RESOURCE MATERIAL SERIES No. 56

INNOVATIONS IN CORRECTIONAL SERVICES AN
EXCURSION THROUGH THE CHANGING PRISONS CULTURE
OF VICTORIAJohn Brian Griffin*
ABSTRACT
Victorian prisons have witnessedsignificant changes over the past decade:from 1988 when there were a multitude ofinquiries into prisoner incidents, deaths
and corruption, through the turbulent
beginnings of unit and individual prisoner
management, to the creation of statewide
Drug, Violence and Sex Offender Strategies
and the contracting out of key servicesculminating in the privitisation of 45% of
the prisoner population and the closure ofold prison stock.
For CORE- the Public Correctional
Enterprise, Victoria’s public corrections
agency, the journey has been one ofsignificant organisational and culturalchange, and progression to a learningorganisation. This is clearly reflected in
the way we manage prisoners. “Just gaols”
have at their foundation, professional staffprisoner relationships and theempowerment of staff and prisoners. They
welcome scrutiny and challenges to oldpractices.
Marked changes in culture and prisoner
management mean that prisoners have agreater opportunity to return to thecommunity with more skills. The challengeahead however is to achieve the rhetoric of
rehabilitation and demonstrate to thecommunity that we have a system that‘works’.
* Chief Executive Officer, Core-the Public
Correctional Enterprise, Department of Justice,
Australia.

16“Pain is an enduring feature of thecorrectional enterprise. We must
accept this hard reality, and quite
explicitly attempt to promote growththrough adversity. This is a genuine
correctional agenda. For men who
cope maturely with prison, I willargue, are men who have grown as
human beings and been rehabilitatedin the process.”(Johnson, 1996, p.97)
I. INTRODUCTION
The tendency to use imprisonment as apunishment for crime has risen and fallen
over the years, depending on the attitudeof the courts, and the public’s tolerance ofcrime. Despite the differing views andopinions people hold of imprisonment, it
will remain an important feature ofsentencing in the foreseeable future.
Rightly or wrongly, in Australia, thecommunity still sees imprisonment as themost effective way of protecting itself fromfears. Nevertheless, to the community,
imprisonment is a double edge sword: onthe one side it offers protection, throughdeterrence and incapacitation; and on theother, it is expensive and damaging to thecommunity, possibly causing an escalationin crime among many individuals who are
eventually released.
Imprisonment emerged as a major formof punishment for crimes during the lateeighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,
coinciding with the period of“Enlightenment” in Europe and the112TH INTERNATIONAL TRAINING COURSE
VISITING EXPERTS’ PAPERS
industrial revolution, replaced earlier
forms of punishment that took their toll
upon physical pain and social
embarrassment.

few and isolated exceptions, therehabilitative efforts that have beenreported so far have no appreciable effecton recidivism”.

The early aim of imprisonment was toachieve the “moral salvation” of theoffender through the provision of harsh,
deterrent and retributive justice. Prison
programs, such as they were, facilitatedthis aim by providing hard labour andreligious indoctrination.

Secondly, after a series of incidents andenquiries (such as the Jenkinson Inquiry
in 1972) there was a general recognition
that prisoners were citizens with legally
enforceable rights. There was a time whena prison conviction often meant “civil
death”, a cruel form of punishment
expressly acknowledging a prisoner ’s
permanent removal from free society. It is
now argued that prisoners should beentitled to the same rights as a free citizen,
except where the nature of the confinement
necessarily requires modification.

By the mid 20th century, the aims ofreformation and rehabilitation had cometo be given equal status to those ofdeterrence and retribution. In the 1950s
and 1960s the belief that the purpose of
imprisonment included the “treatment andtraining” of prisoners had become fully
established and accepted by the wider
community.
Under this “treatment model”, programsin the State of Victoria multiplied and there
was a general feeling that prisons could
succeed in rehabilitating offenders.
Psychiatric services were introduced in theearly 1950s. Parole was introduced in 1955
in order to allow “rehabilitated” prisoners
the benefit of early (conditional) release.
Training prisons were identified based on
the theory that a strong work ethic in theprison system would produce rehabilitatedoffenders. The classification system wasadopted by Victoria as a means ofdifferentiating prisoners according to theirdifferent treatment needs.

These two developments led to the“justice model” of punishment and to thenotion of the purpose of imprisonment as
being “humane containment”. This viewhas been sustained since the 1980s and is
still current today. There was during this“justice model” era an increasing emphasison physical security and a growing
concentration on prisoners’ rights, rather
than their needs. The rhetoric of treatment
and training had had its day. Programs
were provided for prisoners to access only
if they wished. Correctional agencies did
not perceive that they had any
responsibility for encouraging prisoners toundertake programs. The belief was that
only properly motivated prisoners would
benefit from participation in prion
programs.

In the mid 1970s the feeling of optimism
began to change for two reasons. Firstly,
the publication of a report by Lipton,
Martinson and Wilkes (1975) which
seriously questioned the efficacy of thetreatment models. After examining theevaluation reports of 231 correctional
programs in the US, dating from 1945 to
1967, the researchers concluded that “withIt is clear that prison programs in an
historical sense through the “justice model”
have focused on the “rehabilitation” of theoffender; ensuring the prisoner does not
reoffend after release. Even during thehumane containment era, prison programs
were conceived of as being related to theprisoner’s capacity to cease reoffending.
They were viewed cynically by the majority

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RESOURCE MATERIAL SERIES No. 56
of correctional practitioners for this very
reason. The evidence suggested that
programs could not succeed inrehabilitating offenders. Prison programs
were offered only if prisoners sought themout and expressed a desire to participate.
The rhetoric of the time identified it as theprisoner’s responsibility to rehabilitate
themselves.
Another purpose of prison programs is
only just now emerging. Rather thanfocussing solely on the goal of rehabilitationand therefore “outwards” and into the
future, prison programs are increasingly
focussing “inwards” and upon the present
and upon the goal of providing positive andeffective custodial management. This iswhat is termed as “positive custody”.
Building upon the humane containment
era, the “positive custody” model recognisesthat imprisonment can be “criminogenic”
or can increase the likelihood of future
crime and can promote immature coping
behaviours by prisoners. Prison programs
as part of the “positive custody” canenhance the safe and secure managementof prisons and promote the development of
mature coping skills which are equally
relevant within and on release from prison.
Achieving Positive Custody-Prison
systems can intensify the social conditions
that lead to offending behaviour. For
instance prisons have the potential to:• Alienate prisoners by failing to givethem any say in the management of
their lives and by removing them fromtheir normal environment;• disempower prisoners by failing toprovide adequate and accessible
information about the system and theway that it works;• bore prisoners by failing to provide
activities that effectively occupy theirtime;• provide opportunities for crime by

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failing to provide adequate supervisionor the means for prisoners to be safe or
to protect their personal belongings;
promote sub-cultural norms by failingto provide adequate supervision or themeans for prisoners to be safe or toprotect their personal belongings;
promote continued poverty by failing toprovide prosocial leadership and by
allowing gangs to be maintained inprisons;
reinforce patriarchal social norms byhaving a majority of male staff andprisoners with no active considerationof the needs of female staff or prisoners;
andpromote undesirable outcomes ofdeinstitutionalisation by failing to
involve relevant agencies in the
supervision of the psychiatrically ill or
intellectually disabled.

In order to achieve positive custody,
prisons should emulate within their walls
the society that is not “criminogenic”. To
do so, prisons must adopt community
standards as a base but at the same time
be less alienating, more empowering, moreconstructive and more egalitarian.
Managing people within prisons is acomplex affair. Complex, because
invariably it involves the need to balance
a number of conflicting needs and aims.
Stakeholder analysis has shown myorganisation, CORE-the Public
Correctional Enterprise, that these needs
and aims are described as:“custody, safety, crime prevention,
deterrence, reform, containment,
control, incapacitation, punishment,
retribution, restraint, rehabilitation,
constructive activity, justness, therapy
and training”.
Johnson (1996) argues strongly that a
traditional hierarchal system of prison

112TH INTERNATIONAL TRAINING COURSE
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management “conditions” those associatedwith it, that includes both staff andprisoners, to cope “immaturely”. He goeson to say that modern prison systems
should be re-structured in such a way as
to encourage what he calls “mature coping”.
Certainly to become more effective,
imprisonment must continue to offer theprotection of incapacitation and deterrence
but at the same time it must lessen theharmful effects of the experience. Biles(1992) argues that the totality of theexperience of the prisoner must be
considered when developing a regime to
manage the offender whilst challenging(and changing) antisocial or criminal
behaviour. I strongly believe that goodmanagement and leadership can only
achieve this.
In terms of management, this meansthat prison staff must provide prisoners
with the opportunity to develop or maintainskills that will enhance their chances ofleading a law-abiding lifestyle after theirrelease. Skills that lead the individual toaccept greater responsibility, self relianceand self discipline. In terms of leadershipit means that prison staff- all prison staff must serve as strong examples of honesty,
fairness, tolerance, patience andunderstanding. In essence, goodmanagement and leadership are theessential features of prison work and are
our prime collective responsibility. To failthat responsibility is to fail ourselves andto fail to provide the community withprotection beyond the prisoner’s term of
imprisonment and prisons remain “justgaols”.
How does CORE- the Public Correctional
Enterprise respond to this challenge? The
greatest single endeavour of public
corrections in Victoria over the past decade
has been to change the culture of ourprisons and CORE as a whole. I would liketo take you on a brief journey through thesignificant events in Victorian prisons overthe past 10 years that have shaped the
management of prisons to go beyond “justgaols”. I believe we now have to talk about
the challenges ahead and deliver on
rehabilitation and harm minimisation
strategies.
Probably the blackest day in Victoria’s
prison history was the death of fiveprisoners in October 1987 in a fire at Jika
Jika, a high security, management unit inPentridge Prison. On the heels of thistragedy were numerous internal andexternal inquiries into incidents, deaths,
drugs, accountability, corruption and maladministration within the then Office ofCorrections. It was a demanding time forme to take on the responsibilities as thethen Director of Prisons, because it was at
this time that changes to the way wemanage prisoners in Victoria really began
in earnest. We are entering the era ofhumane containment going beyond theconcept of “just gaols”. In the early 1990s
CORE (the then Office of Corrections)developed a framework to encompass all
aspects of the prison environment,
including regimes, programs and prison“culture” and worked to establish, develop
and exploit the synergistic links between
each in order to maximise the potential for
successful rehabilitation of Victorianprisoners.
What is “rehabilitation”? Complete lossof freedom is the maximum punishment
our law permits. The length of time that
freedom is lost depends on many factors;
the crime, the circumstances, the intentionof the offender, prior history, displays ofremorse and the plea. The court will also
weigh the need for: retribution; specificdeterrence; general deterrence;
rehabilitation and parsimony. In balancing
these considerations, no two cases areexactly the same.

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RESOURCE MATERIAL SERIES No. 56
Whilst rehabilitation often implies therestoration of a previous level offunctioning, for example learning to walkagain after a physical injury, this is not a
useful definition when talking about the“rehabilitation” of offenders. Their levelof functioning before entering the prison
system may not have been conducive to theultimate goal of prosocial and lawful
behaviour. For example, a prisoner may
have had poor living and vocational skills
prior to incarceration. Thus rehabilitationin the first instance must refer to equipping
prisoners for making a living or integrating
into the community in a prosocial andlawful manner, and will in many instances
involve a gradual process of acquiring new
skills and challenging offence related
behaviours.
Successful rehabilitation is generally
taken to mean that a prisoner will not reoffend after release. This may not always
be a realistic goal given that most offenders
will need to make substantial attitudinal
personality and behavioural changes anddevelop educational, vocational, social andliving skills in order to increase thelikelihood that they can successfully
maintain themselves in the community. It
may therefore be more useful to measure
the effectiveness of rehabilitation in termsof altered offending patterns, such as
reduced seriousness of offending, orincreased time periods of re-offending.
A. The Purpose of Prison Programs
A rehabilitative environment
encompasses all aspects of the prison
environment, including regimes, programs
and prison “culture”, and synergistic links
between these different facets must be
established and exploited in order tomaximise the potential for successful
rehabilitation. Thus, while programs canmake a strong contribution to theachievement of a rehabilitativeenvironment, a broader strategy including:

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promoting humane and effective
management strategies; the successful
adoption of unit management, andpromoting the input of the programs team
into management approaches is crucial toachieving the goal of “positive custody”.
The potential contribution of prison
programs to achieving these objectives canbe summarised under the following
headings:(i) p r o g r a m s w h i c h c r e a t e a nenvironment conductive torehabilitation:• programs which provide basic
standards of care;• programs which seek to create arehabilitative environment;(ii) programs which prepare prisoners to
re-enter society:• programs which provide prisoners
with integration skills;• programs which seek to reduce
offending behaviour.
Programs which provide basic standardsof care and which seek to create arehabilitative environment should receive
the highest priority. Both contribute to thegoal of developing a prosocial prison
environment, which is conductive to change
and to the development of mature coping
skills. Programs which prepare prisoners
to re-enter society, including those directed
towards reducing specific offending
behaviour, tend to be more successful
within a rehabilitative environment.
These program categories apply equally
to male and female prisoners, as well as tospecial groups within the prison population(such as Aboriginal prisoners and young
adults). The different needs of groups ofprisoners will be relevant to the design ofprograms rather than modifying theiroverall purpose.

112TH INTERNATIONAL TRAINING COURSE
VISITING EXPERTS’ PAPERS
II. PROGRAMS WHICH CREATE AN
ENVIRONMENT CONDUCTIVE TOREHABILITATION
Rehabilitation and education of
offenders is a priority. However, programs
targeted towards reducing offending
behaviour are best provided in anenvironment that actively encourages
prisoners to use their time constructively,
and provides basic standards of care.
A. Programs Which Provide BasicStandards of Care
The first and most important duty ofprison administrators must be to provide
basic standards of care for prisoners, andsuch programs must receive the highest
priority.
Programs, which fit into this category,include:• Primary medical and psychiatric care(addressing the physical and mental
problems of prisoners).
• Crisis intervention (addressing theimmediate needs of distressed or
suicidal prisoners).
• Classification programs (achieving
safety and security for all prisoners
by differentiating between groups ofprisoners based on their risk andneeds).
• Legal aid (providing prisoners withadequate access to legal
representation).
B. Programs Which Seek to Create a
Rehabilitative Environment
Creating a positive, rehabilitativeenvironment within the prison system isessential if prisons are to cease being
criminogenic in nature, and if the prison
conditions are to be conducive torehabilitation. Prisons should not intensify
the social conditions that have lead tocriminal behaviour in the first place, butmust provide a pro-social environment
which:• is conducive to change;• challenges rather than supports or
accepts offending behaviour;• provides pro-social modelling;• minimises harm;• promotes self-esteem;• maximises prisoners’ self-control andsense of control over theirenvironment and their future;• encourages prisoners to takeresponsibility for their actions;• promotes mature coping skills.
Programs which seek to contribute to arehabilitative environment can reduce theopportunity for crime to occur within aprison, and can provide a forum in which
staff can provide pro-social leadership.
Such programs seek to occupy the time ofprisoners and so reduce the boredom that
may lead to management problems within
the prison. These programs may also
provide the potential for the acquisition ofbasic skills and interests that may assist
prisoners to undertake more constructive
activities and leisure pursuits on theirrelease from prison.
Programs which assist to create arehabilitative environment include:• Reception and orientation programsreception into custody (providing
prisoners with information about theprison system and allowing them tolearn how to deal positively with thehere and now of their imprisonment).
• Reception and orientation programstransfer between prisons (providing
prisoners with information about theprison system, and options for
program participation).
• Drug and infectious diseaseeducation programs (providing
prisoners with information about

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RESOURCE MATERIAL SERIES No. 56

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drug and alcohol use and infectious
diseases).
Recreation (reducing boredom andpromoting productive use of leisuretime by providing interesting andpleasurable sporting and hobby
activities).
Contact visits (promoting themaintenance of essential links withfamily and friends).
Spirituality (allowing prisoners toreceive the support of their faith).
General welfare and counselling(addressing the welfare needs andproblems of prisoners).

III. PROGRAMS WHICH PREPAREPRISONERS TO RE-ENTER
SOCIETY
Rehabilitation, education and reform are
an integral part of the prison system, andpreparing prisoners for constructive andnon-violent participation in community life
upon their release must be a priority. The
prison system must provide opportunities
for prisoners to participate in programs,
which reduce offending behaviours andencourage citizenship, and must actively
support and encourage such participation.
Programs which prepare prisoners to reenter society include programs which
provide prisoners with basic skills tofacilitate integration, and programs
targeted at offending behaviour.
A. Programs Which Provide
Prisoners with Integration Skills
Programs targeted at assisting
prisoners’ reintegration into thecommunity provide the potential for theacquisition of skills that may assist
prisoners to pursue education, findemployment or use their time in a moreconstructive manner on their release fromprison. Such programs may include;• Prison industries (promoting work
skills and habits through the
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provision of rewarding and usefulwork).
Education and Training (promoting
skills acquisition relevant to thelabour market by providing
accredited training and basic
education for prisoners).
Release preparation (providing a
range of life skills programs thatassist the prisoner’s return to thecommunity).
Custodial Community Permit
Program (allowing long-term
prisoners the opportunity togradually re-establish family ties andreadjust to life in the community
prior to their release).
Community Integration Program(providing prisoners due for releasewith practical and essential
information to assist theirreintegration into the community).
Integration Programs (increasing
prisoners’ practical living skills
necessary to re-enter thecommunity).
Personal development programs(increasing prisoners’ personal andsocial skills through programs
including adventure-based challenge
programs, communication skills,social skills, etc).

B. Programs Which Seek to Reduce
Offending Behaviour
Programs which seek to reduce offending
behaviour will either be related directly tooffence types or to underlying problems
within the individual that have caused theoffending behaviour. Treatment programs
and programs targeted at offence-related
behaviour include;• Drug and alcohol treatment
programs.
• Sex offender treatment ormanagement programs.
• V i o l e n t o f f e n d e r Tr e a t m e n t

112TH INTERNATIONAL TRAINING COURSE
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Programs.
• Drink-drive programs.
In 1988 F Division, previously a prisoner
accommodation unit at Pentridge prison in
Melbourne, was developed into a state-wide
reception and assessment program centre
for all newly received male prisoners
entering the Victorian prison system. For
the first time, remandees and sentenced
prisoners were given a comprehensive
induction into the prison system that
included medical assessments, screening
for risk and providing information about
the prison system and options for program
participation. In the five years prior to thecreation of the reception and assessment
program, there had been twenty-six
suicides in Victorian prisons. In the five
years following the introduction of thisprogram, six prisoners committed suicide.
In 1989 and 1990 three new 250 bed
prisons were commissioned in Victoria toreplace old facilities. They were theMelbourne Remand Centre, Barwon andLoddon, each with single self-contained cellaccommodation. CORE, the Public
Correctional Enterprise, manages each ofthese prisons. Moves to change theinfrastructure of our other facilities alsobegan and our large, old divisions where
we previously ‘warehoused’ prisoners werer e - f u r b i s h e d i n t o s m a l l e r, m o r emanageable and livable units. Sanitation
was provided to all prisons, cells refurbished and large dormitories were
replaced by smaller rooms with amaximum of four prisoners.
This was also the time that unit
management was borne in Victoria,
wherein prisoners were managed insmaller groups, with high levels ofinteraction between staff and prisoners andthe requirement for prisoners to takegreater accountability for their lives inprison (Griffin, 1995).

Unit management provided theframework for achieving a positive
custodial environment. In a unit managed
prison, prisoners have the opportunity tohave a say in the management andorganisation of their lives through thedevelopment of individual management
plans in tandem with their supervisingprison officer and through unit meetings.
They are therefore potentially lessalienated by the justice system.
The opportunity to have input into thedevelopment of individual management
plans and the capacity for prisoners to get
to know their supervising prison officers
also provides a means for prisoners to haveaccess to information about the way a
prison system works.
Under unit management, prisoners aremanaged in small groups by staff who know
them. They receive closer scrutiny andsurveillance which leads to increased
security, feelings of safety, less opportunity
for crime and lessened potential for gang
formation and maintenance. Barriers
between staff and prisoners are broken
down in unit managed prisons so that staff
have the capacity to provide prosocial
leadership to prisoners.
The Individual Management Plan (IMP)was also created as part of UnitManagement. This is a file in which all
information pertaining to the prisoner’s
sentence, management and participation
in industry, education and programs wasdetailed. Prison officers are trained tobroaden their traditional roles to include
prisoner assessment and orientation,individual management planning, general
welfare and counseling, and recreational
planning.
All of these initiatives helped
tremendously in our endeavour to work

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RESOURCE MATERIAL SERIES No. 56
towards a safe, secure, humane and justenvironment for both prisoners and staff.
Prisoners began to feel more empowered.
They could make decisions affecting theirown lives. They could choose when to
shower, they had a greater choice of
canteen items, in many locations they could
cook their own meals, they could apply for
positions in industry, they were educatedthrough the external educational TAFE
campuses at each location, rather than by
primary school teachers, they could
commence and complete programs
regardless of which prison they werehoused in, and they had a choice of a rangeof programs and activities directed at
integration and rehabilitation. They began
to talk to officers about what they wanted
and expected from the prison system toensure that the Individual Management
Plan recorded their working toward theirrelease.
The use of Individual Management
Plans (IMPS) meant prisoners wererequired to be more accountable for theiractions and were required to take greater
personal responsibility than they had
under previous regimes.
In the mid 1990s, CORE developed
Strategies relating to Drugs, Violence andSex Offenders, which provided clear
direction for the management of suchoffenders within the prison and methodsof addressing their offending behaviour.
For example, in regard to drugs, from theoutset the results of the Drug Strategy
were promising. Results indicateddecreased drug use and a reduction in thenumber of violent incidents andstandovers. However one of theunfortunate paradoxes of this detection,
deterrence and treatment paradigm is thatthose who elect to continue to use drugs inprison tend to do so now more unsafely
because our ability to find injecting
equipment and associated paraphernalia

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is much improved and they resort to unsafe
injecting practices.
The way CORE has re-developed
Bendigo prison in country Victoria is
exemplary as far as progressive prisoner
management is concerned. Bendigo prison
accommodates up to 80 medium security
male prisoners for whom drugs and related
harmful behaviours have contributed totheir incarceration. The prison offers a
range of treatment options to substanceabusers within a “community prison”
environment. CORE has contracted witha provider of specialist offender
psychological services and a well-respected
community drug and alcohol agency.
Prisoners are assessed and matched toprograms of varying intensity andduration. An essential element of thesuccess of the program is the positiveenvironment; created by prisoners andprison and treatment staff that reinforces
personal accountability, mutual respect
and a commitment to model community
values.
However these approaches only went
part way to dealing with the problem.
Breaking open the ‘closed rank mentality’and challenging the way prison officers
related to prisoners brought about the realdifference to prisoner management in
Victoria. In the words of Vivien Stern:“The prison officer is at the centre of
the system. And the prison officer’s
job is crucial to a humane andcivilised system. This is where reform
has to start”(Stern, 1975, p.94)
In 1991, in a move unprecedented in
Victorian prison history, six officers werecharged with assault for the violence thatwas perpetrated on a prisoner who wasbeing transferred between divisions. To be
brutalised by the relationships one has in112TH INTERNATIONAL TRAINING COURSE
VISITING EXPERTS’ PAPERS
prison is a most damaging experience for
persons whose histories are typicallymarked by pain and abuse, for whom thispain and abuse is a factor in their offending
behaviour and who will one day be released
from prison into the community.
In 1996, CORE implemented one of themost important elements of its Strategy for
Violence Prevention, namely conflict
resolution training of all prison staff. This
training, rolled out by trained prison
officers, further empowered staff byoffering them skills to manage themselves
and their relationships with prisoners. Aninteresting outcome of the training wasthat staff feedback also told us that thetraining impacted on their home lives in apositive way.
Lateral entry across all levels in
Corrections and new paradigms ofcorrectional management challenged thedecade-old mentality that the only way one
could be appointed as a prison governor
was by coming up through the ranks. We
now recognise that to manage a prison, one
needs to be a good general manager, aleader and an enabler, not necessarily agood custodian. CORE has invested a great
deal of resources in ensuring our senior
managers receive diverse leadership andmanagement training. We have also
invested heavily in succession planning.
One example of CORE’s commitment tostaff training is its strong support andleadership role in developing National
Competency Standards for all Officers
working in Corrections. Under unit
management the base grade officer has
been empowered to make decisions in asignificant number of areas; a marked
departure from the traditional hierarchicalstructure where even the most mundaneof decisions required the manager’s action.
(Griffin, 1995). To enable these changes tooccur, we attempted to work differently, lessantagonistically with the unions and havebeen successful in pushing through manychanges as a result.
In a move that in hindsight advanced
the public corrections reform agenda bycreating a sense of urgency, the Victorian
Government called for expressions ofinterest from the private sector to build,own and operate two X 600 bed facilities
for males and one X 125 bed female facility.
These prisons were to replace existing
public sector prisons and lead to thedecommissioning of five old Victorian era
public prisons and the retrenchment of justover 600 staff. CORE then had theopportunity to assist staff moves who either
did not have the skill mix or the wish toenter into a new era in corrections.
Through these changes CORE-the
Public Correctional Enterprise has
accepted the challenge of a competitive
business environment and is developing
into a learning organisation. We haveadopted the Business Excellenceframework of the Australian Quality
Council; we’re surveying offenders,prisoners, staff, and other stakeholders on
their expectations of our performance. We
have developed our own identity andclearly articulated our mission, vision,values and behaviours to our staff.
We are moving from being “just gaols”
in the sense of “simply” or “only” prisons,to “just gaols” or “fair” prisons and beyond
that of a correctional organisation thatstrives to offer a range of products(placement options, services and programsfor prisoners) in a competitive environment
in an attempt to match the individual
needs of the prisoner.
I believe we have come a long way, andfrom structured feedback mechanisms
know that the majority of prisoners
perceive the prison system as fair and25

RESOURCE MATERIAL SERIES No. 56
generally safe. It no longer offers theexcesses it did previously. In the event of
disciplinary action and sanctions being
necessary, they are anticipated and do notconstitute a flagrant abuse of power andposition. In a system that is fair andwithout excesses, and where prisoners canquestion why things are done a certain way- where there is fundamentally a sense ofjustice, then prisoners are less damaged bytheir experience and more easy to manage.

development influenced by the outcomes ofcontrolled evaluation studies. We must
continue to promote professional staffprisoner interactions - wherein prison staff
serve as strong examples of honesty,
fairness, tolerance, patience andunderstanding (Griffin, 1995). From thiswill develop a prison experience that is
empowering for both prisoners and prison
staff, rather than defeating.

Mature problem solving builds selfesteem, which in turn produces confidence
and resilience in the individual and often
makes failure manageable. Our challenge
as providers of correctional services is tooffer prisoners an environment in which
this growth can occur, wherein mature
coping is modelled by our staff.

Programs in the late 1990’s are integral
to the purposes of imprisonment. Where
once the purpose of imprisonment wasnothing more than humane containment(and the priority task related to security
and custody), the purpose of imprisonment
now includes a requirement that there be
active attempts to rehabilitate prisoners,
and it is acknowledged that this can only
occur within an environment that is
conducive to such rehabilitation. This mustbe achieved through a combining of unit
management and effective prison programs
and prison security. In the past, prison
security has been used as an excuse for notproviding effective prison programs.
Prison security will be maintained in sucha system through closer surveillance, staff
personal knowledge of prisoners andthrough effective occupation of prisoners’
time. Security is part of the process ofcreating a rehabilitative environment, notexcluded from it. This new humane
containment model, will be achieved
through a combining of the many facets ofthe prison system such as programs,
management approach and security inorder to achieve a meaningful environment
for prisoners which promotes pro-social
behaviour and prepares prisoners toeffectively reintegrate into society.

We must continue to offer high quality
programs to assist prisoners’ maturationand skill development, but also start asking
the hard questions about “what works” andbeing prepared to have our program

And, remembering the words of Johnsonthat I started with, that pain is the harshreality of imprisonment, we must makeconcerted efforts to establish a greater
range of diversion programs that offer

But the bar needs to be set even higher.
All prisons have the capacity to challenge
the immature and destructive ways
prisoners deal with their imprisonment
experience and the other elements of theirlives. Robert Johnson’s concept of “mature
coping” has application here. It means:• dealing with life’s problems like a
responsive and responsible humanbeing;• seeking autonomy without violating
the rights of others (the premise here
being that prisoners with a sense ofcontrol over their lives adjust betterto prison and to life on the outside);• security without resort to deception
or violence and relatedness to others
as the fullest expression of humanidentity (wherein trust replaces
power as a mode of problem solving).

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112TH INTERNATIONAL TRAINING COURSE
VISITING EXPERTS’ PAPERS
reparative value to the community whilst
allowing the offender to maintain family
and social supports and access tocommunity treatment resources.
The notion that staff and inmates canshare a constructive agenda- that theymight work together in service of a
prison community that promotes
mature coping and responsible
citizenship- looms as a distinct
possibility for perhaps the first timein prison history
Johnson, 1996, p.89
Prisoners must cope maturely withthe demands of prison life; if they donot, the prison experience will simply
add to their catalogue of failure anddefeat. Mature coping, in fact, does
more than prevent one’s prison life
from becoming yet another series of
personal setbacks. It is at the core ofwhat we mean by correction or
rehabilitation, and thus creates thepossibility of a more constructive life
after release from prisonJohnson, 1996, p.98

Catching and Keeping, p.117-129, Centre
for Police and Justice Studies, Monash
University.
King D., Goss E., Haas I. (1993), The
Purpose of Programs in Prisons: Working
Towards Rehabilitation, Correctional
Services Division, Department of Justice,
Victoria, Australia.
Johnson R. (1996), Hard time:
understanding and reforming the prison,
Wadsworth, USA, second edition.
Latessa, Edward & Allen, Harry (1997),
Corrections in the Community, Cincinnati,
USA.
Lipton D., Martinson R., and Wilks(1975), The Effectiveness of Correctional
Treatment, New York, NY Praeger, USA.
Report of the Board of Inquiry into
Allegations of Brutality and Ill-Treatmentof Prisoners at HM Prison Pentridge (TheJenkinson Inquiry), Parliamentary Papers(Vic.), Australia.
Stern V. (1987), Bricks of Shame:
Britain’s Prisons, Penguin, England.

REFERENCES
Biles D., Offenders and their Treatment:
An Australian Perspective, 3rd Conferenceof Commonwealth Correctional
Administrators, Harare 9-15 May, 1992.
Australian Institute of Criminology,
Canberra.
CORE (Correctional Services Division),
Department of Justice, Victoria, Australia,
Prison Programs-Achieving Positive
Custody, Policy Document 1992.
Griffin J. (1995), Modern Prison
Management. In Ellem, B.(Ed.), Beyond

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