I was in custody in the male system in Victoria. I am still on parole, so this is an evolving thought process, but what I have experienced so far is a lot of stress.
In my opinion, the system is extremely bureaucratic. I’d explain it with this analogy: you need an OHS risk assessment before you can change the light bulb. Fill out three forms… the forms will be lost. Meanwhile, the room is dark, so someone falls over. In response, more legislation will be passed. And you’ll need to fill out four forms. Everything is now fixed.
If parole was ever about rehabilitation, it’s not really the feeling I get now. It feels more like an exercise in assessing the risk to the community, not about reintegrating people.
The Parole Board will use a hierarchy of control to assess the risk you pose. If you are a high risk, you will not get parole. If you are low risk, you will get a raft of measures to engineer a sense of control. Many of these measures will interfere with your reintegration.
It feels like it’s fine for someone to fail to reintegrate and/or breach parole – as long as the community is blissfully unaware of it. New crimes make the news. People get upset. But getting back on the drugs because you sat at home all day, threw a dirty and went back in – no one cares.
In 2022-23, almost two-thirds (61 per cent) of applications for parole in Victoria were approved (619 people). Of these, 66 went on to breach. I was maybe a year into my parole by the time I got it. Some people get parole with three months left on their sentence. So the odds of them breaching are very low.
So please, don’t feel targeted by it all or upset if you breach or get knocked back. It’s just how it is all set up. Parole is succeeding at what it was set up to do: make the community and victims’ counsel feel safe. I mean, they aren’t. They just feel safe. And that’s the point.
If the aim was for the community to actually be safe, huge reforms would need to be enacted to keep people in prison/parole all engaged with society. In prison, you lose everything – your job, home and family, then get isolated inside – sometimes for years and years. While isolated, you’re never given a chance to fail. Everything is micromanaged for you. Then, you get out on parole with a raft of restrictions. This really sets you up to fail. It needs to be fixed, but that takes political and community desire, a desire that just isn’t there.
I was in custody in the male system in Victoria. I am still on parole, so this is an evolving thought process, but what I have experienced so far is a lot of stress.
In my opinion, the system is extremely bureaucratic. I’d explain it with this analogy: you need an OHS risk assessment before you can change the light bulb. Fill out three forms… the forms will be lost. Meanwhile, the room is dark, so someone falls over. In response, more legislation will be passed. And you’ll need to fill out four forms. Everything is now fixed.
If parole was ever about rehabilitation, it’s not really the feeling I get now. It feels more like an exercise in assessing the risk to the community, not about reintegrating people.
The Parole Board will use a hierarchy of control to assess the risk you pose. If you are a high risk, you will not get parole. If you are low risk, you will get a raft of measures to engineer a sense of control. Many of these measures will interfere with your reintegration.
It feels like it’s fine for someone to fail to reintegrate and/or breach parole – as long as the community is blissfully unaware of it. New crimes make the news. People get upset. But getting back on the drugs because you sat at home all day, threw a dirty and went back in – no one cares.
In 2022-23, almost two-thirds (61 per cent) of applications for parole in Victoria were approved (619 people). Of these, 66 went on to breach. I was maybe a year into my parole by the time I got it. Some people get parole with three months left on their sentence. So the odds of them breaching are very low.
So please, don’t feel targeted by it all or upset if you breach or get knocked back. It’s just how it is all set up. Parole is succeeding at what it was set up to do: make the community and victims’ counsel feel safe. I mean, they aren’t. They just feel safe. And that’s the point.
If the aim was for the community to actually be safe, huge reforms would need to be enacted to keep people in prison/parole all engaged with society. In prison, you lose everything – your job, home and family, then get isolated inside – sometimes for years and years. While isolated, you’re never given a chance to fail. Everything is micromanaged for you. Then, you get out on parole with a raft of restrictions. This really sets you up to fail. It needs to be fixed, but that takes political and community desire, a desire that just isn’t there.
