Radio Netherlands reports that Australia’s first “human rights” prison is now open in Canberra.
The prison, which can house up to 300 co-ed inmates, was designed with “restorative justice” principals in mind, to help prisoners maintain a sense of self-respect to enable their rehabilitation.
It boasts bright color schemes, views of nature and reinforced plastic, instead of bars, for the windows.
“Prisoners can’t leave the grounds but they don’t have to be treated like animals in a cage,” one official said.
Half of the inmates will live in small groups in cottages, while traditional cellblocks for higher-risk prisoners will be somewhat larger, and feature individual toilets.
–Julia Hengst/Newsdesk.org
Source:
“The ultimate prison?”
Radio Netherlands, January 15, 2009
The principle of “restorative justice” or what I would like to call “rehabilitative justice” would work better to produce results in people’s lives that most of the current prison systems around the world have not produced. Australia is taking the lead again just as it took the lead in the effort to produce a cashless society.