The Program Helping Dads Read Bedtime Stories From Behind Bars
The Storytime program, run in prisons in NSW, Queensland and WA, records fathers reading stories and sends them to their kids on the outside.
Each edition contains news articles and investigative pieces. These are topical stories that are usually about prisons and criminal justice.
We also summarise the latest criminal justice news around the country.

The Storytime program, run in prisons in NSW, Queensland and WA, records fathers reading stories and sends them to their kids on the outside.
It explores masculinity, imprisonment and the impact of incarceration on families, through the interviews with fathers in prison.
There are groundbreaking programs around the world aiming to help fathers behind bars.
The NSW government has detailed a new statewide mental health emergency response model centred on paramedics responding to people who are in crisis in some cases, instead of police.
Including prison policy changes being tracked online in the ACT, concerns in the NT over a lack of a forensic mental health unit, new gym equipment coming to Western Plains in VIC and more.
Including a man being unlawfully kept in prison for months after his release date in SA, the findings from the Capricornia Inspection in QLD, upcoming inspections in WA and more.
After decades of campaigning, the state will scrap an offence punishable by up to a year in prison, shifting the response to poverty and homelessness away from policing.
Victoria Police now have the power to secretly access the financial records of anyone as part of investigations of all crimes under a last-minute amendment passed by Parliament quietly last week.
A standalone legal service is needed to address the “significant unmet needs” of people in prison, particularly women, trans and gender diverse people, according to a new report.
Prison management can now limit incarcerated people’s access to time in the open air for a number of reasons, such as the management, good order or security of the prison.
Australia’s highest court will decide whether a woman in prison in Queensland should be allowed to freeze her eggs while she is incarcerated.
With Mother’s Day this month, prison visits have never been more important. But for children with a parent in prison, or other loved ones, this process can be scary and intimidating, with a lot of rules and conditions.

Australia’s biggest prison is so “grossly understaffed” in mental health services that people with acute needs should not be held there, the NSW prison inspector has found.

South Australia is the only state or territory in Australia that does not provide 24/7 medical staff on site at its women’s prison.
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A program helping First Nations children being held in police watch houses in Queensland will stop operating after losing its state government funding.

The Victorian government in late February announced plans to remove the use of ‘good character’ references at sentencing.

Including a smoking ban no longer going ahead in WA, changes to the Home Detention Scheme in SA, a hiring spree at Lockyer Prison and more.

In my speech, I emphasised that strip searching is sexual assault disguised as prison safety. Strip searching is not about safety – and the data proves it.

There are more than 4000 places in Australia where people can access free clean needles and syringes. But there are none in any prison.

There have been 29 deaths in custody in the first three months of this year.
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The family of proud Noongar man Jeffrey Winmar have travelled to Victoria to push for answers and justice at a coronial inquest into his death in police custody in late 2023.


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