Recently, a worrying news has swept across Australia – a 440,000-strong job shortage has led to understaffing in many of Australia's prisons, some of which will face an unattended disaster as early as March, threatening the whole of Australia.
The Australian Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) reported that the current outbreak of the "prison police shortage" is very serious. Due to the shortage of prison staff, many prisons and detention centers have had to reduce the time prisoners spend in the air, and even adopt the strategy of locking prisoners in cells for extended periods of time.
This extraordinary practice in extraordinary times further exacerbates the situation -
Prisoners lost control and became violent due to prolonged lockdowns, while prison guards, who were already understaffed, chose to leave their posts due to the rapid deterioration of the working environment and long overtime.
Just recently, a 48-hour strike by all prison guards at Parklea Prison in western Sydney added fuel to the situation.
An anonymous prison guard said in an interview with the media that the prison has had two large-scale riots in the past 18 months, and the cause of the riots was precisely because the criminals knew that the prison guards were insufficient, so they were extremely arrogant.
Similar situations have occurred in Victoria's Marngoneet, Loddon and Hopkins prisons.
It can be seen that if the situation continues to deteriorate, overcrowded prisons and understaffed prison guards may transmit this crisis to the community level, posing a serious threat to the security of Australian society.
So, apart from the macro factor of labor shortage, why is there a huge shortage of prison guards?
First, let's take a look at the entry requirements for prison guards.
As can be seen from the job advertisement on the recruitment website Seek, prison guards are generally divided into 2 categories:
- Correctional Officer: responsible for direct management of criminals, patrols, security, etc
- Support Officer: Responsible for searching for prohibited items, managing and monitoring, arranging prison visits, etc
In terms of qualifications, taking a recent job advertisement by G4S, a British security company responsible for managing many prisons in Victoria, as an example, the position is not demanding on academic qualifications, and applicants can pass:
- Certificate III in Correctional Practice: 9 weeks of course, followed by 24 months of assessment
- Bachelor of Criminology: 3 years of study plus on-the-job training
The vast majority of these front-line prison guards have completed their entry through Level 3 certification, plus on-the-job training, and these positions do not require any experience.
Secondly, in terms of salary, the salary of training in ordinary prisons is 51,500 Australian dollars per year (plus pension), the salary will rise to 65,000 Australian dollars (plus pension) in the first year of employment, and the salary will be raised again to 72,000 Australian dollars (plus pension) after the second year of employment.
For the position of prison officer holding the prison for serious offenders, the salary level will reach 85,000 Australian dollars (plus pension), and the entry requirements are only one more "physical must be strong".
In this way, in addition to the working environment is a short board, this position is actually more attractive than many occupations in society in terms of entry requirements, salary and education.
Taking entry-level finance jobs in Sydney and Melbourne as an example, these positions for university graduates usually start at 5~60,000 Australian dollars a year, in addition to 9 to 5, weekends also need to work overtime.
In addition, the entry threshold of financial positions is basically a bachelor's degree or above in business, so the tuition and time costs of three years of university must also be calculated, and the assessment fees of various types of employment certificates are not included.
So why is such a generous salary still unable to fill the hole in prison positions?
More importantly, if key posts cannot be filled by March, how will Australia's overcrowded prisons operate and how will social security be guaranteed?
In particular, the "African Junior Gang" and various vicious law and order cases that have swept Melbourne in the past five years have lost its aura of this immigration mecca that was once "the world's most livable city".
So, five years later, with the "prison police shortage", what has become of Victoria's crime rate, especially the number of juvenile offenders?
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Jon Faine, a senior reporter for The Century, looked into the figures and came with striking results – there were only 34 juvenile offenders in Melbourne's youth detention centres in a week of random selection in Q4 2022.
If you add the 78 teenagers in the detention centre, the total is only 112, compared with Victoria's population base of 6.5 million, which is only 0.0017%.
The number of juvenile offenders has fallen so fast that the Melbourne Juvenile Centre in Parkville is empty and is scheduled to be demolished in the near future.
In addition to juvenile detention, the 1,000-bed Lara prison, which houses adult offenders, has not been operational since its completion, and the Victorian Government has yet to give further instructions to the $1 billion prison.
This set of unexpected data contrasts with the recent media hype of "prison fullness" and "prison police shortage".
The answer to this seemingly contradictory question was boldly pointed out by Jon Faine - "Prison, law and order, and crime are three trump cards for any politician." ”
For the ruling party, the construction of large prisons, the increase in prison beds and the deployment of additional security personnel are standard answers to promises of law and order to voters.
The infrastructure construction, employment and consequent multiplier effects brought about by this set of operations will also be the icing on the cake for the economic development of the ruling party's jurisdiction.
Kill two birds with one stone, why not?
For the opposition, it is similar to seize the security loopholes (such as the increase in crime) during the ruling party's administration, and promise to further increase funds for the construction of prisons and other facilities if elected.
In short, the security card is a universal card.
This also explains why, on the one hand, crime rates are falling dramatically, while prisons are far from understaffed.
In addition, the data also show that the construction of large prisons and detention centers is not conducive to the rehabilitation of criminals, because many released prisoners are far more likely to re-offend after reintegration than those in small detention centers.
The atmosphere of a small detention center, regular family visits, and adequate skills training during the correction period are the keys to most effectively reducing the probability of "second entry into the palace."
But building large prisons is an irresistible temptation for political parties to solicit votes.
Finally, Jon Faine points out another problem: 20,000 drug abuse cases are brought to court every year, and almost all of them are brought to court by poor people from the bottom of society. And those with social status who abuse drugs can basically avoid legal sanctions.
The arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment of these poor people is not only a manifestation of social inequality, but also a waste of taxpayers' funds and a cause of overcrowded prisons and detention centers.
Rather than diverting social and judicial resources, perhaps addressing the reasons why these vulnerable groups are going astray is the key to resolving this crisis.