Resolutions
This Forum resolves that the NSW government and all political parties should commit to:
1. Diversionary programs, including restorative justice processes and mentoring, to avoid the damage that prison causes women and their families.
2. Women prisoners’ specific needs should be managed in accordance with the UN’s Bangkok Rules. (Recommendation 15)
Providing women prisoners with a choice of service providers for health, education and legal support. (Recommendation 17)
3. Improving educational facilities in women prisons, through supporting the unanimous resolution of the CJC/ICJ Education in Prisons Seminar on November 25 2010 to put computers in cells, which has yet to be acted upon; and preserving education as a irremovable right.
Click here to read an extract from the Women in Prison: Resolutions, Political Parties’ Positions and Recommendations report
The Women in Prison Forum which was held at NSW Parliament House on the 13th of August, was an initiative by Community Justice Coalition, International Commission of Jurists and the Women in Prison Advocacy Network. The forum had the following speakers: Elizabeth Evatt (forum chair) former Chief Justice, Family Court of Australia, Kat Armstrong Director of WIPAN, Professor Eileen Baldry President of NSW Council of Social Services, Professor of Criminology UNSW, Pat O’Shane former Magistrate, first Australian Aboriginal Barrister and Brad Hazzard Attorney General of NSW. This forum was an initiative to inform people of the unjust treatment of women in our correctional services and the improvements that need to be made.
Following the agreement by political parties that changes are necessary in the treatment of women in prisons, the implementation of the resolutions are now underway.