One of the most important aspects of self-advocacy in prison is to understand the rights of prisoners and the limitations of power of prison authorities. Prison policies can be a good place to start to understand these rights and limitations.

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How to access prison policies

Each state and territory has its own rules for disclosure of prison policies to prisoners and the community. New South Wales, for example, has legislation, the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009, that requires prison authorities to proactively make prison policies available to the public. A quick google search for ‘prison policies in NSW’ reveals a significant database of prison policies, procedures, memorandums, guidelines and more.

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Other jurisdictions, however, may not be required to disclose prison policies to the public. They therefore may disclose some policies and not others. Some jurisdictions choose generally not to disclose policies. People seeking to access prison policies may therefore be required to lodge applications for policy via Freedom of Information or Right to Information processes.

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Why is it important to obtain prison policies?

Obtaining actual policy documents may be crucial. For example, a certain state had introduced a policy for prisoner case reviews during around 2010. The case review process was important: it was the process used to determine whether prisoners could progress through from high to medium and to low security prisons. The process allowed prisoners to take part and provide written submissions for consideration for the case review and allowed prisoners to appeal decisions on those case reviews. The corrections authority, however, did not inform prisoners of their right to appeal these decisions. Further, the policies were only accessible by Freedom of Information. Around 2018, a prisoner decided to obtain a copy of the policy via Freedom of Information and discovered the right of appeal. Up until 2018, some eight years after the policy was released, prisoners did not know about or exercise this extremely important right. It was only through accessing the document did prisoners learn
their rights.

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My tips for identifying and obtaining policy documents are:

1. ask the prison authorities for relevant policies;
2. have a friend or family member do an online search for relevant policies;
3. submit a Freedom of Information or Right to Information request for a list of all policies.

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This should give you a list of all policies available from which a further application for information can be made for specific policies.