MRRC, Grafton, Bathurst or the new South Coast facility in NSW or anywhere else in Australia, they are, like Police, trained and professional. They ensure your son remains safe during his stay at Her Majesties finest facilities, ensure he is fed and has a bed. Unfortunately, staff can't let you in to clean his cell, so it may be unhygienic and substandard. They are asked to keep them clean, mostly because other inmates and staff don't like to contract odd infectious diseases. They perform an often dangerous and thankless job to ensure criminals like your son don't mix with the good people the Courts allow to walk the streets. If you find that inconvenient then as Ned Kelly said, "such is life" . You keep writing those suggestions, maybe your personal friend Tony Abbott can fix it or maybe your son can take responsibility for his own actions.
Oh damn, I forgot to talk about the Arts Grant........
**The above is published as personal views of the author and is not representative of any persons or official agencies.
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