Comment by Gwendolyn Nettlefold
HOBART — A letter of thanks from the Officer-in-Charge of USS John C. Stennis, published in the August 11 Mercury, concludes that Tasmanians "have one of the best liberty ports that [the US Navy] visits".
Oh really? The Liberal premier at the time, Tony Rundle, had just declared that "too many criminals are getting off too lightly". He added that prison is where the "Tasmanian public" wants to put criminals who continue to offend.
I am a member of the Tasmanian public, but I do not want criminals in prison simply because they continue to offend. Rather, I want to know why they continue to offend. I want to know why the prison system is still drawn upon to solve the very problems that arise from that system.
There is no easy answer to criminal behaviour, but it is important to point out the silent population who also suffer the punishment inflicted upon their loved ones. As one of those people, I must break the silence that allows any government to assume that the "public" wants to put more people in prison.
Now, in Tasmania, most prisoners are men. Those of us who love a man in prison — a "criminal" — are punished alongside our husbands, sons, fathers and so on. Wives, partners, friends, children and parents of "criminals" have no rights with respect to our relationship with the prisoner.
Prison regulations dictate that we do not know what goes on inside, and we are left wondering whether the one we love is being beaten or raped.
We cannot call our beloved by telephone — unless there is a dire emergency. We have no right to talk to that person when we need to, let alone when we want to — the prison authorities must determine that our need is "genuine".
To rub salt into the wound, at Risdon Prison we are told to arrive 10 minutes early for our precious contact visits, and are then left waiting for half an hour in a cold and unpleasant room for no apparent reason.
Even at Hayes minimum security prison, we are not given adequate warmth and shelter, and are required to sit for six hours with numb feet and hands.
I am only one member of a public from which around 1000 men are incarcerated each year. Even if we assume that only half of the prison population maintains contact with those of us on the outside, that's a lot of people whose rights are being ignored in the crackdown on "crime".
Only when we do not try to hide this festering wound and admit that the prison-focused "treatment" for crime is not working; only when the prison system recognises the rights of prisoners and those who care about them — only then will we be a truly "liberal" society.