Chaplain calls for prison reform

Kim Waters
VICTORIA’S prisons are overflowing with inmates who “should not be there”, according to a Victorian Prison Chaplaincy coordinator.
Chaplain Jenny Hayes called on state and federal governments to change imprisonment laws, saying facilities were crowded with “80 percent” of prisoners who “should not be there”.
Ms Hayes shared stories of her 16 years volunteering at Lara’s Margoneet Correctional Centre at a Portarlington community breakfast last month, saying she had met hundreds of prisoners who would be “better off” in rehab for drug, alcohol or gambling dependence.
“So many of the people in prison are there because they haven’t paid traffic fines or have been caught up in drug trafficking to pay gambling debts,” Ms Hayes said.
“There are a lot of women at Margoneet who have come to Australia to escape the poverty in their country and traffic drugs to make money and then end up in prison.”
She believed only 20 per cent of prisoners “needed to be punished with prison time” and only five per cent could “never be released” back into public.
“About 75 per cent of the prison population have some kind of acquired brain injury for whatever reason and would be better off in a mental health facility.”
Ms Hayes believed a system like that in Norway, where prisoners work full time in the community each day before returning back to prison at night, would work at Margoneet and Barwon Prison.